i hate fine china.

So it's the holidays again. I guess. Not yet, but I've been doing enough festive stuff that I feel like I'm living three Christmas's over and over and over. At work, we're decorating trees. At home, mom is yelling at dad about grandpa and thanksgiving dinner. A few weeks ago, she said that she wanted to skip thanksgiving this year and go for a hike. She didn't want a turkey, she just wanted to go somewhere for the day. Sounds nice, but I haven't been raising turkeys for nine months not to eat one nor to celebrate, quite possibly my favorite holiday. So after listening to Jason's stories about three turkeys, a million cousins and uncles with kids, his mother baking and cooking and laughing and drinking all day, and his grandmother getting sauced up and telling crazy stories about homeland Austria... I think that sounds a little bit better than my mom freaking out the whole holiday, eating off of china that no one wants to wash, and my grandma saying something really funny that my mom gets totally offended by and storms out.

last thanksgiving was almost classic. Preston watched the killing of Doug the turkey the night before. He was supposed to take pictures. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. But it was Jason's first time killing anything and he didn't tie the rope very tight and while Doug was being bled out, flopping around bleeding, he fell into the creek, Jason jumped in after him, and he was still flopping so he took a log and smashed his head off. Not exactly pretty, but once the blood was washed off and we had a pretty darn nice looking bird being cleaned in the sink, we all could laugh about it. All but preston and mom did not laugh.
It was the most awkward dinner ever. But then again, dad broke open a little bit of wine and we got a little giggly. Mom didn't because she didn't want grandpa to think that she was a bit of a drinker, so she just had that sour look on her face as she tried to make conversation without stating the elephant in the room... that no one wanted to eat Doug. And then Jason, dad and I just started calling him Doug and saying "Doug is delicious" and "please pass the Doug" and I'm not sure why I love this story so much or why I feel the need to tell it a million times, but it's funny to me.

In an ideal world, I'd love to have thanksgiving with all the family, even my late uncle's wife and step kids and their kids and cook and laugh and drink and make fun of grandma and watch her laugh and eat off of paper plates and then take a nap and build a fire and play games and invite all my friends who have thanksgiving so far away. I'd eat another doug or two and stuff him with home grown garlic and onions and have cranberry sauce even though I never actually like it but I try it anyway and mashed potatoes that take a lot longer to make then they do to eat.

I think the holidays are beautiful and I will try to stay positive. All I know is this holiday, I am going to be "Jason's girlfriend" and play in his mother's awesome big kitchen, cooking for a million people that I don't know but who are actually grateful. And I hope to god we don't eat off of china.

first snow.

it's cold. my fingers have that numbing feeling where you can tell that the blood is having a hard time pumping through the veins. i'm tire, but i've been up for hours. today is my day off. not that my days on are all that stressful, but today i'm work free. and i've got a million things to do.

first thing on my list is to take back all the prizes for the pie bake off. jason and my mom won. i was the only other pie that entered. people came out to taste test, mostly friends and a couple of people that have been peering on my website. a lot of people emailed and called. no one actually came out based on the $50 worth in advertising i did with the local paper. i did get more hits on the website, but that was pretty much it.

and i'm having a tough time right now, despite jason's attempts at cheering me up by saying that he had a wonderful time. i'm becoming disillusioned in the glassy eyed way of slow realizations and multiple failed attempts. i guess it's odd because even in b.g. when i tried to get something together, it worked. i had a bustling knitting group with new members coming and going all the time in a coffee house that loved us so much we got free pastries. and publications that came out every couple of months that people loved as i handed them out in the streets.

and now i'm questioning my lifestyle shift and if it is where i want to be at this point in my life. i guess the chickens as an impulse buy was fun and i love my ladies, but something keeps getting into my chicken house and eating them... or sometimes just half of them. yuck. all my ducks disappeared but one. my goat tried to headbutt me. my turks aren't selling. and my pool is a terrible shrimp pond.
i'm having dreams of working in a vineyard in tuscany. it's beautiful, just me under the supervision of some amazing old woman who knows all the secrets of her grapes and how to make the best wine and cheese and breads. i have friends and little stress and no student loans or libraries to send me to collections.

my grandmother is in the hospital. i hung out with her and watched the browns game. the next day her health turned and i'm not allowed to go see her yet. i don't know what is wrong or how she's doing or anything. it's depressing.


and my mom keeps asking what i want for christmas. if i stay here, i'd like some rugs for my terribly cold floor in the house that is forever unfinished. but what i really want is some good running shoes and a full tank of gas to get me somewhere... a place where i can finish a renovated house, have a successful shrimp harvest, sell all my turkeys, and have the best damn pie bake off that the whole community comes out to see.


i tried to go out with friends last night. it kinda cheered me up. there is this boy matt that both bethani and norman are in love with. the whole night was kinda funny watching the way that both of them interact with him. he is rather charismatic and chatty and fun, but the way that they both vie for his attention is hilarious. we saw a girl that reminded me of a bit of val, only with a less beautifully unique voice. she sang songs about love in three four time and about leaving and whatnot. it sounded like she was the most normal person in the world the way that A + B always equaled C in her songs. I chatted with her a bit, trying to hold my sarcastic tongue just long enough to offend her only once and mention Ashley Judd's boobs only one time... and it was tough to get it down to that. Then we went to my favorite dive bar in Akron and i kinda fell in love with the little mini-city. Granted, i would get sick of it much faster that toledo (one year) but it was so nice to get away from thinking about dead chickens and failing endeavors.

in any case, i'm hoping to start writing again. i'm not sure if it's going to be a book about chickens or not. i recently read an article about a woman who has a horse rescue stable in southern ohio and you could tell in the tone that she was tired as a woman in a loveless marriage with no hope of divorce in sight. she kinda droned on about how some days are better than others and one time she was in love with a horse but he's long gone. i guess maybe our lifetime is so much longer than those we love some times that it's almost a pain to keep going. like watching dog after dog die. it's tough to get a new puppy.
maybe we should all keep tortoises as pets. they'll outlive us all.

and jason is out of town during the week now. it's nice that he's making money and doing what he loves and i kinda like the freedom of not having to be home all the time or him wondering why i don't invite him when i go out. my weeks are mine again and my house is clean and i get to see my friends on any given night and sometimes i'm scared and lonely and terribly bored, but it's not too bad. my beer lasts a lot longer too. i stare at my fish tank. and it will be nice to have him actually bringing money in by doing something that he is good at. i hope that he can save it and put it towards something better than this. i'm kinda disillusioned at that as well though. he never pays his bills; student or medical or phone. he just got out of living at a place where he didn't have to pay rent and he still didn't save any money. all his stuff is at my house. i like it when he comes back, but in the back of my brain, i'm picking everything apart.
i guess that's why i can't stay in relationships. ever. i just pick everything apart and only see the bad. but i think it's also the winter blues setting in. that and the fact that he set up this thing where the turks have free local delivery, but since he got this job, he can't deliver... which means it's all up to me now.
maybe i kinda feel like i get stuck taking care of everything. or maybe it's that everything taking care of me. i don't know. i just think that the days are getting shorter and i'm pissed off and my chickens are dying and mingah keeps dragging them from their resting places after they've been there three weeks which is completely disgusting and i wake up to her munching on their heads. i scream. i yell. i tell her how gross that is, but she still does it. and as long as my chickens keep dying, she's going to have plenty of new chew toys and i'm going to be chasing her around with a shovel, screaming.

ok, i'm done ranting. i wish i had friends here to talk to. i think the maturity level lends more to me taking care of them rather than a mutual friendship where i can talk about how i'm doing without them listening while thinking about what they are going to say next. i guess i wouldn't know what to say to me either. so maybe i don't blame them.



it's beginning to look a lot like christmas.