not all there

Thanksgiving in TX was definitely interesting. Fun fact: Texans call stuffing dressing. When they asked me if I wanted dressing I was completely perplexed as there was no salad in sight. Cassie's friend welcomed us for the day which was really nice, and it was comforting to meet her family as they were true Southerners with that warm, southern comfort family loving good folk vibe. My candied yams were a big hit which was awesome as I've never actually made them that way before, & I also only ever make sweet potatoes for myself, not a party of 10, but I pulled through!

I left my cell phone in TX b/c I'm a hot mess but thankfully Cassie is FANTASTIC and is overnighting it to me, I still have 3 papers to write & no time to do them, my niece Kayla is absolutely fantastic (pics to come, but she's a talkaholic & is just so darn funny. Her newest thing is making this crazy grunt, or this crazy sad puppy face, & her & Brian have this funny little dynamic in which he kiddingly growls at her "You hear me?" to which she immediately gruffly rebuts "No!". It's hilarious, you truly have to be there), one of my favorite people in the whole wide world's father passed away Thanksgiving night which just all around blows & the story is too complicated & personal to get into, and I am running REALLY low on cash money which is a problem with Christmas and many trips and occasions coming up, looks like I'll be in the negative till my next refund check. Good times.

That's the story. Tomorrow we're spending the day in Port Jeff, my sister Dena's college roomie who's from Danbury, CT is taking the ferry to meet us, she has little ones herself so it'll be cute to see Kayla playing with others, then that night the camp my sisters and brother volunteer for are having a reunion holiday party which will be fun as I LOVE those people and they always make me feel warm and fuzzy and hopeful that there are plenty of great people in the world who just want to do great things for others, Sunday I'm not sure what the plan is as of yet, awaiting details regarding funeral arrangements and such.

Minimal sleep will occur in the next few days in order for these papers to get done, but right now my sisters lumpy futon is screaming my name b/c I've been up since 4 and am zonked.

ps In case you didn't hear the disgusting news, a Walmart employee at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream on LI (a mall I frequented regularly growing up & has turned to absolute garbage filled with trashy people) was trampled to death by greedy crazed Black Friday shoppers more concerned with getting good deals on the gifts they got for others (or themselves) rather than being concerned with preserving the gift of life. Apparently, when the store announced they were closing b/c an employee died people started yelling in anger b/c "they had been waiting since yesterday". WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?! A young man died, and a pregnant shopper almost lost her baby due to people's blood thirsty greed. This is the epitome of what is wrong with this world and our consumeristic greedy mentality:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink