I was the intended feast for this rouge Lorakeet who landed on my head at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park. You purchase little cups of nectar & they let you loose in the Lorakeet cage. I imagine that the sugar-water is the equivalent of Lorakeet heroine, because these birds were going bezerko for it!
Good times were had by all.
We had a fine feast ourselves with the whole fam packed in to our tiny little living room for dinner. We borrowed a card table from the neighbors, used paper plates and bought most of the mean pre-cooked from Whole Foods. (Excellent idea btw).
Everything else we needed my mom packed down from Utah, including the requisite pilgrim decorations. (Yep, Neil even brings the laptop to the Thanksgiving dinner table! I wish we could sell the product placement to Apple.)
After our gluttonous binge, we hit the road for a bike ride to the beach & watched the sunset.
It was a most-excellent Thanksgiving celebration!
Just from hearing the words, can you believe that “manslaughter” is a less-worse crime than “murder”? Isn’t manslaughter a much more horrid utterance? Wouldn’t the Grateful Dead’s song be that much creepier if it was, “Pleeeease don’t manslaughter me.”
(Now you see the joys of what I get to contemplate daily. I am stuck in the law library on a beautiful day while my family is out kayaking. So, my mind is permitted to wander from my studies a little. As you can see in my “serious student of the law” pose above…law school rocks!)
I have a brilliant friend. When I got home from my mission we both decided it would be a good idea to apply to work at Savers (it was). Surprisingly we had to fill out lengthy form applications. (Surprising because I’m not sure what percentage of Savers employees are literate, but from my anecdotal evidence it can’t be that high). Under the “explain a little about yourself” section she wrote, “I love to work hard.” Aside from the extreme hilarity of writing this on an application, even more so a Savers application where hard work for us meant combing racks of people’s old junk & spending our entire meager salaries on treasures like matching gold motorcycle helmets, it became a long standing joke between us… because, seriously, who likes hard work?!??!
If there is one thing that law school has taught me, it’s that I don’t like hard work. In fact, Neil and I pretty much exclusively refer to our employment as “work is for jerks.” IE “Hello. How was ‘work is for jerks’ today? Did you sell anything interesting?” “Oh, man. I have to go to ‘work is for jerks’ early today. I have to get ready for the board meeting.” I know that the advice is always given to do something you “love” as your career. But, who really goes to work thinking EVER, “man I love going to work. It is so much better than lying in a hammock without a care in the world reading a book just for fun.” Is there a person on the planet that feels like they’d rather be working than taking a fall walk with their best friend or enjoying some free time just to think important thoughts????? Is there anyone in America that does not live for their measly 2 weeks of vacation that propels them to work in bumper-to-bumper traffic everyday? Or to get home from the office so that they can watch The Office on TV and commiserate with the masses in solidarity about just how stinky & strange office work can be.
I can think of a lot of things I really do love.
Like the smell of burning candles.
Or our new bling-bling three-tiered fruit basket. Man, I love that thing.
But, I do not love hard work.
Today in my Gospel Principles class I figured out why I am such a bad pray-er & often get caught up in the rote “thanks for everything. please bless everyone so they can get home safely & please bless these doughnuts so they will nourish & strengthen our bodies” even when it’s just Neil & I at home. Prayer is hard work. It says so in the Bible Dictionary. In fact, Brigham Young said, “Prayer is often difficult & strenuous & just plain hard work. One has to break the prayer barrier.”
This is coming from perhaps the one man to grace this planet who perhaps actually enjoyed hard work. (I’m am just drawing assumptions from his stern work-loving expression). Brigham Young aside, is there any person that actually enjoys hard work? If so… let me in on the secret. Or, better yet, you should apply to work at Savers. I hear they are always hiring.
We just got back from a tasty hot chocolate and turtle pie at the Zanzibar Cafe in Mission Beach. The desserts were delectable and our outfits divine. I wore the same outfit I’ve had on for the the last 3 days, namely a pair of shorts and an old ‘t’ with food stains, toothpaste drool, and possibly spray paint or silk-screening ink. Kate, on the other hand, wore her Lost Boys costume from the set of Steven Spielberg’s Hook. In case you haven’t seen the movie, I included a snapshot from Kate’s scene.
Kate and I tried to watch Michael Moore’s new film, “Slacker Uprising,” last night. 10 minutes into the film we pressed the turn-off-the-movie-and-go-to-bed button on the remote. It isn’t that we don’t like Michael Moore films, “Fahrenheit 911″ and especially “Sicko” are brilliant and entertaining. It’s just that “Slacker Uprising” is basically a tribute video to Michael Moore’s 2004 pre-election campaigning…made by Michael Moore himself. Kind of reminiscent of, oh I don’t know, eccentric African dictators who awarded themselves medals of honor until their uniforms were so heavy they needed a Nepali Sherpa to help prop them up.
Did you know that Idi Amin, one of Africa’s (Uganda to be exact) most notorious dictators gave himself the official title, “His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hadji Dr. Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.” Crazy!
Anyway don’t see this film unless you are such a Michael Moore freak that you have a tattoo similar to this Star Wars fan’s tattoo, except that it’s a series of Michael Moore head-shots with different ball-caps.
Please read this response to the elections by Ashley Sanders.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
Kate got a new bike the other day and to celebrate we made this little video…cartoon! Enjoy.
As I told the Australian reporter who interviewed me last night, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. Luckily to surround me in our defeat last night were awesome people like Roger (pictured above) who have been fighting the good fight for longer than I’ve been alive. He has been campaigning for impeachment of Bush & Cheney for years. Every Friday he stands on a street corner with other awesome Americans for what they call “honk to impeach.” He is always carrying a petition for San Diego County to pass a resolution to impeach. He is totally undaunted by naysayers and gave the best quote of the night, “you can doubt the power of one all you want… but, just wait until you spend the night in a room with a mosquito! Then you’ll see what persistence can do.” I think his hat really says it all, “IMPEACH the bloody lying thieves.”
Neil made this fantastic poster of Nader for the party. Unfortunately Neil had to work until 8, so we didn’t get there early enough to see all of the Nader volunteers. After Obama was declared, most hit the road. (To cry themselves to sleep, I’m assuming.)
We were right next to the Obama room in “Election Central.”
I guess we’ve got one consolation prize.
“My greatest regret is that, under our Constitution, the American people can have almost anything they want, but it just seems they don’t want much of anything at all.” -Eugene Debs
