Aw yes… The holidays are upon us, which invariably means that Chris is once again battling some form of bronchitis. It seems that whenever I am ready to jam myself full of turkey and stuffing, whether it be Thanksgiving or Christmas, I find myself confined to the sofa sipping from a glass of water and taking in whatever holiday marathon is taking place on The Learning Channel. This Thanksgiving it was “Junkyard Wars.” It was pretty cool because this team of fat, British bikers turned a Land Rover into an amphibious vehicle, kicking the crap out of a Royal Navy Team. When I saw them, I couldn’t help but think back to an old Monty Python skit advertising the hip new “Royal Nayvee” (Which, by no cannibalism, I mean that there’s a certain amount). It made me laugh, which unfortunately hurt a lot.
Aside from TLC, I also watched my fair share of Comedy Central- which was nice since we don’t have it here in Eugene. I loaded up on SNL repeats and The Daily Show when whatever was on TLC or the History Channel didn’t interest me.
Unfortunately, this meant that I spent almost every waking moment of the two days that I was in McMinnville sitting in front of the television- save for the hour or so that I spent at the doctor’s office getting prescriptions for stuff that would make me not want to get out of bed for days.
But it wasn’t all bad, I did get to clean my Bimmer and see my family, so that was cool. I just would have liked to be able to leave the house, or at least eat. I arrived back in Eugene Friday night, at which time I cleaned my room a little, watched “The Perfect Storm” in Curtis’ room and retired to bed where I stayed until roughly noon. Saturday was spent driving around Eugene visiting many, many thrift stores and a guitar shop with Vanessa. Our goal was to find a petticoat for her to wear under her gorgeous new dress for her mother’s wedding. Though we stopped at more stores than I can count, our mission ultimately proved unsuccessful. She still tried on the dress for me, and yes, she still looked beautiful- even without the extra poofiness that a petticoat would have provided. We were out until about 6:30, when I had to come back to my room for duty. It was good timing too as I made it back just as our steak had hit the Red Devil Grill (The Ultimate Outdoor Kitchen) over on the Watson porch. I proceeded to have a delicious steak dinner with Pete, Josh, Curtis, Roland, and Taka. Vanessa was there too, but she didn’t really eat, so she doesn’t count. The food was good, we made a lot of jokes, and it was the first real meal that I had had in a few days, so I was happy.
The next day was spent laying in bed until about noon, when my election coverage intake was interrupted by Mary and Jen, who were coming to make sure that I had been taking my medication and drinking plenty of water. They proceeded to make me drink water out of an empty Weinhard’s root beer and choke down my huge pills. While that wasn’t very pleasant, it was reassuring to know that they would prefer that I not die. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging around my room with an assortment of people, including Mary, Jen, Peter, and Patrick until I decided that showertime is traditionally before 3:00. Eventually, I emerged from my room to pick up Cassie from the train station. It was the first time all day that I had actually left my room, so that felt good. Besides- Cassie is a sweetheart, so I had to.
Cassie and I returned to my room where we watched The Simpsons with Mary, Peter, and Kayla. This was eventually interrupted by over five cop cars outside Hamilton, but that’s another story. Once we were done standing in the cold, inhaling pepper spray, I followed through on my threat to make Cassie watch “American Beauty.” She seemed to like it, and I of course still regard it as genius. With the exception of my comforting Mary through “Apocalypse Now” later that night, this essentially ended my Thanksgiving weekend. I’m going to aim at ceasing my illness sometime this week, but no promises. We’ll see how the week goes- all things considered, this weekend was pretty cool.
Ok, so another broken promise- no voter guide this year. But hey, if you were waiting on my say so on for whom to vote, I’ll save you the time: John Kerry. As evidenced by the photo on the left, I have made my choice. Today is election day, and as I write this, I have no idea who will come out on top. My heart says Kerry, my mind concedes there are a lot of ill-informed, self-interested people out there (apparently 50% of the American population…) who could tilt the scales of reason to Bush’s favor. I guess we’ll just have to see. I’m optimistic that we’ll have a president-elect tonight, but again, that remains to be seen. Nonetheless, I’ll be watching the results with the Wells family, having been invited to their election night shindig. My money’s on the Russert white board making an appearance somewhere tonight.