To all you Americans! Have a good one

[CaptinPickAxe]

Happy Turkey Day...

Don't get too soggy by eating too much and drinking a 12 pack of beer.

[Becca]

Speaking of good eats... Here are some nice recipes for dessert, courtesy my son's second grade class

Apple Pie

Ingredients:
1 tortilla
2 eggs
1 apple
8 holes
and a bucket

Directions:
1. Turn the oven to 5
2. Cook it untill it smells good
3. Eat it.

Coffee

Ingredients:
Brown stuff
Water

Directions:
1. Put some brown stuff in.
2. Put some water it.
3. then turn it on.
4. Wait for 19 minutes.
5. Pour it in a cup and drink it.




(the made them up themselves)

[Chang Style Novice]

I think those guys used to cook at my student co-op.

[norther practitioner]

So, went up to meet the girlfriend's parents over a long weekend. Things didn't start out too well as I was having issues fixing the rear tailgate window on my suv. Left about an hour late for a 6+ hour ride to meet the girls family, with her itching to leave. About 5.5 hrs in boom bam, tailgate window hinges fail, along with the latch. So, take the window off, put in the back (I couldn't believe it survived, as it was held on by a couple of struts that hold it up when open), drive the last 40 or so minutes. Show up, get handed a business card by mom for an engineer in town who she told about me, and said he'd be interested in sitting down to meet me, aka job interview for when I move with her daughter back to Podunkville, WY. Dad mentions I should buy a Durango instead of my Ford (him and uncle own a car dealership, yup Chrystler, Plymoth, Dodge). Uncle's and Aunts and grandma, and a cousin all waiting in the living room to meet me. Wow, what a great start to a long weekend.

Got through that fairly unscaved, as my sarcastic NY came out to fire back about some comments, and some of her family surprisingly got the humor.

Turkey day:
Wake up at Grandma's house (I had to stay there, as we are unmarried, we are unable to stay in the same room). She was nice, made me tea and a cinnamon bun. Girlfriend comes over after a decent conversation with grammy, says, hey lets go over to the turkey trot.... OK, what she told me it was a leisurely stroll through the park with a bunch of the locals, to burn a few callories before dinner. Got there... 5k race, I hung out with the old ladies that were walking and got lapped by an old dude jogging with an oxygen tank (not really, but I'm trying to keep this as 'Meet the Parents' as possible). Got done with that, showered, showed up to my GF parents house, everything smelled good, helped them set up, then realized, there were 19 place settings. I had met about half of that the night before.

to be continued......

[Shaolinlueb]

oh man NP, that is wack sounding. fill us in on more to come.

[norther practitioner]

Well, Turkey is about down, 18 people show up, lucky me, I have a convienent empty chair next to me for everyone to come sit down and ask me questions, but first, back to the turkey. Dad is not 100% right now as there was a very tragic accident that took a family member and he has several broken appendages. Well, he was the one to "always" carve the turkey. So, all the other men sort of looked at it and walked on by, Mom, yeah, she voluteered me to give it a whirl. I've done this once, about 8 years ago. It didn't go too bad, as the turkey was moist and didn't just fall apart, but boy, did the fact I did it come up...

Whilst eating, Hey new guy, think you could have cut this meat up any more...

Hey man, these bits of turkey sure seem small... etc, etc... Nothing too bad, but then that empty seat sure did come in handy for the nosey aunts. Where are you from, where did you go to school, how did you meet our little angel.... etc. I was seriously considering writing down an autobiography and just passing it around, it was like non stop. I was the last one eating b/c of all the questions, then, to the post dinner drinking. Several bottles of wine, a kegs worth of cans of Miller Lite later, Aunt Ellen and Uncle something or other show up. Now this lady moved from Long Island to Northern Wyoming (thats like moving from near THE major city to THE smallest town she could imagine)... she went off on so many **** tangents about NY and I think she might have hit on me, not really sure as she was tanked and I couldn't make it all out, but my gf sure did fire back a few comments at her.

Night is about over, when I slipped up, not huge, but I think I caught dad's attention when I commented on the fact that gf has a less than comphy bed at home. He looks at his wife, and says.. time for bed, looked at me, and told me to go to grammy's house. I guess it isn't good for us stay in the same bed at our own houses either.

Friday was spent getting shown around town, getting car fixed by the cousins, and spending money on gf so hopefully dad would forget about last comment from last night. Now mind you it is like 20 degrees out and windy as heck, but we manage to go into every single shop that sells anything, so I can meet the town.

I think I met like 450 of the 550 people of that neck of the woods..... I really wish I wrote down that autobiography.

Things are getting better at this point, as we head back to the house to sit back and relax. Watch a football game with dad, have a good conversation with him, I'm like wow, this isn't so bad. Then to the evenings events................

[norther practitioner]

OK, time to go drink with the local folks.

Friday night and Podunkville is bumping.. or two steppin' but thats another story for another time. Go to the first bar, meet a few of the boys, wearing some cowboy hats and flannel shirts, nice crew, buy one round for two of the boys, they stare off the rest of the looks I get.

Bar two, it's at the nice place in town, meet a couple that owns several ranches, young, they deal mainly in the business end... cool folks, warn me not to go on to next bar.


Go to the next bar, wholly cowboy batman. Got some evil stares as an outsider dating a local. Got introduced, lowered stare levels, bought some beers, increased stare level, but this one in disbelief.. big hit.. note to anyone going to podunkville anywhere, buy them some beer, but don't be a **** about it... don't tell everyone about it, just buy a few for some folks that you get in good with.... A note, I haven't seen so many dead animals on a wall in a long time... buffalo, deer, elk, bobcats, mountain lions, coyotees, wolf, etc... Also, some of these guys are way good at pool... do not bet the barely litterate guy who holds the local roping record, he's also a good pool player. Then we went to the bar that actually played music, and non-country music, I was amazed at all the people that had left this town and come back for the holidays.. good folks, met about 20 people that I've lived near in Denver over the last 5 years.

The alumni football game:
They were state champs in highschool, now some have 5 or 6 kids and haven't worked out in 10 years.....

You do not want to be tackled by one of these players.. they beat the other alumni team from podunkville montana like red5angel gets beat by his sisters.

Sat. night we chilled with the fam. got a good talkin' too about buying Dodge when I'm ready.

Realised that I overcame one of the greatest obstacles.. Podunkville... but to what I awake to in the morning, 4" of snow and still falling hard.


Left the driveway at 10 am.. gassed up and hit the road.... back roads to highway, slick at best, saw two cars off the road. Got on to major highway, way slick, as the little traffic around had made it snowpacked and icy.... fun. Keep in mind gf in car and dad paranoid as heck that his daughter is in the car during a snowstorm with some city slicker in his non Chrystler Plymoth Dodge SUV. Did an avg. of about 40 in a 75. I personally saw either sliding off or off ther road cars in the neighborhood of 13-16... saw tire tracks of somewhere around 40-50 cars that had left the road.. with the parents calling every hour or so. Then, just after one of said phone calls, look into review, see a car then two semis behind me. Aft most semi goes to pass all of us, gets up to about my quartepannel when he blows the air horn, dude lost control, I move as far right as I can without causing a two semi, and gosh knows how many car pileup.. guy swirves a little towards me, then drifts ever so much closer.... gets to about 10-12" from my car. then he does a very professional move... goes into the median (where the snow is really deep ~ 3' or so) keeps up with me and makes his first move to get back on the road... I thought awe ****, we might be getting caught in the rear quarter by this guy. Meanwhile, gf is about to feak out as she is really just noticing what had happend and what is currently going on. All this, and we are only at hour 2 or so on the journy home.....
Semi dude slows down and gets back on road about 1/4 mile or so behind us.... tragedy averted, and dude didn't flip, which I was sort of impressed with between my yelling that he is a crazy summabich.

Decide to take a break at the 5 hour point, not even half way home now. Do some holiday shopping at podunkville II mall somewhere in Wyoming... find one good store, spend about 30 minutes and polished off half of my list.

[Starchaser107]

[MasterKiller]

You need to come to Oklahoma sometime.

[norther practitioner]

Originally posted by MasterKiller
You need to come to Oklahoma sometime.

That was part of the point (not really, but whatever)..

ain't no reason for messin' wit' da good ol' boys.