Thanksgiving, Part the First

You ever have one of those cataclysmic long weekends when the wrld just turns itself upside down and you start to realize that who you are isn't who you want to be and that you have, in the palm of your very hand, the ability to change that?

Oh, so it's just me then?

Whatever. Okay, so here's the overview: Thanksgiving, band haps, John Mayer, lazy-ness, "Love Actually," and writer-style-up-all-night epiphanies....and yes, that does mean I haven't slept since Saturday. Enjoy!

First off, let's talk turkey. As in my turkey - the one that turned out perfectly, despite my mother's insistence that cloves did not belong on turkey. Oh, yeah, did I mention that my mom decided on a whim to run down for the holiday? Well, she did. It was great. Really nice to have her here for a few days, and not just because she did all the dishes so I didn't have to. We baked and cooked and cleaned and it was tremendous and fun and warm and great.

K and fam came over for dinner and transformed the dinner from good to spectacular - there was great conversation and a really great sense of family that just blew my mind. It was amazing. A good reminder that there is such a thing as caring in a world where Christmas sales start right after Halloween.

After dinner, we watched the Veggie Tales movie ("Jonah") (I say watched, but actually, I dozed through most of it....I was up early cooking, what can I say?) and managed not to spit on my TV at all the preachy bits...there were funny bits that made up for it....but it was close to being not enough funny bits. Post movie, we adjourned to the kitchen for pie (I made apple and punkin - it just sounds more fun to say it that way - both of which, I flatter myself, turned out pretty darn well) and more conversation, wherein the elder moms present (K's partner's mom and my own) thought it would be fun to trot out tales of our respective mis-spent youths, to our (slight) mortification.

Moms. Do they ever stop having fun embarassing the piss out of you?

After our guests hied their way home, my mom and I hit the couch and pretty much went brain-dead before whatever was on the tube. Oh, and then I was hit with the most intense gastro-intestinal pain I've had since they sucked the gall bladder out of my gut four years ago. I swear, I thought that creepy monster from "Alien" was gonna pop out of my ribcage any second....but no, hours of fetal position whining seemed to do the trick, and I made it through the night just fine.

Which was good, since Friday was a pretty busy day. Morning: studio time with the band.....evening: stage time with John Mayer and 30,000 of my closest friends. Uh, not.

The recording went....well. The main goal was to get a clean drum track - and as far as I can tell, that was accomplished. Beyond that, I'm not entirely sure I even needed to be there...and I'm not sure how I feel about that, either. But, mission accomplished, work done, progress towards a real, pro-sounding, actual sale-able album made...halle-damn-lujah!

And then, home to make a quick change, drop off the gear, meet up with K, and trek to the arena for Mr. Mayer's big show.

And now I need a new entry.