Today is Thanksgiving.

Which means we’ve all got full hearts and even fuller bellies. My belly is so full that I can hardly reach my keyboard to type this. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to hit the “publish” button when I’m done.

I love food.

And naps.

(Oh wait, I think I hear the couch calling my name. (I’ll be right there! I just need to finish this post.)

Here’s to a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone inside and outside my computer. May your day be lovely.

And Babboo says:

Be safe. Don’t drink and drive!

When I was in elementary school there were no buses. I mean, there were probably buses in the world, just none that took anyone to my school. Therefore, we walked.

The path to the school was directly next to a canal. A very large canal. And since that isn’t a very safe thing for young children to be walking next to, a fenced in pathway was erected.

While this isn’t a picture of the walkway I used, it was pretty much exactly like this one. You know, except for the roof part. My walkway didn’t have a roof.

Which brings up a good point.

If you are going to erect (yes, I’m going to continue using that word) a fenced in walkway to stop the children was escaping and drowning in the fast moving canal water on the other side, you might as well make it impenetrable. The younger kids never would have dared break out of the walkway, but dude, the fifth graders were known to climb over the walls and walk home on the dirt path next to the canal.

They were tough. And brave. And basically stupid. That canal was scary.

The kids who lived along the path of the walkway were lucky. They had a little gate that went from the walkway into their backyard. I was friends with one girl that had her own little gate. Her name was Stephanie and I loved it when she would invite me to her house. I thought that using the gate was about the coolest thing ever.

Life was much simpler back then.

The end of the school year always brought warmer weather and Tyler’s candy store. Tyler and his friend would wake up before anyone else, head to the opening of the walkway, and set up their candy shop. Their candy shop consisted of a card table and hand written price tags showcasing their wares. Of course the candy was over priced and, of course, we wanted to buy all of it.

Tyler was no idiot. He was making a killing.

I remember trying to earn money by doing chores around the house for the sole purpose of buying from Tyler’s candy shop. Even though the same candy could be bought for cheaper at the local gas station, all of us kids wanted to buy from Tyler. It’s like Tyler made buying candy from him the cool thing to do.

We moved far away after the I finished the fifth grade. My new school didn’t have a walkway and I missed the one I had become accustomed to. I told my new friends about how cool it was. I told them about the gates and the canal and I told them about Tyler’s candy shop. The walkway always seemed so magical to me. But the kids in my new school didn’t seem to understand the magic.

Over time I lost contact with the friends I had in elementary school. The last time I visited the old neighborhood was about fifteen years ago. At that time I heard a rumor about the old walkway. Apparently one of the students dad had hung himself on a tree on the canal side of the walkway. I don’t know whether or not this is true. I imagine it probably isn’t true. But still, I think about it every time I think about the old walkway.

I got online this morning and looked around google, hoping to find something on my old elementary school and the walkway. I didn’t find any mention of the walkway. I thought, for a second, about calling the school and asking them if they still use the walkway. I figured it might sound a little suspicious if I did this, so I held off.

But still, I’d like to find out what happened to the walkway. Because, in my mind, it’s still a magical place.

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My baby brother’s wife gave birth to a little boy last night. Word on the street is that all is well with mom and bebe. I’ve yet to see pictures, or even talk to my brother. But dude, I’m pretty happy for their little family.

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And because you haven’t heard me talk about bikini waxing in a while, you’d better go and read all about my latest New Thing.

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And because we all love TV, let’s discuss last night’s glorious slapbet episode of How I Met Your Mother over at WeHeartTV.

Things in downtown Seattle are looking more and more…what’s the word?

Oh yes, Festive.

The department stores all have beautiful window displays. The Gap has a huge holiday ad featuring John Krasinski wearing bright holiday colors. (Yummy.) Anthropologie has the most amazing winter store front The King has ever seen. The Macy’s star went up on Friday. The carousel is going up outside as I type this.

It’s magical. And I like it.

My Sweet Babboo and I spent Saturday shopping for Christmas gifts for The King and taking pictures of the life sized nutcrackers that had magically appeared overnight.

The first one we saw was the Holly Golightly one. (It was near the Ann Taylor store. So of course we saw it first.) Goodness, it’s the cutest nutcracker I’ve ever seen.

But wait, the Tin Man one is pretty freakin’ cute also. Plus he has the most adorable ruby red slippers on. I was in love. Babboo was in love.

Until we saw the next nutcracker.

Holy crap, it a Beatles nutcracker. While I’m more of a Paul fan, this John nutcracker is still worthy of my love and devotion. I’m also thinking there’s got to be three other nutcrackers to make up the entire Sgt. Peppers Lonely Nutcracker Band.

A nice lady even stopped and offered to take a picture of Babbbo and I, together with John.

Thanks nice lady.

We stopped and took a few more pictures with nutcrackers until I was pretty sure Babboo was sick of being positioned near nutcrackers, in the damn cold, while I took pictures to post on the interweb.
The poor kid was bored.

Oh look, more nutcrackers. And also, Sephora!

While we were busy running around town with my camera and a million shopping bags, I totally missed this:

Oh yes, Kathy Griffin was in town for two nights and I had no idea.

It was far too late to get tickets. Instead I texted Mrs. Squirrel all about how I felt sorry for myself for missing it.

Oh well, at least I got most of my shopping done.

Quite a few years ago The King and I attended a class at our church. An older native American man started to also attend the class. He was new to the congregation and seemed to be a very nice man. His dark skin was leathered and he wore his long black hair in two braids. He often spoke of Mother Nature and gave beautifully poetic responses to the topics in class.

During one of his thought-provoking dissertations he spoke of his time spent in Alaska and about how being in the wild brought him closer to God. He talked about the beautiness of the world and the Spirit he felt while in the beautiness and how he is now full of beautiness and would like to share the beautiness with the world and all its beautiness.

Dude, the world is full of beautiness.

From then on out we only referred to him as Beautiness.

(Behind his back. Of course.)

Beautiness didn’t stay in our congregation long. He was a nomad of sorts and moved on after a few short months. Fortunately his legacy has lived on and The King and I continue to use the word beautiness in our day to day vernacular. We think it’s funny, but those around us probably think we’re idiots.

When we went out to visit my family a few weeks ago my baby sister was nice enough to pick us up from the airport and drive us out to my folk’s house in the boonies. While making the hour trek she began telling us about how the locals were against the installation of a light rail system. She said nobody wanted it in their neighborhood.

They didn’t want the light rail to interrupt their peaceness.

The rest of the weekend was spent teasing my little sister and upsetting her own personal peaceness.

Making fun of family members for their lack of knowledge = Comedy Gold.

Monday night I bent down to pick up a raisin left on the floor by my Sweet Babboo. As soon as I touched it I realized it was not a raisin but was, in fact, a cat turd. I began freaking out and screaming about how I was touching poop with my bare fingers.

The King asked me how I knew it was cat poop and not a raisin. “I knew it was poop as soon as I felt it’s liquidness!”

“Dude, liquidness isn’t a word, you moron.”

“Yes it is. I’m sure of it.”

The following day I asked my coworkers to verify if liquidness was a word or not. They laughed, of course, and told me it wasn’t a word and that I was a truly a moron.

Until one of them sent me a link proving that liquidness is a word!

Phew. That was a close call. I was afraid that liquidness was going to be the new beautiness. Or worse, the new peaceness.

So tell me, do you use any made up words in your day to day life because you are sure they are real words?

Making dinner is always an issue at our house. Mostly because Babboo’s nineteen months old and can’t stand to be apart from me for more then eleven seconds. (Can you blame him?) I typically prepare dinner with him crying and holding onto my legs saying “mama, up” over and over again.

I assume this is typical for every household, the world over.

Last night I decided to pull up a chair and have Babboo help me mix the ingredients for the pizza dough. He loved stirring it and he especially loved throwing flour on himself and the kitchen floor. I loved having him not have tears in his eyes. It’s the little things that make me happy.

After the dough had raised (risen?) sufficiently I got out the rolling pin and Babboo and I began making our pizzas, just like we always did when I was a kid.

Pizza night at my parent’s house was always the day my mom went grocery shopping. We would make homemade pizzas with the fresh ingredients she had just purchased. We always made two pizzas; one pepperoni and olives and one Canadian bacon and pineapple. We loved pizza night.

Last night Babboo and I decided to take things up a notch and make three pizzas instead of the typical two. (And also, I didn’t have any Canadian bacon.) (Plus, I didn’t want to share my pepperoni pizza with Babboo.)

Babboo and I made a Mama pizza and a baby pizza (mine with turkey pepperoni and fat free cheese.)

We also made a Dada pizza with our left over BBQ sauce and some baked chicken.

The King loves BBQ chicken pizza (I hate it). He ate the entire thing in one sitting, even though it gave him a stomach ache. He said he was eating the best meal he’d ever had and couldn’t justify stopping just because of a little stomach pain.

Babboo also ate his entire baby pizza. Which I find ironic since when I ask him if he likes pizza he always says, with a smile, “No!”

I always knew he was lying.

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While it isn’t completely new material, you still might want to check out my latest post over at SeattleMomBlogs.

Last week some of my coworkers were in Oklahoma on a business trip. Since they’re nice guys they were thoughtful enough to send me some pictures of the Tulsa area for my enjoyment.

I found this picture to be perfect, on so many levels.

And since I know Carrisa lives in Tulsa I immediately forwarded the picture to her and told her I didn’t realize her husband was into flannel that much. Or that his mullet had grown so long since last I had seen him.

I also told her I liked her blue van.

She wrote me right back and congratulated my coworker on his ability to capture every single Oklahoma stereotype in one simple photograph. And then she told me to stop making fun of her awesome blue van. And her husband.

(She’s nice to play along with my lame ass jokes.)

The following day my coworker sent me yet another picture he took in Oklahoma.

I guess the fine folks who live in Oklahoma are staying true to the thug life and representing. (What do I know? Maybe Tupac is, in fact, not dead.)

When my coworker told me that he took the above picture outside the Jenks, Oklahoma post office I got giddy. Dude, Carrisa works in Jenks. Maybe she’s the president of the Tupac is Not Dead Club, Jenks branch.

Again, I e-mailed her the picture to see if she recognized it. Thankfully she didn’t. But she did recognize the post office. She says it’s the one she uses when she sends me a package.

It’s like all of my world got extra close last week. Maybe I’m a nerd but I think that’s pretty cool.

So tell me, have you seen any good graffiti around your neck of the woods lately? Whatever you’ve seen has got to be better then what was found in Jenks, Oklahoma!