Homage to Turkey

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday. Some might say my excitement over it borders on obsession. I begin planning my menu two months in advance. This past weekend I jumped into a freezer case at the grocery store to wrestle out a turkey, fully aware of the spectacle I was making of myself trying to lift a 21 lbs. frozen bird into the shopping cart. Thursday morning I will get out of bed at 4:30 a.m. to begin making everything from scratch while also whipping up a batch of bloody Marys. And by 9 a.m. I’ll be tenderizing (or drunkenly beating the crap out of) my turkey before stuffing it, tossing it in the oven and starting on side dishes and a plethora of mini desserts.

Why am I so crazy over a holiday whose origins began with land invasion and smallpox?

Because modern Thanksgiving fosters, nay, celebrates several of my biggest vices: eating too much, drinking too much, football and napping.

It also allows me to fulfill my overwhelming need to feed people. I constantly feel like I should be preparing some sort of food, no matter where I am. I’m practically the witch from Hansel and Gretel who fattens people up in her gingerbread house.

And finally, Thanksgiving doesn’t require a two-month, party-filled prelude that smashes obnoxiously romantic commercials, movies and TV shows in your face. No one says “It’s OK if you don’t have a date for this Thanksgiving party.” Frankly, it’s not a sexy holiday anyway. Who gets all hot and bothered by stretchy pants, food babies and the inevitable heartburn?

It’s simply a day to be thankful for what you do have, to drink like you don’t have to work the next day and then slip into a coma as the sounds of football blare from the TV.

Lesson learned: On Thanksgiving, there’s no need to worry about who you’ll impress, what you look like or if anyone will be calling you back the next day. I like to think of it as my dating day of rest.

Aha!

Apparently, zombies and flowcharts are attention getters. Shortly after I published my “Are you dating a moron or a zombie?” post, I received an email from Mutual of Omaha asking me if I’d mind being on film.

My knee-jerk response to that question is always, emphatically, no. But since they are a legitimate financial institution, I figured whatever they wanted to film me for would be in good taste. Perhaps they wanted me to be on Wild Kingdom, even though my only knowledge of animals is restricted to small dogs and domestic cats. And once I had a goldfish that lived for three years.

Sadly, I was not to tame any lions or go in search of prehistoric looking lizards, they wanted to film me as part of their  “Aha! Moments” campaign.  Essentially, they wanted me to recount any epiphanies my blog has brought about.

The only thing I can think of is that now instead of telling me that they hope I meet a nice guy, most of my readers say “it’s going to suck when you meet someone, no more blog.”

I don’t know if I find that heart warming or sad.

To make matters worse, I had to meet the Omaha people in a van/bus in Balboa Park. Windowless vans do not inspire confidence in me, especially when paired with video cameras.

They seemed fairly legit though, so I stepped into said windowless bus and . . . blank.

As soon as they said they were filming my brain stopped recording. The only thing I remember saying was that I didn’t want to date bed wetters or raging alcoholics. I left ten minutes later clutching a souvenir clapboard and trying to figure out what level of ass I had just made of myself.

The result is this momentous video of me:

Apparently talking about bed wetters didn’t make the cut. Oh well.

Lesson learned: When being filmed for Internet ad campaigns, take a deep breath, smile, and for crying out loud, don’t talk about alcoholics.

The Chicken Dance

About a week ago I received an email from a guy on Match. It simply said, “Can I ask you a question?”

I’ve got to give this guy credit for being an attention getter. If he’d sent me the same ‘ole crappy form email: “Hi, I’m a San Diego native who likes eating quesadillas and hanging out with my friends, ” I probably would have ignored him. But this peaked my interest, so I replied. His question was, “Do you know how gorgeous you are?”

Before you think I’m naive (well, at least about this), I am well aware that this is just a line that he has probably used on a lot of women. But what can I say, I’m a sucker for flattery.

We exchanged a few texts and he eventually asked to meet up. Great, I thought, I could use a nice date.  And then he laid out the details.

“It’s 25 cent wing night. We’ll get some wings and $3 long islands.  I could use some good waaaaaaangs.”

Wow.

It’s not that I have a problem with going to a dive bar, or chicken wings, or even quarters. But the last thing you say to a girl you don’t even know is, “Hey baby, let me buy you some sub-par chicken parts and turpentine cocktails.”

Let’s not even get into the messiness associated with eating chicken wings. Not exactly a first date food. My first dates usually consist of a cup of coffee and seeing if we can stand talking to each other for more than 30 minutes.

I asked him is he was trying to take me to Hooters for a first date, which he denied. Instead he asked me to a crappy bar in Pacific Beach. For those of you who are not from San Diego, Pacific Beach is where college kids go to kill their dignity on the weekends. It’s my least favorite part of town and I actively avoid going there.

But I was willing to go along with all of this until he started text messaging me. Not once or twice, but all the time. “What are you doing?” “Where are you?””Are you drunk?”

We hadn’t even met yet.

The texts began to morph into conversations that included various pet names for me (gorgeous, baby, etc.) and how fun it will be to get “f-d up.” Our date was on a Wednesday, which would mean no long island iced teas and probably not more than a glass of wine.

Eventually all of this began to remind me of a bad Lifetime movie about date rape. I decided we should meet somewhere else where I felt comfortable, and could perhaps enjoy something not deep friend and coated in butter. (OK, yes, I admit that I was worried about the potential for heartburn).

I asked if instead of “waaaaaaangs”  night, we could meet somewhere else. I suggested a bar closer to where he said he lived and ended my note with “in all honesty, I loathe PB.”

Mr. Chicken wings was not excited about the change in plans. He asked me if I was lining up other dates that night, and that he was craving wings and was not willing to move the venue. I also don’t think he understood the meaning of the word “loathe.”

After asking a few of my friends what they thought, I decided this wasn’t exactly the kind of guy I was looking for. We obviously have different priorities, his being chicken and mine being . . . not chicken. I sent a final text telling him I thought we might just have different expectations and perhaps we shouldn’t meet after all. Best of luck. To which he told me I was a judgmental bitch and he didn’t need my luck.

And the irony is, later that night, I was craving chicken wings.

Lesson learned: Sometimes it helps to use smaller words when explaining your feelings.