Pre-Speech

Quick blogster since I have to pack and run errands...

To Jane and Ryan on your (almost) wedding weekend: All the happiness and love and everything you want in the world, as well as some good advice from a quick google search: You don't need to be on the same wavelength to succeed in marriage. You just need to be able to ride each other's waves. 

And some advice from everyone there (and not able to be there) on Saturday: 

Happy Thanksgiving!

My favorite holiday is here! Unfortunately I did not get to take the whole week off, but in future years, I definitely will. It is lonely and sad at the office... I'd much rather be baking delicious foods in preparation for tomorrow. 

Instead of listing all of the things I am thankful for, which would be an extremely long entry, I leave you with this fun tidbit of Thanksgiving Myths and Facts.

The coolest ones? I knew you'd ask, so I pick'ed em:

"Minnesota is the United States' top turkey-producing state, followed by North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia, and Indiana. These "big six" states produce two of every three U.S.-raised birds, according to U.S. Census Bureau data." (To which I say... we have Census data on turkeys?!)

"Much of what we consider traditional Thanksgiving fare was unknown at the first Thanksgiving. Potatoes and sweet potatoes hadn't yet become staples of the English diet, for example. And cranberry sauce requires sugar—an expensive delicacy in the 1600s. Likewise, pumpkin pie went missing due to a lack of crust ingredients." (No POTATOES or PIE?!)

"Each year at least two lucky turkeys avoid the dinner table, thanks to a presidential pardon—a longstanding Washington tradition of uncertain origin." (I wonder if they still call them lucky ducks...)

Tomorrow (as we should everyday), enjoy your food, your family, your friends - not necessarily in that order - and anything else on your "Thankful For" list. 

Monkey See, Monkey Do... Monkey Drink

First, time to toot my own horn - bicycle horn, that is. My previous entry about my Hubway experience was published! The writing will be awfully familiar, but the exciting part is all the way at the bottom, where I get author credit.

Anyway, onto what you came here for - monkeys drinking alcohol.

Vervet monkeys were positively everywhere in Kenya, which is why this video is especially funny to me (...and BONUS - this being a BBC video, it is educational as well). There was one who frequently invaded our kitchen and classroom, that we had to shoo away before he stole our snacks, or worse, our dinner.

While on safari, we went to this lovely resort in the middle of the day, when it's too hot and the larger animals are all quite lazy. They had a gorgeous pool, from which you could watch animals sleeping under the trees, and just as important, an enormous buffet full of food we'd all been missing from home.

Anyway, while there, I was about to take a bite of my sandwich when I noticed one of these little guys rapidly approaching. I tried our shooing tactic that worked on the vervets living in our camp, meaning I yelled in its face. Without batting a tiny little Vervet eyelash, the monkey very thoughtfully grabbed my arm with one hand, the sandwich with the other arm, running only about ten feet away so I could watch him enjoy what should have been mine.

Aside from my complete disbelief at what had just happened, I was very thankful I had avoided a monkey bite - both because I remember those really hurting in elementary school and because I'd opted out of the rabies shot not covered by insurance until after you've been bitten. Go figure.

Either way, it doesn't surprise me one bit that their counterparts in the Caribbean are sniping cocktails!

Playtime

"The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment."

"The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play. That’s why we have to destroy the present politico-economic system." - ACC

I only want to play.

Anti-Rules to Live By

I'm not the biggest fan of "rules to live by" - the shortest list I have come across which I believe are:

1. Have as much fun as you can.
2. While obeying Rule #1, hurt as few people as you can.

However, Laws of Modern Woman, and Man, are a generally awesome and wonderful collection of simple suggestions, and often not the most traditional or appropriate -watch out, Mom! (Sidenote: despite the gender distinction in the title, a lot of them are quite similar. *Gasp*)

I say, perfect for a Friday blog post!