Turkey Day!

A couple of quick items before I get into my Thanksgiving article.

- First off, I'm pleased to announce that Camden, NJ, has won the award for "America's Most Dangerous City" for the second year in a row. Camden is a city that is near and dear to all Philadelphian's hearts as it sits right across the Delaware River from the City of Brotherly Love. I've visited Camden on many occasions for concerts (The Tweeter Center, or E-Center as we still call it, is in Camden since they didn't want all the hoodlums who attend concerts all summer destroying any part of Philadelphia). Amazingly, Camden is the home to Campbell's Soup Company, and I mention this because I'm shocked that any major company would be headquartered there.

Read about Camden in this CNN.com article, and focus on some of the statistics and comments in the "Developing Projects" section.

- Secondly, as many of the sports fans out there may have heard, Donovan McNabb decided today to have his sports hernia surgery that will sideline him for the rest of this season. I think I'm ok with this because he was banged up pretty well, and the Birds are seemingly out of the race this year. I agree with the decision to hang it up for the year, get healthy and focus on getting back to the top in 2006. For now, I hope the Eagles can just win some games, maybe play a little spoiler role for potential playoff teams. If that doesn't work, let's just throw the season and get in position for a better draft pick. On a related note, the "Madden Curse" continues. Gotta wonder when football players will refuse the offer to be on the cover of this video game...

- As mentioned the other day, I'm a big fan of Thanksgiving, and I'm looking forward to heading about home to the Philadelphia area on Tuesday evening. (I'm using Wednesday as a vacation day from work, to maximize the holiday weekend, and try to miss out on some of the traffic.) I'm thinking that the holiday weekend will be rather eventful as I plan on hanging out with my good friends from home, eating tons of food with the family, and there's even a 5 year high school reunion on Friday night (!)

The idea I came up with for my Thanksgiving article is a running account of what my day on Thursday will look like. Here's how I envision it...

9:00am - I wake up out of a deep sleep and wonder where I am and if I'm late for work. I then realize I'm in my bed at home, and it's Thanksgiving, so my head hits the pillow again.

12:00pm - Wake up again, realize that I've missed the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in its entirety for the 10th year in a row. Get pissed off at myself.

12:01pm - I get over the fact that I missed the parade. Realized that it's the same crap year in and year out. Think about all the people that stood out there since the crack of dawn, freezing their asses off. I laugh at them when I realize how warm I am sitting inside the house.

12:05pm - Head downstairs to see what's going on in the kitchen. I smell the food as I'm walking down the stairs. My mom is slaving away. I get yelled out for not helping.

12:35pm - Football begins. First game of the day is Atlanta vs. Detroit. Sit down in the living room to watch. Mom hears the football game on the television from all the way in the kitchen, asks why I'm always watching football, tells me to go upstairs to watch, and then yells at me a second time for not helping.

1:02pm - I hear my sister roll on downstairs. I'm amazed that she's slept later than I did, and then I remember that she's the college student now, so that's expected. She asks when we're eating lunch. Mom responds with, "Are you kidding me? You're on your own. I'm not serving lunch today." Jamie then tries to weave around Mom in the kitchen to salvage some lunch, and gets yelled at for being in the way. Then she gets yelled at for not helping in the cooking effort. It's the double whammy.

1:36pm - I can hear my Dad downstairs sifting through the newspaper ads and reading off all the crazy times that the stores are opening on Black Friday. "Target's open at 6! K-Mart's open at 5:30! Wal-Mart is open at 5!" Each year it's the same routine, and each year we're amazed that people would wake up that early to go shopping.

1:38pm - Dad gets yelled at for not helping.

2:10pm - Football game is at halftime, and I roll downstairs. This time, I'm smart and I ask Mom if I can do anything to help. She tells me I'm too late, I'm worthless, her back hurts from standing up all morning, and that my Dad and my sister are worthless too. I give up at this point.

3:05pm - Dozed off for a little while. Didn't matter because the game is boring and there's only so many times you can watch Joey Harrington get sacked. Michael Vick has 600 combined rushing and passing yards as Atlanta is up 56-3. By the way, FOX shows some Lions fans at Ford Field who are fat enough to be basted and stuck in a 450 degree oven for 8 hours themselves. There's enough meat there to feed a small to medium sized Asian family.

3:45pm - Game's over. I reminisce about the time that John Madden and Pat Summerall used to do the Detroit Thanksgiving game and Madden would show pictures of the 8 legged turkey. In fact, he circled all of the legs with the telestrater. I also remember the hands-on demo that Madden once gave with the "turducken". It's the chicken inside the duck inside the turkey. A turducken truly is a work of art.

3:55pm - My Dad comes into my bedroom and sits down. He looks at me and says, "Your mother yelled at me because I wasn't doing anything, so she told me to go upstairs". I just nod my head.

4:20pm - Second football game between Denver and Dallas begins. Looking forward to a better matchup. As CBS zooms in on some Cowboys fan, this older lady has one of those hangy pieces of skin on her neck that looks like a turkey. The guy sitting next to her in the pilgrim hat looks like he hasn't stopped eating stuffing since last Thanksgiving. Wow, the people in these cities really take the holiday seriously.

5:07pm - Mom comes upstairs and realizes that we're all still wearing our pajamas. The rest of the family will be arriving in 20 minutes. None of us are ready. Again, this happens every year. This time, I decide to just yell at myself for being worthless and not being of any help.

5:32pm - Family and friends begin to arrive. [Side note: my family doesn't do the middle of the afternoon Thanksgiving meal. We stick to the normal dinner hours.] My grandmother tells me I look like I've lost weight. In the back of my mind, I think she means that I've put on a few pounds. My grandfather roams into the living room and turns on the football game. Suddenly, we hear Mom yelling from upstairs to turn off the game. I seriously think she has some sort of radar.

5:51pm - Broncos are leading the Cowboys by a field goal at halftime in what's been an eventful first half. On the way to the locker room, Bill Parcells is so angry that he almost takes a bite off of the female sideline reporter's arm, mistaking it for the turkey leg. They send it back to the studio as Greg Gumbel looks stunned. He too wonders if it tasted good.

6:03pm - More yelling from the kitchen. This time, I'm asked to help set the table, and I oblige. For the first time all day, Mom thanks me for helping. Then she badmouthes my sister and complains how she doesn't help at all.

6:26pm - Game is getting good, but I'm pulled away because we're starting dinner. I sit down and tell everyone how many hours I've spent in the kitchen preparing the food. Mom gives me the evil eye and I plead with her that I was joking.

6:28pm - Dad makes the same joke.

6:35pm - My Dad starts telling some story that I've heard 300 times. Make it 301.

6:42pm - I'm shoveling food in my face and I'm on the verge on un-doing my belt buckle. Mmm....turkey, cranberries, stuffing....obesity....

6:52pm - Belt buckle is undone. I look over and my grandfather has already beaten me to the undoing of the belt. He's almost to the pants button.

7:00pm - Mom makes the comment how the food takes all day to prepare and 30 minutes to eat. It's an amazing phenomenon, but I think I'd be more concerned if food took 30 minutes to prepare and all day to eat. I think it's better as it stands.

7:05pm - I wander into the living room to check the score. Quietly, turn the TV on, put it on mute..... "Turn off the TV!" comes from the dining room. I've given up trying.

7:37pm - Dinner's over and we're waiting for the table to be cleared so we can have dessert. Sure enough, I get yelled at again for not helping in the clean up effort.

8:09pm - Flipping through channels to see what's on TV. Got a bunch of movies on, but overall nothing great. We end up on some black and white movie on AMC because my grandmother was piloting the remote.

8:15pm - My grandmother, grandfather, and Dad are all asleep on the sofa. Someone needs to think about marketing Tryptophan to the prescription drug makers of sleep medication.

8:26pm - Jamie tells Mom she's going out with her friends. Guess what? Yes, she gets yelled at. My family loves to yell. If yelling was a sport, we'd win the national title every year. Jamie doesn't end up going out right away because we're not done dinner. She complains that all of her friends have been done dinner for hours. "That's because we don't eat Thanksgiving dinner at 3pm like they do, now sit down and shut up!"

8:30pm - Desserts on the table, everyone's ready for pie, chocolate cake, and so on. I get ready to eat some more.

8:38pm - Everyone is in awe of how much I've eaten. They wonder if I have 4 stomaches like a cow. Mom tells me I'm gonna get fat. Again, same commentary every year.

9:56pm - Dinner is over and the cleanup effort reconvenes. I offer my services and this time they are accepted. I spend the next 30 minutes washing plate, pots, plans, glasses, silverware and everything else. When I have no idea where anything goes in the cabinets, Mom says, "Don't you know where anything goes? Don't you live here?" And then I remind her that I moved out in summer of 2004 and I actually don't live there. I get the evil eye for the second time.

10:41pm - Everything's pretty much put away. Most of the family is asleep in the other room with more black & white movies on the TV. I feel fatter than ever and may start gobbling at any given moment. I plop myself down on the sofa for a little while.

11:02pm - Everyone decides it's time to go home and starts saying goodbye.

11:15pm - No one's left yet.

11:24pm - They all have their coats on. Everyone's still inside the house.

11:33pm - I think the front door just opened.

11:45pm - Wait, I think they may have left. Nope, Grandmom forget to take one of her ceramic plates with her.

11:48pm - Ok, everyone's gone. It took almost an hour for the goodbyes.

12:00am - Thanksgiving is over as I pack it in for the day. I'm exhausted although I didn't actually do anything. In fact, I was only awake for 12 hours. The 3 F's: Family, Food, and Football. That's what Thanksgiving is all about.

I hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving, wherever you find yourself. The Ross Press Release may check in at some point over the next few days, but no guarantees, as I have to see what the schedule entails. Enjoy!