Happy Frickin' Thanksgiving

What says Thanksgiving more than spending quality time with your family? Spending quality time with your family doing manual labor, which will inevitably involve much yelling and finger pointing.

My family decided not to do the student hosting thing. Apparently it occurred to them that an international student classified as a "loner" who doesn't speak English very well would not want to spend a week with us. Heck, sometimes I don't want to spend a week with us. But anyway, the dad decides its a perfect time to work on the Pergola outside.

Now, I don't know exactly what a Pergola is, but I know it involves post hole digging, putting 4X4s into the ground, and then hoisting 2X6s up over our heads until someone starts wobbling on their ladder and we all fear that they will fall. Inevitably, I will be the one up on the ladder while my dad and brother argue about what is level, and my mom keeps changing her mind from the ground because it's not exactly as she wants. I know this because we've already put one up on our back porch, and this weekend will entail extending it around the house.

My dad sprung it on me tonight saying we'd be working on it Thurs morning and all day Friday. To which I replied, "but Thursday's Thanksgiving". And he looked at me and said, "we'll only work in the morning." Apparently Thanksgiving is now only half a day. I think I liked it better when we hosted Thanksgiving and I spent the whole day pretending to help out in the kitchen.

I think I'm going to go find his football tape and record tomorrow's episodes of Dawson's Creek over the game.