The Day After Turkey Day and the Day After That

Thanksgiving.

We drove out to Uncle Dave's house in Wilton, NH (not Windham, NH; that's the town of Luke's work) w/o too much difficulty. In attendance was: Uncle Dave, Evie, and their daughters Robin, Holly, Amber - our hosts, Uncle Allen, Lillian, and their children Mike, Laura, and us. The only person I hadn't met already was Laura. She seems nice, but I don't think I'll see much of her in the future as she was moving to Columbus, OH. Her job w/ Proctor & Gamble is moving her there and she was leaving on the Day After Thanksgiving to house hunt for a week.

Dinner was served almost right after we got there - around 3pm. We had the traditional stuff: turkey, gravey, stuffing (yum!!!), yams, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauces (one jelled, one chuncky), rolls, cranberry bread, and broccoli salad (the only thing I didn't take). All was good.

We chatted after dinner and I found it hard to sit still by the nice wood-burning stove. It was odd to be a guest and to not have to clean or do dishes. I still helped to clear the table, though, as the plate of cranberry sauce was left, very lonely, on the table. The poor, forgotten sauce. I had to take it to the kitchen.

The goodies for after dinner was amazing. There was A TON. We had the cheesecake Luke and I brought, lava cake, apple pie, pumpkin pie, bumbleberry pie, a Just Desserts-like variety pack of chocolate cheesecakes, leftover cranberry bread, and vanilla ice cream. Am I leaving anything out? Needless to say, the cheesecake was well-liked. Out of politeness? I dunno, but it tasted OK. It was left out for quite a while as no one wanted to be the first to dive into the pies, so I don't know if it was kinda runny from the warm house or undercookedness. I explained to Evie that it should have the white topping all over the top and the whole cake should have the consistancy of a pudding pie, but... it was my first time making this cheesecake alone, so it turned out OK, considering.

After that, we watched the end of some football game. We then got to watch Josh (one of the dogs) and Amber's appearence on The Jay Leno Show a few years ago. Appearently, Josh was one of the ugliest dogs in some contest. Given his recent haircut, though, he was lookin' kinda good that night. On tape, he wasn't all that ugly either. We watched some of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and then left.


The Day After Thanksgiving.

Urgh. Tiring.

I went to bed almost as soon as we got back from Uncle Dave's house (around 930pm). I didn't sleep well that night. I don't know why. Spent most of it half asleep and I'm not totally sure if I ever did go to sleep at all. The alarm went off a little after 4am. I hit snooze. I was too tired and cold outside of bed to wanna get up and shower. Besides, I'd have to blow dry my hair, too. I rolled out of bed, finally, and got dressed and ate a breakfast b/ I was starving b/ I was up so early. Luke helped me to clean off my car as it had accumulated snow from the day before and then more during the night. It was very nice of him. :>) He said that he'd finally went to bed around 3am, so I think he was kinda awake, anyway, and was sure to jump in his own bed the moment I left the apt. (he did)

Driving to work was amazing. It was clear until the spot that it normally backs up on the weekend. A TON OF CARS, people! There were pedestrians trying to cross the crosswalk-less D.W. Highway in the darkness of 530am. Most of the large stores were open, excluding, appearently, Barnes and Noble. I guess that people don't wanna book shop at 5am? Either that, or the tinted windows blocked my view. It was stop-n-go all the way to the mall. The parking lot was FULL. Even the Cingluar Wirless parking lot next to Target was almost full. I parked over there and slid on some ice as I exited the vehicle. I managed to not get run over as I crossed the "street" to Target and again to the employee entrance. The line to get inside our doors was almost down to our employee entrance. LOTS OF PEOPLE.

I clocked in almost on-time at 603am. I got my lane assignment and found I was downstairs (yea!) but on lane 15 (boo! a cramped express lane). Our doors opened and it was FREEZING. My hands were numb, my nose was running, and I could see my breath. The doors, about 10 feet away, kept opening and shutting with massive wind gusts of coldness. I was mizerable and tired. I wished I could go back upstairs and get my sweater from my locker. Lines to the checkouts were down the store. We had all seven lanes open, plus three express lanes, and one express lane reserved for Target Red Card applicants. There was nothing else we could do, and the guests seemed pretty calm and understanding about it. One of the GSTL's, Diana, offered me her jacket at some point. I was grateful.

At my late "lunch", aka 1120am, there were a bunch of grumpy teammembers in the breakroom. Appearently, Olive Garden was late with the food. I didn't know that Target was giving us food. I ate my lunch and about 10min before my break was over, the food came. Another teammember and I was given an extended lunch so we could get some of the food. cool. I took a small scoop of pasta and a breadstick.

My shift ended at 230pm and I was sooo happy to get out of there.


The Day After the Day After Thanksgiving.

Luke drove with me over to Target. Yea! My first driving lesson. It had snowed that morning. It wasn't supposed to. I learned how to stop correctly, that sliding around at the Allds intersection was "normal" as it's steep coming from our direction. If you slide into an intersection, you honk "to let other drivers know they're gonna hit you". Luke took my car for the day and promised to be back that night.

Work.

More torture, but a different kind. I went to work at 4pm for a closing shift. It was slooooow. Lots of cashiers, not enough guests. The same sales as the day before, not as much stock. That is all.