Our Dumb Blog

Berck was dismayed to find that my family doesn’t serve mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. Instead we have sauerkraut. Yum!

We had two turkeys–Nathan spent all day smoking them. Berck had asked if he could make his mom’s famous refigerator rolls, but somehow all the necessary ingredients showed up except yeast. Dad and my Uncle Dave went into town to see if anything was open and returned triumphant. “I hope we got the right kind,” Dad said. Berck was pleased; they had brought back Active Dry instead of Rapid Rise, like I always seem to do. “They had two kinds,” Dad continued, “All Natural and Extra Protein.”

The yeast delay meant the roll dough didn’t rise enough in time for dinner. But they’re refrigerator rolls! The dough was stuck in the fridge, and we enjoyed them the next night.

We had Mom’s famous dressing, green beans, and asparagus. For dessert Berck was dismayed no chocolate was served. Instead we had caramel cake, my famous pecan pie, and Steph’s famous pumpkin pie.

On Friday, Nathan, Stephanie, Ian, Kimber, Berck, and I hiked up to one of my favorite spots around Highlands: Devil’s Courthouse. At the top we enjoyed a picnic lunch lugged up by Steph. Nate had lugged up Ian. Kimber had lugged up Berck. After working up a sweat climbing to the top, Berck asked, “Wouldn’t you love a cold beer just now?”

“Yeah!”

Berck reached into my backpack and pulled out two bottles of Shiner.

The three couples played Cranium that night. Dad doesn’t like board games, but he really seemed to enjoy Cranium. Berck and I kicked butt, as usual.

The next day, Berck and I slept in till noon and then spent the rest of the day cooking. I baked bread, and Berck made all-day bolognese sauce, roasted rosemary potatoes, and emptied most of the remaining contents of the refrigerator into a killer salad. We played more Cranium with Ben replacing Dad, who ran out of steam and headed to bed. And we kept awaking Ian with our laughter. Berck and I won again. Of course.

Ian is crawling! He just started a couple of weeks ago, and he’s not quite got it all down yet. He thrashes his arms and legs and somehow propels his body in a soldier-crawl across the floor. Nathan will toss a toy across the carpet and say, “Go get it!” Ian will gaze at the toy longingly and then start flailing elbows and knees until he gets to his destination. Then he does a little victory “swim,” joyfully swinging all appendages at once in celebration of accomplishing his goal.

Ian can’t sit up by himself, but if you put him in a sitting position, he can stay sitting as long as he likes. He sat with Berck on the couch for a half hour straight, the two of them playing with Berck’s watch. It makes a cool clinking sound when you squeeze the links together.

We were the last to leave with Mom and Dad on Sunday afternoon. The car’s transmission starting acting bad as we drove down to Atlanta, so Mom and Dad spent the night in Columbus after dropping us off at the airport. Then they left the car there to get fixed by the folks who repaired the transmission a month ago.

We had no problems getting back to Oklahoma. I just had to get up half dead at six after getting in late the night before.

We ate take-away from Happy Garden last night. Jonah just consumed a cookie with the following fortune.

We sure hope so!

We like the camera. More pictures are up.

Berck drove me to work on Wednesday morning of last week so that he could pick me up and go straight to the airport when I got off. I had just finished doing inventory second counts when Laura, the inventory dictatress, paged me to come to her office. She summons me whenever I screw up anything, no matter how seemingly insignificant. I’ve entertained the thought that she might personally hate me. So I hurried over to the send-out office wondering, Great, what have I done now?

“Joanna, your husband is by the front desk…something about needing your house keys.”

I doubled over in laughter. I had locked the apartment door on the way out that morning, and Berck must have only had the remote entry to the car. Yes, he had driven all the way home before realizing this. So he spent two hours driving to start off his day.

One of my coworkers was stocking on the same aisle I was that afternoon and asked when my flight out was that day. Five forty-eight. She stopped what she was doing and stared at me. “Five forty-eight?! Do you think you’ll make it in time? We’re leaving an hour late today!”

So at the two o’clock break I stuck my head in Barry’s office and asked how it was looking today. “Terrible,” answered his assistant Darrell. “They’re not even half way through pulling.” This is indeed terrible.

I reminded Barry when my flight left. “Remind me what you’ve got going on.” Thanksgiving? “Oh, yeah. What time would you feel comfortable leaving?” Berck had warned me that he would physically drag me from the warehouse if I didn’t come out much past three thirty. I said I could probably stay till three forty-five.

I felt bad asking to be let go early, especially since the tiny office was filled with people having a meeting I had interrupted. Laura piped up from a corner, “If you leave at three thirty, it’ll be three forty-five by the time you get to the parking lot. And you need to get to the airport at least two hours ahead of time. Today is the busiest travel day of the year.”

I’m beginning to think Laura actually likes me.

The rest of my crew had to stay until five. The pullers didn’t get to leave until seven. I was in the car heading just down the street to the airport at three thirty-five.

We hurried toward security. And found that we were the only people in line. Then at the gate we discovered that our flight was delayed…to leave at SEVEN. I could have gone back to work. But we’d already paid for parking, so we hunkered down to wait. I found a paper, and we worked the crossword. Then Berck listened to the MP3 player, and I read a book. Wheels up didn’t happen until seven forty-five.

In the meantime, Mom and Dad and my Uncle Dave were trying to leave Dave’s car at a Marta station for us to drive to Highlands, NC, but a guy ran into the car in Atlanta traffic. It took three hours for the police to arrive and assign blame to the other driver.

When my dad got our tickets, he had to use double frequent flier miles to get us out on Wednesday around noon. But when I asked Barry for Wenesday off, he said he couldn’t do it, but candidly told me I was allowed one unexcused absence a year and would just get a nasty write-up. I had decided that’s what I would have to do when Dad called up Delta and was told, “Well, you for five thousand miles LESS you could get first class tickets at five forty-five p.m.” Well, gee, let’s think about that.

So we enjoyed our complimentary vodka and scotch. Berck ate about fifteen Biscoff cookies. In Atlanta we made the quite striking connection to a Marta train headed north. We found Dave’s car without any trouble (it was the only green Mazda with a busted front end). Dad had taped up the bumper, making it look even more pathetic, but keeping the rain out of the headlight.

We finally got into Highlands around three a.m.

Next: Being There!