This particular Thursday.

I'm home. In Chicago. I'm currently across town from my mom's house, at my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Kel's house, which sits on a cul-de-sac in typical midwestern fashion. Apparently some show called "Ugly Betty" is on in ten minutes and apparently some of us will be watching it. About 30 people (and one little baby) were in and out of this house today to celebrate the holiday. My Aunt Lisa's sisters and brothers and their wives and husbands and their kids have made a tradition in the last few years of flying into town for my Aunt Lisa's awesome Thanksgiving dinner, and my Uncle Kel's syblings (my mother is one of them) and parents (my grandparents) and all of us grandkids try to make it every year too. I have flown in from New York for the last seven or eight years to be here with my huge family, if only for a couple days. I love them all very much.

It ends up being an incredibly roudy time. The men get quite drunk, the women get quite tipsy, everyone gets loud, the kids get older and wiser every year and sit around and discuss how perspectives shift as we age. My cousin Trisha just got engaged to her boyfriend, who I met for the first time today. He's awesome. I approve. I'm a bridesmaid in the wedding. We're all getting older.

Now that it's almost 7pm (and dinner was at 2pm - and drinks have been flowing from 12noon to the present), there's a game of poker going on upstairs in the kitchen, some girlie chatter going on in the upstairs living room, a crazy old lady talking nonsense to a passionate middle aged man in the den, some people napping, some people laying on the floor in front of the fire, Mallory's reading a magazine, and I'm sitting here updating the ol' blog. How could you have it any other way.

Every year I dread the extra effort and inconvenience of two plane rides in three days and the predictable hellos and how are yous and the promises that we'll see each other in a few weeks at Christmas, and every year I end up feeling so incredibly blessed and lucky and grateful and glad to come from such hearty, happy, intelligent, lively stock who are all able to be here each year. I'm a lucky young lady.

In the car on the way home from the airport this morning I had to tell my grandmother that I got fired from my job. She didn't know yet. I was expecting her to be devastated as she concerns herself greatly with the details of my life. I wasn't looking forward to the conversation, but it ended up going quite smoothly. She's really mellowed out in her old age. Naturally, my mother told me later that my grandmother was fighting back tears in the front seat of the car, but I didn't notice at the time, so that's that.

At present, three people under 50 are giving an 82 year old woman a hard time about her new boyfriend, Clyde. Oh man, oh man.

I can't wait to get back to New York to my loving friends and my lovely life. But in the meantime, I'll do some relaxing, some shopping, some family bonding. And hopefully Grandma will slip me a few twenties before I go to the airport. :)