News From Maryland

Greetings from Severn, Maryland! With the parentals expressing interest in the 'Hallmark movie', I took it as God's queue to me to make my exit to the computer room, which is adjacent to the living room and thus no sanctuary from the two hours of head splitting boredom that I may yet be asked to join. Please, all those reading my words, pray that I be delivered from such a fate!
We had lucky thirteen as the number of guests, fourteen if you consider the unlucky bird, which was no turducken but at 22lbs still respectable. The guest list included Mom and Dad, Grandpop, Tickie, Steve, and Scott, Danielle and offspring Christopher, Julia, and Sean, Shelly and I, and for the first time, family friends Carol and Paul, making it one of the largest Thanksgiving crowds we've ever had here. Dishes served consisted of the afore-mentioned turkey, stuffing, two types of fruit salad, broccoli cassarole (Shelly's contribution), mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, cranberries, and applesauce. Dessert? A choice of pumpkin or cherry pie. Here is a representative picture, by which I see I forgot to mention corn and lima beans.
After dinner, we tried to let things digest a little bit, but since we didn't have the two days required, we waited maybe two hours for that dessert. After that, we played Ker-plunk with the kids (guest who won, prompting a sulky Christopher to swear he "didn't care, didn't want to play again, and only wanted to watch"), Yahtzee with Tickie, Mom, and Danielle, and finally a game of Rack-o, the first round of which infuriated Shelly, who protested that the rules hadn't been properly explained to her (for any who have never played this complicated game, you have to arrange a hand of ten cards into numerical order). :) Don't worry, baby, with that smart comment, we'll call it even for you dumping the water over my head to cool my Ker-plunk victory dance.
By the way, pay no attention to the map in the last post. Looking at that, one might have expected rain up through the beginning of Virginia, but clear sailing from there on. Not so much.
Also as news, for the first time in almost a year, and the first time since our respective marriages, I saw Jen and Tim! Fortunately they were planning on being in the area to visit Jen's aunt Linda, so we got together last night for a few hours there. Afterwards, we went to Perry's in Odenton so Jen could "pick up her pizza's", wink, wink. I happened to run in to Ted Desautels, a wrestler friend of mine that I hadn't seen since high school, so I stuck around and caught up with him for two hours before returning to Mom and Dad's house. Shelly, who needed to study, had just begun to start worrying about me when I stumbled in, reeking of smoke. My beloved wife was not especially pleased.
My time here has expired. The Hallmark movie was passed up (thank you for beseeching for divine intervention), so it looks like a toss-up between It's a Wonderful Life and Deal Or No Deal. I can live with either.
Hope everyone had a...

Happy Thanksgiving!