Home. Sweet. Home.

I just feel the need to point this out: the first sentence of my last post I stated that I had recently participated in the 98th annual Warrior Dash of Central Texas.  That statement is in no way accurate.  I'd be shocked if it was even the fifth one they ever had in Central Texas.  I just felt that it was so out there that someone would call me out on it.  Instead, it has made me realize that those few who actually read this, don't actually read this.  
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Thanksgiving is, arguably, my favorite holiday.  The only one that rivals it is St. Patrick's Day, which probably seems a bit cliche.  From my stand point, you can't have my last name, be born and raised in an Irish-Catholic neighborhood, have one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades mere miles from your house, and not be a fan of St. Patrick's Day.  Having an excuse to drink beer and whiskey at 9am on a Sunday morning in March is just a side effect of my upbringing. 

Even better than that though, Thanksgiving is all about reconnecting with family, eating the finest American foods, and drinking the coldest of beers.  Also, watching lots of football and apparently playing Let's Dance 2 and 3 for up to four hours. 

I made the trek home from Austin the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  I had a short flight to Houston (where I had a two hour layover and drank several early vacation beers) and was at home on the south side by 4:30 that afternoon. I don't know why, but in Chicago the day before Thanksgiving is called Black Wednesday.  Supposedly it is the largest bar night of the year.  College kids are back from school, family members are in town, and mostly everyone has the next day off.  It's a huge deal back home but has definitely not caught on in other parts of the country (read: Ohio or Texas, the two other places I've lived).  

Black Wednesday did not disappoint.  I'd write a paragraph or two about my experience, but to be honest, I don't remember much of it.  Which is why it did not disappoint.  At one point, I ran into an old friend from grade school.  We were pretty good friends back in the day and I hadn't seen him in a while so we were shooting the shit for a while.  After a bit, his girlfriend found us at the bar and asked him to go to some other part of the bar with him (or to leave with him.  Again, details are fuzzy).  He declined, explaining that we hadn't seen each other in a while and wanted to stay and talk with me.  Well, girlfriend did not like hearing this.

"You want to stay with him rather than leave with me?"
"Yes, I do."

It went back and forth like that for a solid 6-8 minutes.  Meanwhile, I'm just standing off to the side trying not to say anything to offend her.  Granted, I had never met her before but I just didn't want to make things worse.  From what I remember, I won the battle and we continued to talk for a while.  No idea what happened with him and his lady after that.  A quick Facebook search tells me they're still together so it couldn't have been that big of a deal.  I keep thinking though, "what if I was the reason an old friend and his lady broke up, just because he wanted to catch up." I don't know if I would be proud or disturbed.  Probably proud.  I doubt you read this but good luck Ryan Quinn.  Hope I didn't ruin your shit.  If I did though, it was probably for the best.

The bar we were at didn't close until 4am on Black Wednesday and we were one of the last few to leave. 
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As you can imagine, Thanksgiving day was ROUGH.  I didn't wake up until about 1pm.  We were leaving for my aunt and uncle's at 2 so I barely got up in time.  On the way, we stopped to pick up some booze: 30 pack of PBR.

I hadn't seen most of my extended family since last Thanksgiving, longer for some.  My cousin Char Char (no one actually calls him this, but we totally should) who now lives in Oregon, was in.  While catching up, I found out his work schedule is 11am-7pm and became immediately jealous.  I can't think of a better work schedule.  It allows you to wake up late, leave work pretty much after rush hour, and still go out at a decent hour on any fucking day.  Beats the shit out of my 8:30-4:30 hours.  Granted, I have a lot of day left when I get home but I usually spend an hour or two of it sleeping because I have to get up so early.  So when I wake up or decide to go out around 6-6:30, traffic is awful. Note to self: start own business and set working hours 11am-7pm. 

Thanksgiving with the family was fun though.  Spent most of the time on the couch watching football, eating copious amounts of delicious food, and plowing through that 30 pack.  One of my aunts randomly decided to bust out the Wii and the game "Lets Dance."  I was kind of pissed at first considering they turned off the final football game of the night, but watching family members of all ages playing the game definitely made up for missing the shitty football game. 

The game involves holding the Wii and attempting to follow the dance moves on the screen.  For those first timers, it took a few rounds to get used to it all.  Now I have roughly 27 younger boy cousins.  And every single one of them were hitting Beyonce's moves like it was nothing.  Something you want to tell us all, younger male cousins? 

We eventually left the party and headed home.  The drive, normally about an hour, felt like 5 minutes for me.  Probably because I was woken up when we pulled in our driveway and realized I had slept the entire way home.
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Friday was my family's pseudo-annual themed drinking night with our radical Pilgrims and Indians theme.  This was our first themed party in a few years and everyone was pretty excited.  When the time came, we had more construction paper, paper plates, scissors, tape, and staplers than your average Sunday school.  What follows are the masterpieces that each of my immediate family members created.  (Bro-in-law Pat and little Paddy were also present and each had their own respective hats, but unfortunately I did not document them.)


This is my Pammy.  When questioned about her hat, she pleaded us to "just imagine it was black."  It was a light blue.    

Part Mad Hatter, part Pocahontas

This is my pops.  He decided that the florescent lights in the kitchen were too bright and he needed a visor.  It's what Sitting Bull would have used as well. 

 

Part Native American headdress, part Blackjack dealer

 These are my sisters.  Gabraham Lincoln (taken from Gay Abraham Lincoln) and another original headdress.  We're clever. 

We play a mean game of Spoons

Last but not least is what I made.  It was the only original idea of the night.  I stapled a strip of construction paper across the back and was able to wear it on my dome. 

And yes, it was pointed out that it is similar to the turkeys on South Park

We proceeded to proudly wear our masterpieces, celebrate good times, play games and most importantly drink.  My uncle (not my real uncle) and his son ended up coming over for a bit as well.  The eight of us proceed to drink two 30s of PBR, almost a full case of MGD, and roughly three-fourths of a bottle of Paddy's Irish Whiskey.  I woke up on a tiny ass couch in the basement with one of my dad's old fire department coats over me as a blanket. 

Good time was had by all.
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As you might imagine, Saturday was fairly quiet.  I went and saw the new Muppets movie with my folks.  If you grew up a fan, you will not be disappointed.  That's my best Roger Ebert impersonation.

As the night progressed, Katie and I got antsy about staying in so we ventured the three blocks to one of the many local bars.  Two of my friends met us up there and we began drinking beers.  Keyword: beer.  As it began closing around midnight, Katie and I switched bars while my friends went home.  Again, we were only drinking beers throughout the night.  Granted, many beers, but no shots or mixed drinks.  Can you feel the foreshadowing here?  I'm trying to lay it on pretty thick.  I get back to my folks house around 3am or so, where I proceed to eat some 'za that I had geniusly made before we even went out for the night.  Next thing I remember is Katie and dad standing over me, trying to wake me up.  I was on the floor of my kitchen.  It was 5am and my dad was heading to the fire house.  "Wake him up before your mother sees him," is what he said to Katie.  Not my proudest moment.  Out of a possible eleven rooms (4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, living room, kitchen, basement, and laundry room), I slept in three or 27% of them.  Probably below my season average. 
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Sunday would normally be a funday on most instances, but after four straight days of excessive drinking, we decided to take is easy.  That is, until the Bears game started at 3pm.  Up to another local bar we went.  Throughout the game, more and more familiar faces showed up.  What started out as Katie and I, grew into three tables full of roughly 12 of us.  Some of the people were my dad's friends and their kids, which I hadn't seen in years.  We proceeded to cheer on the Bears the only way any of us knew how: drunken and obnoxiously.  In the end, the Bears lost on the worst ending to a football I've ever seen, but we had a good time.  Katie and I have a standing agreement that if one of us wins the strip card at the end of each quarter (which is at least $50) that we buy Irish Carbombs.  Well neither of us won but we still did carbombs.  Which, shockingly, were only my second or third of the weekend.  Looking back, it could be a lot more than that but I can't be positive.  
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Sadly, the fun ended on Monday.  I love returning to the south side.  I get to bond with my nephew (who drools all over anything and everything, AT THE SAME TIME), reminisce with friends, have a great time with family, and of course annoy my mom.  It wasn't much of a sad departure though, as I will be home again on the 21st for a skiing vacation.  Hopefully I'll be able to knock out two more rooms on my household sleeping tour.
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As I just mentioned, I'm going home again on the 21st.  The next day we will be driving 8 hours north into the UP to go snowmobiling and skiing.  We're also bringing a keg of PBR.  I swear my family is not consisted of hipsters, it's just one of the few beers that we can all agree on.  Dad likes MGD, a few of us like Miller Lite, but all of us enjoy PBR so it just works.  The scraggly beards and flannels will be side effects.  
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 Basketball update: the season has finally come to an end.  Some have called it a great season, others have called it an extremely successful season.  Neither of those guys played on my team.  We officially went 0-7 and lost by a combined total of 122 points throughout the season.  On average, we lost by more than 17 points.  Seriously.  And this is just a rec league.  Imagine the ass beatings we'd have taken if this was a serious league.  To be fair, I missed two games throughout the year, both due to work parties.  The games I missed, we lost by 34 and 16 points.  So in the games I participated, we only lost by 14 points per game.  By my calculations, I was worth 3 points per game.  Beat that LeBron. 

Hanging up the sneaks until next season.  Not sure when that'll be but hopefully I can be more of an impact than 3 points per game.  Let's be honest though.
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It is semi-well known that I live in Austin.  It is not well known that one of my good friends lives in South Dakota.  It is even less well known that said friend has 3 brothers.  And it is even less, LESS well known that the five of us have all drank together on many occasions thanks to the awesomeness of Skype and Skype-like technology.  Now my friend in SD is Chris.  He has two older brohans and one younger.  Now, I have the phone numbers of his youngest brochacho and his next oldest broseph, so I can get in touch with them whenever I want.  I mean, I never want to but could if needed to.  It's his oldest brother Mike who is the mysterious one.  I don't blame him though.  He's got a wife, two young kids, and three dumbass brothers to look after.   When I'm Mike's age, I hope I still have the stamina to drink with a bunch of younger motherfuckers online.  Is that too much to ask? 
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On my way to and from work, I pass through a roundabout.  If you don't know what a roundabout is, go watch any movie set in England.  You will inevitably see one.  On my way to work, I go three-fourths of the way around.  On my way home, I go the remaining one-fourth.  Together, it equals one full turn, but does it really?  I have thought about that every single day since I moved to my new place in October.  The to and from commute is obviously a busy time so I always just carry on with my 3/4 and 1/4 turns.

Every so often, I go out for happy hour after work.  Let's just say that after one of these recent happy hours, I did the unthinkable.  I did the full rotation on the swing set.  I did the dizzy bat game without falling down.  I did the gallon of milk chug without puking.  I DID A FULL FUCKING ROTATION AROUND THE ROUNDABOUT.  And it was everything I dreamed it would be.  There is a giant tree in the middle and some workers were adding Christmas lights to it.  I imagine that after watching me complete my circle, they thought I was either A) a jackass, or B) a drunk jackass.  Let's just call it a small notch off my bucket list and move on.
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If you listen to a decent radio station, you are aware that the Black Keys new CD "El Camino" came out today.  Go and buy this fucker.  I bought it for $7 on Amazon.  Worth every quarter.
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Y'all come back now.