Thank You Thanksgiving... a Stalker's Guide to Finding Me

I'm sitting around waiting for a delivery of wood that I didn't know was coming but Hugh thinks it's cute to schedule things during my day and not tell me but instead remember last minute and send me a BBM with a kissy face emoticon.

I mentioned to a friend today that what I really need is a fat lip emoticon to send back because this hour or so that I am killing waiting for wood was supposed to be spent diving through the aforementioned friend's daughter's American Girl booty. There is a bathtub complete with acrylic bubbles just waiting for EvaJun.

And so here I sit, with my 10 - 12 window and I've done laundry, cleaned my bathroom and tided the kitchen and quite frankly, that is all I'm doing... so I think I'll tell you about my Thanksgiving.

We go to Catalina and really, when I die, my family will have the following on my grave marker (urn?):

"Beloved wife and mother and clever enough to come up with the yearly Thanksgiving trip to Catalina"

I know. It makes me cry too.

Every single year someone feels the need to ask, but what do you do there? Is there a market? Where do you stay?

And I'm like PEOPLE you can see it from Coast Highway. It's right there. I don't know what Avalon they are thinking of... maybe the Avalon where Excalibur was forged?

In any case, yes, there is a market (2 as a matter of fact) and we stay in houses and we do about eleventy things not including cocktails. We do more of those.

Let me break it down for you:

Wednesday: The day before Thanksgiving...we meet our friends down at the harbor and take the 9:50 boat over arriving just before noon... we pick up our house keys from the rental agency, drop off luggage and head directly to Mi Casita where the adults promptly order margaritas the size of their heads.

I don't know why. But we do.

The kids get their own table, access to refillable sodas and endless chips and they will be finished with their entire lunch long before any of us are done with our first margarita... we have big heads.

The kids will then steal money from our wallets and skibble out for ice cream and general mayhem and we will order another round, ignore our delicious food and meet them back at the houses in an hour.

Everyone will nap... or read or hang or whatever and it doesn't matter because hello, holiday.

Eventually the children will be hungry again so Hugh and Dan will go get them Antonio's pizza (the best pizza in the world) and while they are picking it up the kids will trot into Sugarloaf, the video/book/sunglass store and argue over what flick they want to rent and then end up getting, "Elf".

Movie and pizza watched and consumed, we will take a walk and Hugh and Christy will plan the Thanksgiving meal and Dan and I will talk about the Real Housewives of whatever season.

Thursday: No one is up early. We usually rally and gather around 10 and make our way to John's for, of all things, a Hawaiian influenced breakfast... maybe macadamia nut pancakes or Portuguese sausage... guava juice all around... then another walk and then the cooking begins which means that the children will each make 2 emergency trips to Vons Express for forgotten items bringing the sum total of Vons Express visits to 12 for the day.

The rest of the day is given to eating, drinking and making merry.

Friday: The "lost" day. The husbands often disappear to the Marlin Club for great chunks of time... the children steal more money and go off for miniature golf and skateboarding... Christy and I will take advantage of "Black Friday", Avalon style and then take ourselves out for cocktails at El Galleon. One or both of the husbands will eventually wander by and join us and we'll spend a pleasant hour or two gossiping and chatting until our cells all start burning up with texts from various children who will all need money at the same time.

At night we go to the movie. There is one movie a week and it shows at the Casino and I make everyone get there at 6:30 so we can listen to the pipe organ concert before hand which includes Christmas carols, show tunes and the national anthem.

Everyone grumbles but the Casino is so beautiful and the people watching is so first rate that they usually forgive me. Well, maybe not the kids but who cares? They're sitting 3 rows away from us anyhow.

Usually it's a Christmas/Family type film but this year was Harry Potter and whoo-hoo spooky pants! I was a wee bit concerned about EvaJun being freaked out but she fell asleep 15 minutes in so there you go...that kid is no worries.

Saturday; historically this has been tour/major activity day. We have taken every tour offered on the island of Catalina so this year we took advantage of the new zipline and zippy it was! 2.5 hours of zipping and although I didn't go (Eva is too small yet) I heard it was the most fun ever and I'm jealous and plan on feeding Eva nothing but chocolate cake this year so she makes weight by next November.

Saturday night is "adults only" dinner where we stuff ourselves some more.

Sunday: we leave. It's always Bitter City on Sunday morning. We have breakfast at the other Antonio's, pop our Dramamine and head home.. and look forward to next year.