Happy Thanksgiving

BLindy here. Let me start by echoing Jesse and apologizing for slacking on the rate of stories being uploaded to the interwebs from down under. We had an awesome week here and I am going to do my best to hit on some highlights and work harder to keep everyone abreast of the goingons of Rosebay.

I spent much of this week looking for jobs, sleeping, and reading. The looking for jobs is starting to feel like a wild goose chase. I went to a steakhouse the other day and talked with some people there for a while who seemed very interested in me and said they would give me a call. Then they didn't. Then I went back a few days later and they said they didn't need any new waiters right now. Pretty confusing to me. I checked out a few other places that didn't look right for me. One I thought that seemed ideal for me ended up being very difficult to get to from Rosebay by train or bus or foot or bike. But my hours are picking up at the pizza joint so things could be worse. At least I am still making some money and I continue to see a steady stream of job listings popping up online so I can look forward to pursuing more and more deadends and then hopefully maybe find another sweet job. In the meanwhile I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which was awesome for the first half of the book and then started getting too heavy on the philosophy and it started feeling more like a textbook. I still think it was a worthwhile read though. And then there isn't much to say about me sleeping a lot this week. I enjoyed it.

Like Erin said, Thanksgiving was awesome. Everyone made dishes and they all turned out so well. I tried my hand at some mashed potatoes and managed to create something edible so I am quite proud of that. The tremendous meal and the whole process of everyone sitting down to eat together is definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. Also it was very cool to celebrate Thanksgiving out here where no one has ever heard of the Pilgrims and treated the day like any other regular old Thursday. I really enjoyed jumping on the bus down to Diana's place carrying trays and trays of food and letting the other bus people wonder at what we were doing and then we all laughed at Taylor as he spilled hot grease water from some of the food on his arm. That is until I spilled the same grease water (cold grease water though) on myself on the busride back home. Then once we got back home we were all pretty much done for the rest of the day. I have been hit by some pretty large food comas in the past, but this one was something else. Even with all the sleeping I did this week I was no match for the lethargy that hit me.

Then on Friday it was great to celebrate the holiday all over again with family back in the states. I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed to skype with so much of my family at once as they were all together for Thanksgiving. I could see two maybe three people on the webcam but then would hear questions shot at me from numerous other people off camera and got a little nervous thinking about how many people were looking at me that I couldn't see. But it was still awesome to talk to everyone and feel a little bit like I was back in California. I almost wanted to ask that the computer just be left on the table as they were all having dessert so I could just listen to them talk and continue to pretend to be there kinda like in Arrested Development.

Saturday I finally got to work again as somehow my work schedule has me off Tuesday through Friday. I suppose that way I get a little excited to finally go into work which is pretty rare for me and for us and for people in general. Saturday was my first time closing down the restaurant without someone walking me through each step. It amounted to a minor increase in my overall responsibilities which made me feel a little more important and so I enjoyed the work just that much more. But before I could close the restaurant for the night I got to deal with the fax machine breaking on top of a fairly busy night even for a Saturday. There was a lot of chaos that went on but everything seemed to turn out alright.

That is until I got to the bus stop. I must have been so focused on eating my after work pizza that I missed the bus completely as it drove by. Not wanting to wait another half hour for the next bus I decided to pick up my pizza and chase after it. In the pouring rain. I eventually caught it about a mile down the road as it had to do a side circuit into the Edgecliff shopping center/trainstation allowing me to catch up. Soaked and sweating and wheezing a little the bus took me home just long enough for me to get directions to a party I heard about from a cousin of a friend (Eric Adamson from Stanford, his cousin who is from Australia). I inhaled the rest of my pizza, thought about changing clothes, decided there was no time, and went back out into the rain to catch a bus going back up to Edgecliff to get me to the party. It turns out that the bus I just barely caught was the same bus with the same bus rider that I had chased down only 20 minutes earlier. The bus driver seeing me jump on his bus drenched and wheezy for the second time gave me quite the look and I could only shake my head.

All the rushing around was well worth it when I finally arrived at the party and met up with Eric's cousin, Dougal. I got there at 12:30am and was pleased to see the party was still in full swing without any hint of dying down. The theme of the party was Stranger Danger which meant everyone was supposed to bring somebody that no one else had ever met. I was Dougal's stranger. The idea was to encourage everyone to mingle and get to know each other which was great for me. It can be awkward not knowing anyone at a party so it's a lot cooler when you realize that no one else knows anybody either. I got to meet some awesome people and had a great evening which I felt like I earned after my crazy evening of fighting fax machines and bus schedules and the freak spring thunderstorms.

Which brings me to today which is Sunday. I slept for most of today. Big surprise. But I am reenergized for another week of adventures. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well. All of us Rescuers miss everyone back home. I put a couple pictures up with this blog but you can see more pictures from Thanksgiving and all the other pictures I have taken by clicking on the link on the side bar “Lindy's Pics”. Finally, does anyone have any crazy stories from Black Friday or Thanksgiving? We have been wondering how the holiday shopping season will start off back home with the economy being what it is. It is hard to tell out here because without Thanksgiving there doesn't seem to be such an official start to the shopping season.

Somehow November has snuck by and we have been here for almost two months. Craziness. Also microsoft word is telling me that snuck isn't a word. Who knew? Then again they are saying microsoft isn't a word so who knows. Craziness. Happy Thanksgiving people.