My brain has this phenomenal and annoying ability to remember arcane bits of trivia like dates of first dates, first kisses, birthdays of high school friends, phone numbers from kindergarten, addresses of friends from high school. So when I looked at the date today, I remembered that twenty years ago today, I went on the first date with Scott, a boy from high school, who I ended up dating for 18 mos. and who I had at one point thought I would marry. He asked me out when he heard amongst his friends that Nordell, the student body president, was going to ask me out to a local event and since Scott had had his eye on me, he decided to beat Nordell to the punch. I, of course, had no idea that Nordell was going to ask me out, but I'd had a crush on him for a year. But because Scott asked me out first, I never got to go out with Nordell. I really wanted to go out with Nordell, too. But I liked Scott, too. Still...it would have been nice to go out with Nordell at least once. :-) I also remembered that yesterday was Scott's 15th wedding anniversary. Why I thought of him, I'll never know.

My poor dad drove for two hours this morning and only got 50 miles from his home. He turned around and went back home. He's going to come down tomorrow after his pool tournament and we'll have a leftover Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. I'm glad he's coming. The traffic shouldn't be nearly so bad. He said he was going about 10-15 miles an hour most of the way and it was just a sea of cars heading south. He said it looked like all of Seattle was trying to evacuate at once.

We had a great time with the Griffins today and the food was fabulous. Ed helped out a lot and did most of the house (and bathroom) cleaning. He's a great guy and I always feel grateful for him in my life and today is no exception.

I am thankful for all the usual things. I read about 15 diary entries today about what people are thankful for so I suppose most my readers have done the same. Suffice it to say that I am thankful for all the people that I love--family, friends and family--and I'm even thankful for those who are no longer with me (mom, grandparents) because of the wonderful role they played in my life. There are lots of other little things I'm thankful for--my computer, my camera, my clothing, my country, (lots of Cs there, eh?) my freedoms, to be alive, to live in 2001, to have a warm home, sufficient money for my needs and most of my wants. I think it's important to remember your blessings daily, not just once a year, so I think about these things and thank God for them every night in my prayers.

Tomorrow is a busy day--we attend Baylee's baptism in the morning, get our tree in the afternoon, and then Joey goes to Baylee's birthday party at 4pm and Ed goes to play games with friends at 4pm until midnight. I think I'll decorate my tree while I have the house to myself. I've been itching to get my Christmas decorations up for weeks now. Ever since Halloween, actually. I'm ready for Christmas carols, Christmas shopping, gift wrapping (one of my favorite holiday activities), the Christmas tea party, the big, annual Lobotomybabe Bash, the Festival of the Trees, going Christmas caroling and generally doing the whole Christmas cheer thing. I may even make some cookies this year. (Even though my mother was a serious Christmas cookie maker, I just don't have it in me so I don't do it. But I'd like to make sugar cookies with my mother's cookie cutters and introduce Jordyn to my family's special style of cookie decorating with Karo syrup and colored sugar, glitter style.)

I love Thanksgiving but I'm delighted that I can finally get to the business of Christmas. Next year Thanksgiving in on the 28th which seems to really shortchange my favorite season so I'm going to enjoy this year's long Christmas season and try to store up some cheer for next year.

Hope your holiday (or Thursday, as the case may be) was wonderful wonderful wonderful.

--L