Last Sunday was Auxiliary Turkey Night. The once a year tradition where I prove I can make a turkey. I had a grand total of 16 people. I even used a counter to keep track, because I am compulsive like that. Although I don’t know if should count the couple that showed up a day earlier because they had trouble reading email. They didn’t show on the day of the party, so I don’t think they count.
It was a stressful weekend getting everything ready. The food was one of the easier parts. I’m honestly wondering how people clean up without throwing a party. It is so much easier to focus on cleaning when there is the imminent threat of party-goers. The 20km run in the morning primed me for the meal; the skipping of lunch helped.
I would like to give a thank you to Rem, Sophie, and Sol for their help in the kitchen. And also to Alan, Rachelle, Michael and Sol for being nice enough to show up early and leave themselves open to being drafted to set the tables. And I was very happy to have been the target of a toast by Michael.
Thank you everyone.
There was a lot of food involved. The turkey was 11.5kg. This year it wasn’t a Butterball, and I’m not sure if it was as good. I think it got a little drier than I would have liked. The stuffing could have used a bit more cooking on the celery. Green beans were good. The waldorf salad came out perfectly. We finished the gravy. The cranberry sauce, I felt, was not as good as it could have been. The cake I whipped up with “frosteline” (as derided by people who read the ingredient list of the frosting and equated it, nutritionally, to vaseline) was amazingly popular.
It may sound like I am critical of my works, but that is because I can be. I made it, I can critique it. But, I think I did a very good job of feeding people and not poisoning them.
I would like to, one year, claim that I made everything. But I am still thankful that people brought desserts. I do not particularly care for mashed potatoes (I massively prefer stuffing) but it was nice of others to bring potatoes for the majority of people who do.
I’ll try and do better next year.

So I was told that if something is bothering me, I should journal it. The act of writing it out will take it off my mind. It doesn’t have to be public, but here we are.
I was at a party over the weekend, and photographs were taken. They’ve been posted onto Facebook. I’m in some of them, and there is one that is fantastic. Except my watch, my great big triathlon watch, is clearly visible and detracts from the awesomeness of the picture. Comments have been made that it destroys the shot.
I can’t argue with any of that. I should have taken it off before being in the pictures.
But the comments that bother me the most is people deriding the very concept of a watch. At a party I shouldn’t care what the time is. A cellphone is a replacement watch.
I feel I should address that… in this place where none of the commenters will read it. Just humour me.
I need to know the time and date. If I do not, I get antsy. Call it a time fetish if you will, but that is part of who I am. A cellphone is not a good replacement for several reasons. Firstly, it is not attached to my body, so it is far to easy to not have it next to you. Second, a cellphone needs to be turned on to display the time; a watch is specialized in always displaying the time.
Thank you for letting me get that out of my system.

I figure that today (well yesterday now) is the one day I’m allowed to be cranky. The whole, another year older thing, allows me that liberty.
Part of this may be due to a poor choice back in St. Patrick’s day.
I met a girl a year ago that was beautiful and had a lot of the same interests as myself. But, she had a boyfriend. However, they had broken up by March, and I attended a St. Patrick’s day get-together that she organized at a bar. This would have been a great time to ask her out. Except it was crystal clear that she was not ready to date. She was still emotionally damaged from the breakup. She needed time to get herself together. Trying to date someone that fragile would be wrong.
I found out yesterday that she has a boyfriend now. The other guy at the St. Patrick’s day party. The one who suggested going downtown to another bar by the time I was exhausted from socializing.
Obviously, I did the wrong thing. I should not have cared and just asked her out. Maybe I was just trying to find an excuse not to get rejected. But the fact of the matter is, he has a girlfriend now. I do not.

For eight years in a row, I went to Jamaica for the first week in November. I go with a group organized by one guy. However, the past three times I’ve gone, it has been disappointing. It hasn’t been bad, but it has gotten more expensive and nothing seems to improve. Still, I had a lot of friends that were great to see. I met a lot of good people over the years.
Since it was so disappointing three years ago, a splinter group formed. They weren’t trying to make money, but just get together with friends at a different place, and try and do it as cheaply as possible. They started going to the Dominican Republic. The first event was two years ago, and it was great. The latest one was two weeks ago, and I had a blast there. I was astounded at how many of the Jamaican people had also decided to go there instead. I’m almost expecting that the Jamaican event is going to have very few people.
Because, for the first time in eight years, I decided to give Jamaica a pass. The event is happening right now. Part of me is regretting not going. I see from some other friends a few pictures from the event. I don’t think there are many people there, but there are a few surprises.
The organizer never updated the event page with a list of who was going. If I had known, I might have changed my mind. Maybe it is for the best. Attending is a woman I knew from before, and even stayed with in L.A. back in April 2010, before I got hit by a lot of unexpected drama. It would be nice to see her again, but maybe it would be better if I never did again.
But you always wonder about these things.