Tonight, I spent a wonderful evening at the Melting Pot with Kim and Gretchen, just gorging ourselves on the wonderful array of choices that was placed in front of us. For starters, we had the cheddar cheese fondue. My personal favorite is the fiesta cheese fondue, but what we had was second on my list so I was satisfied. Next, we all split an entree of chicken and vegetables with the hot oil. I’ve never had it with the oil so it was pretty cool. We would batter our vegetables and chicken and fry them in the fondue pot. Now, my favorite part came at the end: the chocolate fondue. We chose the Flaming Turtle (milk chocolate, caramel, pecans, then set on fire). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to eat as much of the chocolate fondue as I had hoped for because of everything that I had eaten beforehand. Sigh. But Kim did say that she would pay me $1 if I ate a spoonful of the chocolate (she said that I could let it cool off, how thoughtful of her). As if I would turn down a spoonful of chocolate or $1. Pay up she did!

I tell you what, it was great catching up with both of them. I hadn’t seen Gretchen since her wedding and a lot has happened since then. We were able to swap mother-in-law horror stories. I know her pain and she knows mine, we are sisters in the trenches, battling a neverending war against our enemy. Poor Kim, I think we scared her away from marriage. Kim, I promise, it’s not as bad as it sounds, IT’S WORSE! Just kidding!

From Tuesday until Friday, Bob will be in Honolulu, soaking in the sun, playing on the beach, drinking Mai Tais out of Buddha glasses. Where will I be? Oh, that’s right, here in St. Louis, in 30 degree weather. Bob is being sent out there for a couple of days to work, so actually, he really won’t be able to enjoy Hawaii. Isn’t that cruel? To only be there for two days and not be able to have fun? So, what’s a girl to do without her husband for the week? That’s right! Shop! I’m in the market for new shoes, I’m thinking three or four new pairs will comfort my loneliness. And also dinners with some of my friends. Already on the agenda, Melting Pot for Tuesday. Can’t wait for that, Kim and Gretchen! And I’m in the process of making plans with Kit, who I haven’t talked to in forever. This is a fabulous time for me to exercise my independence. Yea!

Last night, we had Thanksgiving dinner with Bob’s parents at their house. It was definitely a spread. We had all of the fixins’: turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, stuffing, you get the gist. Dinner began around 5:30 pm and I was sleepy by 6:30. But, there was no rest to be had. Michael, Bob’s little cousin, whipped out this game, Apples to Apples, Jr for us to play. Apparently, there is an adult version, which I’m thinking is more entertaining. But, like all adults who have to indulge the younger ones, we all played. We were able to cut out a little early because we had tickets to see Harry Potter at the IMAX! We had bought tickets earlier to see it with Krissy, Kenny and Katie. Here is Bob’s review on the movie.

Bob: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was pretty awesome. While the plot jumped around a bit (a consquence of stuffing a billion page book into 2.5 hrs of screen time), the action scenes were incredible and the confrontation with You-Know-Who was badass. I haven’t read the book, but was warned not to read it before seeing the movie, as there was so much left out. Jen filled in the troublesome gaps for me, and now, I believe, I will finally make some time to catch up on the Potter books.

A note on the IMAX at Ronnies: it was cool, yes, but I don’t think it was worth $3 more than the Megascreen down at Galaxy in the valley.

I have decided that we are insane. Who in their right minds would get up at the ass crack of dawn to go shopping? WE DID! If one is going to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving, one must have a game plan. Strategic planning began Thanksgiving evening when I bought the paper to check out the ads. As we looked through the various ads, we ruled out some stores, contemplated other stores and argued whether or not to buy the 42″ LCD flat screen TV. Once that was all done, then the real planning began: Kohls opened at 5 am, Target at 6 am and Old Navy/the mall at 7 am. It would be quick strikes, spend enough time at each store to grab what we needed and head for the registers.

Friday morning began. The alarm went off. We snoozed it. The alarm went off again. Snooze. Alarm. Snooze. Alarm. Damnit, gotta get up.

As we stumbled outside, freezing our butts off, half-blind because it was still pitch black outside, we thought to ourselves, “It won’t be too bad. Not many people will be up this early to go to Kohls.”

HA! We were amateurs. We knew nothing of this phenomenon they call Black Friday. As you can see above, we were standing in line at 5:45 am! That was only the beginning. Target was even worse. When we got there around 6:15, the registers were already packed! Crowds everywhere, hands grabbing things off the shelves, the chaos! Madness, I tell you, madness! By the time we were ready to check out, the line for the registers extended all the way back to the Electronics Department. We were fortunate to check out in the Express Lane due to Bob’s restriction on the number of items I was allowed to purchase. On to the St. Louis Mills. Unlike the other two stores we hit, the Mills was actually very tame, it was as if people forgot about this place. It was great! We were able to decompress and walk around.

Finally, after five hours of shopping, we made it home in once piece, albeit much poorer than we started, but at least we are still alive. Bob was a real trooper. I was so surprised that he did not complain once to me about the stupidity of the people around us. So, as a reward, I didn’t wake him up when he promptly went to bed as soon as we got home. Will we do this for the after Christmas sale? I don’t think so.

Tonight, we spent Thanksgiving with my family Chinese style: hotpot and then some rounds of Mah Jong. For those of you who don’t know what hotpot is, it’s like fondue but without the pretentiousness. Basically, people gather around a pot of boiling broth and proceed to throw whatever they want to eat into the pot. Boiling water, chopsticks, an open flame, meats, vegetables and family time, what more do you need for Thanksgiving? Of course, we had to play Mah Jong with my mom. She enjoys the game and doesn’t play at all anymore. I had to write out a cheat sheet for Bob because the characters are all in Chinese. Don’t feel like he’s at a disadvantage because he can’t read Chinese, the man does just fine. After hanging out at my parents’ house for the past three-and-a-half years, I do have to say that I’m impressed that Bob can understand a lot more Chinese than I give him credit for. Sure, he can’t translate word for word, but he seems to understand the gist of what everyone is saying. What a great Chinese son-in-law! I’ve trained him well!