Thanksgiving 2005

There is nothing that inspires me to write more than recounting the zany antics of my crazy, beautiful family and friends. Since the holidays have broght us together again, I have no shortage of material here, so there will be many Thanksgiving-related posts. I cribbed the above image from Josh's blog, Carpathian Kitten Loss. Hope you don't mind buddy.

The Prince's Palace

The is the same prince by the way who is sitting next to me eating a plate of left over Turkey and Stuffing at 9:12am Friday morning. Wednesday night I finally arrived at my brother's new apartment in Stamford, CT. I had a long, horrible day at the office, then proceeded to get on the wrong commuter train, so I had to call LittleBrother from the train to tell me to pick me up at another station than the one we had planned up. He was pretty cool about the whole thing. As we entered my brother's apartment building, he pointed out his ammenities to me like his numbered parking spot, storage room, and laundry facilities. When he finally opened the door to his place, there really wasn't much I could to except stand there and say "Wow. This is big. This is really big." Basically, my humble little Brooklyn studio could fit inside his apartment twice. Of course, it is still the place where my brother lives and so is decorated nearly entirely with sports memorbilia and furniture he yoinked from every relative we have.

"Wow, I remember those lamps from the house on Long Lane. Where did you get them?"

"Dad had them in the basement."

"Hey, where did this table come from?"

"Cousin Joe. And Uncle Sam just totally gave me this chair. Cool, right?" Not really, but I guess it goes well with the framed Basketball cards, your sneaker collection and the pencil portrait of the cast of The Sopranos.

"Wow, you have a dishwasher?" I asked. "That's awesome. I'd love to have a dishwasher."

"Never run it," said my Brother, which seemed kind of strange because I know he does a lot of cooking. "I only roll with paper," he said opening a cabinet door. "Paper plates, paper bowls, paper cups. Plastic forks, spoons, and knives," he said pointing. "Clean up is a snap."

"Oh my God," I said laughing. "Please tell me you're kidding. You are like the lazziest asshole ever."

"It's great. At the end of the night , I just throw everything away."

"Well, sometimes I use a paperplate when I have one left over from parties, but I always feel bad because it is so wasteful."

"Nope, see, that's the problem. You've got to get that idea right out of your head."

Later that night I was using the bathroom and I noticed a huge dent/hole in the bathroom door. It was at a very strange level in the door. "Hey, why does it look like someone kicked a hole in your door?" I asked the LittleBrother.

"Well, because someone kind of kicked a hole in the door." I tried to imagine a circumstance wherein my brother would kick in a door in his own new apartment. Still it seemed even more unlikely that his girlfriend had done the dammage in a fit of rage one night.

"Um, was it you?" I asked.

"Nah, Adam passed out in my bathroom and that's where his head hit the door."

"Oh," I said. Adam is my brother's best friend and I assume he had been up for a visit recently.

"At least, that's what we think happened. We were all so fucked up. We had to try to recreate the incident the next morning with a dry erase board to figure out where everyone was."

"So, what you're saying is, that was a real high quality door to begin with..."

Next: my brother loves cheap crap, but hates Mexicans