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Sunday, November 30

I'm back from my Thanksgiving trip! I'm sure everyone missed me. I packed up on Tuesday night and drove six hours on Wednesday to my hometown. The drive there was largely uneventful, except for my amazement at the rudeness and impatience of some travelers. I had one car honk at me outside a McDonald's even though I was clearly in the crosswalk, and then there was the incident with the semi . . . Some guy in a harvest truck pulling a trailer of grain made sure to let all of us know of his frustration that he wasn't being allowed to go 85 mph by zooming up right behind us at full speed and then applying his air brakes (you know, the really loud "thump thump thump thump" brakes). Then he'd pull back into the slow lane in a fruitless attempt to pass all of us who were already in the fast lane to pass the people in the slow lane, zoom past all of us until he hit the first slow vehicle, then try to merge back into the fast lane by simply flipping on his turn signals and expecting people to move (at one point he actually started moving over, apparently trying to intimidate people into letting him in). Of course no one would let him in, so he'd be stuck behind the slow vehicle until he could merge back into the fast lane, so we wouldn't see him for 10 minutes, then he'd come zooming up behind us again. This went on for about 45 minutes and I was pretty happy when he finally pulled off the Interstate.

Thanksgiving itself was pretty good. It was a smaller crowd than normal (we had two families gone, one to a wedding in Arizona and one to the other side of the family's gathering), but we still had a full house. And plenty of food. I thought I was doing really good with the berry pie I made (my second pie!), until I discovered that my mom made *six* pies (in roughly the same time . . .), in addition to all of the other food. I got to see some cousins I hadn't seen in awhile, and managed to bite my tongue whenever someone said something that betrayed the prejudices that I've tried hard to work out of my system (case in point, my aunt Cindy bragged at length about the Halloween that she dressed herself and several of my siblings/cousins as *slaves* with black face paint and ragged clothes - such insensitivity and ignorance is staggering . . .). I astounded most of the family with my amazing ability to hook up my digital camera to the television and show the pictures I'd taken (that amused them for like half an hour). All in all it was a good gathering (no fights, no hurt feelings).

On Friday I helped my mother string her outside Christmas lights in what has become an annual tradition (which basically involves her dragging all of her lights out, shaking the strands that don't work until they come on and handing them to me as I balance on a stepladder to attach them to the edge of the roof). I told her next year I'm bringing her all new sets (she told me I'm not allowed to, but then it's not her money, is it?). I visited with my grandparents for awhile in the evening and listened to some of my grandfather's war stories (after we had to go back out to the vehicle and call them to come unlock the door because they couldn't hear us knocking over the sound of the washing machine). On Saturday I visited one of my father's job sites with my mom and my sister, and then we drove around town for awhile (which didn't really take that long - Oshkosh is pretty small) before I packed up for the six-hour drive back. The drive back was uneventful (no frustrated truck drivers this trip), and I was happy to be able to listen to the radio again (I'm used to having 10 radio stations that I actually like; in western Nebraska my radio would only pick up four stations, two of country and two religious, so I listened to a lot of CDs . . .).

I should have some photos up sooner or later. For now I'm just unwinding and unpacking (and finding all of the notes my mother hid in my stuff - I'm up to 3 so far . . .).