And so it seems that India isn't going to happen. I had my doubts. But the reasoning was that I'm not yet old enough to "take responsibility for myself" in a country that is so far away. Which means that the water in India is bad and my parents don't approve of their daughters visiting countries with bad water. They'll stay with the white people countries of Western Europe, thank you. That's mostly true, but I'm giving them a hard time. Just because I understand the logic doesn't mean that I'm not disappointed or that I agree. I need to learn not to attach myself so completely to countries when I don't yet have a plane ticket. But the oranges and yellows were so consuming, and then there was the Indian market down the road, Taj India (my new favorite restaurant), and Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. Carolyn and I even had a Bollywood party and watched such atrocities as Main Hoon Na and I later watched Kal Ho Naa Ho (clip 10 & 11 are especially revealing). She made me a CD of Punjabi Hit Squad. India has seeped into my life.

But instead, I've been promised a trip to France, the country with whom I have an ongoing love affair, with my sister and Rainier to visit his family. As it was, if my parents had agreed to India, I would have had to choose between the two, and a parentless all-sister-all-the-time trip to France is pretty hard to pass up. So at least I still have something to look forward to. And believe me, I'm really excited.

Saw Sideways tonight. (Tired of the links yet?) Had my second pumpkin spice latte. I'm a Starbucks whore, America. You can get over it. And, after discovering that the program works, I did a lot of shameless downloading (so now I'm listening to Suzanne Vega's "Caramel" and anticipating the release of Closer.) America, I'm a cinema whore too. You can get over it. So I check the schedules every Wednesday and Friday. So I watch trailers on the apple website in my free time. America, my whoreness knows no bounds.

Mostly I'm wondering how we've made it to Thursday (well...in half an hour...) without me knowing. Tomorrow is the usual Thanksgiving stuff. We're going to my uncle's at noon, but there's no telling what that means. With my family, we won't start eating for at least an hour, and once the food is served there's a good two hours of eating and then socializing afterward. My uncle (my dad's older brother, not the younger one that stays with me in the fall when my parents go out of town) just recently painted his living room this electric blue color. Think...well...think this:



Roughly. And they have a lot of oddly matched furniture with yellow silk upholstery and asian-ish designs. They're going to hang a kimono and an asian scroll painting on the wall. It's not so much that the furniture or the wall color is ugly...just more museum-y. It's shocking to see it in someone's house. Maybe when he dies and they discover that he was secretly a well-written philosopher and he becomes famous in death, they'll recreate the room in an art museum.

But yeah...that's where we're having Thanksgiving. Every year the responsibilities get split up -- someone will bring the dressing, someone else will bring the sweet potato casserole, someone else brings fruit salad. This year my dad is bringing stuffed grape leaves, a lebanese favorite in this household, and my uncle, who's planning it, is very fond of them as well. They're delicious, but the fact that we're having them at Thanksgiving makes me wonder what the rest of the meal will be like...I guess I'll have to report back tomorrow.

Grape leaves. For Thanksgiving. In an electric blue room with oddly matched furniture and a family in denial of its Southern roots. We'll see what sort of interesting stories it yields.


In other news, I have a blister on my toe. Does anyone know how long it takes for those things to go away? I was thinking it might be good to wear shoes sometime soon.

This is one of those posts where I had something important to say...or thought I did...but then got distracted. Know that I would apologize if it weren't blatantly obvious that I didn't mean it by the fact that this has been posted and that you're reading it.