The Days After Thanksgiving

The day after Thanksgiving, Elaine and I had Mom & Don, Katherine, Adrienne, and Pop Pop over to our house to celebrate our Austin connections and watch the Texas vs. Texas A&M football game. Katherine and Adrienne decided to be a bit ornery and root for the Aggies, just because Pop Pop rooted for Miami over Virginia Tech a few weeks earlier. Fortunately their rooting wasn’t enough to prevent Texas to pull out the win and keep their undefeated record in tact. Elaine and I made pork tenderloin with cranberry sauce for dinner after the game, which we somehow managed to find room to eat after gorging ourselves the night before at Nancy & Danny’s.

On Saturday, we all went over to Mom & Don’s to meet Mom's new cat, Squirrel Nutkin; play with Katherine's dog, Tamu; eat bbq pork; and watch the Virginia Tech vs. UNC football game. Katherine, Adrienne and Darius also played the “drink a shot of vodka every time someone scores” game, which led to 10 shots and much hilarity for the rest of us. Pop Pop enjoyed the most highs and lows that resulted from the game. Katherine and Adrienne decided they needed many pictures with Pop Pop, one of which, taken by Darius involved this exchange:

Darius: “Adrienne, you’ll have to move your boob off of Pop Pop’s head for the picture.”

Pop Pop: “Darius, you talk too much.”

If that was one of the highs of the game for Pop Pop, one of the lows would have to be waking up in the middle of the night with what he thought was Katherine’s dog Tamu jumping into bed with him, only to find out that it was Darius stumbling into the wrong bedroom. Ahh … the joys of Virginia Tech drinking games.

On Sunday, the last day of our post-Thanksgiving celebrations, Elaine and I went over to 813 E. Capitol to have lunch and celebrate Dad’s 62nd birthday with Rodney, Claudine, Evelyn, Jimmy Jackson, and Merrily. Katherine, suffering the after effects of the previous night’s revelry, managed to rouse herself out of bed and make it all the way down town. She even had enough energy to give Dad his present, but as soon as the food was served, her hang-over won out and she headed back up to Silver Spring and the comfort of her own bed.


(click here to see all the pictures, or here for the slideshow)