Digesting the Holiday

Freezing our Butts off at the Grand Canyon
Originally uploaded by EdnPHX.

I had a great week with the family, well, part of my family. As you may know from my last post, I was expecting the arrival of my mom, little sister and older brother. Unfortunately, my little brother and older sister had to endure the early winter blizzard back in Cleveland. (Another reminder of why I live in Phoenix). We had a great Thanksgiving. The Jennie-O turkey was a hit. It cooked perfect and did exactly what is said it was supposed to do: Freezer to Oven to Delicious. Definitely going to do one of those birds next year. Here are a couple crazy stories (Cliff-Notes versions) that came out of the latest family adventures:

Thursday night we decided to do what every other American family does after Thanksgiving dinner: vege out on the couch watching TV. Bravo was doing a “My Life On The “D” List” with Kathy Griffin marathon that night. We ended up watching like 4 or 5 episodes of the show. We all laughed our asses off at the show. I guess good humor does run in the family. What was funny was that my brother Neil noticed that the background music in the show was actually his music. For you who don’t know, my brother is a professional musician. So, my brother stops us all from watching the show and goes “Oh my god, THAT’S MY MUSIC!!!” We all looked at him like the triptosan from the turkey had some weird effect on him. But, as luck would have it, it was his music. So there’s a crazy 6 degrees of separation our family has with Kathy Griffin. Who knew? (And now Neil knows why he’s getting those ASCAP checks.) www.neilzaza.com

Friday, my sister Anne and I traveled up to Las Vegas for an overnighter. We got my TL to over 100mph on some of the roads going up there. Made it there in 3 hours 45 minutes (aka: WARP 8). We checked in and went to lunch at Mesa at Caesars. It was an ok meal….nothing spectacular. But, what was spectacular were all the hot straight men crawling all over the place. I don’t know, it could have been the 5 Bacardi Limon and diets, or they could of genuinely been really hot. (I think they were really hot) Either case, we were having fun and letting out hair down. Then my sister introduces me to the $5 Blackjack tables. My little sister is a competitive demon on the blackjack table. She’s damn good. Spent about an hour or so there and then went shopping. Vegas does have some good shopping. But what makes this trip crazy is the fact that after all that drinking and shopping and gambling, we ended up passing out in the hotel room and NOT going out to PURE (a big fancy club in Vegas) which I had us on the list for. (I have connections). Out intent was to take a power “disco” nap at 8pm and be at the club by 11pm. We ended up waking up at 1:30am. Bummer. But, we did have a fabulous breakfast and got some good sleep. We had fun, which is all I intended the trip to be.. And didn’t feel any “clubbers guilt” for not going. Plus we had energy to do what we ended up doing the next day.

The next day, we started our journey home to Phoenix. (By the way, my mom and Neil took an overnight trip to Sedona….just in case you were wondering if we just up and left them…which we didn’t, of course) About 90 miles into Arizona, we passed a sign that said: GRAND CANYON 166 MILES. I looked at my sister and she looked at me. We both said “Let’s go see the Grand Canyon!” So with a couple punches into the Navigation System, and we were on our way! My sister Anne and I are both the types to just get up and do those spur of the moment things. And this was one of those times. So, we high tailed it to the Grand Canyon and took some awesome pics. We made it just before the sun was setting….perfect timing! It was about 29 degrees when we got there….it was friggn’ cold. So we stayed about 15 minutes took some pictures and then bolted back to Phoenix. Not before we made fun of all the foreigners in their rented cars in the Grand Canyon Parking Lot. We crack ourselves up on how un “pc” we can be. I put about 800 miles on my car…and it was totally worth it.

So today they left, and it’s sad to see them go. I had a great time with my family and it reminds me of why I love them all so much: alcohol. (kidding) Actually a family that drinks together, stays together…well, at least in my family. I just hope I can get my drinking tolerance up enough for the Christmas trip back to Ohio in 3 weeks. I’m looking forward to a tall beer at the Winking Lizard and some good wings….which we don’t seem to have out here in Arizona. And I have to loose 3000 pounds before I go out there, cause my mom cooks up a storm. Ah…..Christmas is coming soon. But right now my biggest dilemma is this: Do I put up Christmas decorations this year? Eh, who knows….I just might.