How did my Thanksgiving go? AWESOME.

Okay, it took me awhile to get this written up and Photoshopped and put into a photo album. In fact, it's going up as my first Holidailies entry because odds are I won't have time to write on on Dec. 1 itself (as you'll see, I'm REALLY @#$@#%# busy most of this weekend, so having something prewritten would be great).

Yes, I signed up for Holidailies, even if I'm going to be gone on certain days. Dangit, I just can't drop that habit of being productive, especially since after the Death Drama ended, I only post about twice a month any more.

Anyway... on to the entry!

As was briefly-yet-previously mentioned, this year my mom and I did not spend Thanksgiving sitting around at my aunt's watching the dog show on television, but went off by ourselves into the big city of San Francisco for dinner and an overnighter at the Hilton (thank you, Mom buying a vacation timeshare and wanting points for it. Incidentally, Thanksgiving at the Hilton is a surprisingly cheap stay).

It was a surprisingly traffic-free day, so us having a 2-hour head start on getting there before our lunch/dinner reservation at 12:30 meant that we had plenty of time to stroll around the wharf. The weather was actually lovely in SF- not too frigid, not too windy, not even cloudy! Go figure.

I saw a few silly things going down the street, like dirty ads and multiple silver guys working the streets, even on Thanksgiving.

Apparently a lot of people are just strolling around (or in one case, sunbathing), enjoying the day, or riding the cable car, in SF. It was really pleasant, and definitely a change from the aforementioned TV-watching all day I'm used to.

We even found an open souvenir shop on the wharf, and looked at silly merchandise. Yes, some shopping was done on Thanksgiving itself.

Lunch/dinner (we arrived at 12:30, which was a pretty good time to arrive because things were almost full by around 1-1:30) was at McCormick and Kuletos, a lovely place to eat at that doesn't even require reservations at Thanksgiving. By the time we left (around 2), the place was hopping, but there was still room if someone else wanted to come in. Lots of huge families were in there, eating seafood, or not.

We did get the turkey dinner, and it was quite good. Scrumptious potatoes, and for the first time EVER, I found the turkey to be moist and tasty. I normally don't get why anyone makes a big stink about eating turkey, but this time it was good, even if I did miss getting seconds on stuffing the way I normally do. (Oh well, I freaking make myself stuffing uh, pretty often the rest of the year.) The dessert (I ordered chocolate cake) was pretty dry, but everything else was yummy. I'd highly recommend the place.

Afterwards, we wandered around Ghiradelli Square for awhile. We went into a high-class glass store, where I found a lot of ginormous glass bongs, some of which were going for $150-250. This amused me no end because in my NaNo novel this year, one character makes ginormous glass bongs. I am pleased to see that my character could actually make himself money in The Big City for real (or would have, had he not uh, died).

There was an amusing moment where we spotted a fellow that we get awesome Celtic jewelry from going into Ghiradelli- all the funnier considering that he's moved to Hawaii. How random.

For the last few hours of daylight, we went to the botanical gardens and wandered around, looking at the wildlife and the occasional flower.

When it grew dark, we headed off to the Hilton. Mom paid an extra $20 or so for a good view, which was totally worth it (especially when I went wandering later around the other areas). Here's what we saw in daylight from 40 stories up:

For actual dinner, we got room service and lounged around, watching Ugly Betty.

It was a totally satisfying day, with a minimum of crying and sadness. Distraction, fun, and new things were just awesome. I definitely want to do this again next year, though we shall see. I highly recommend it to anyone else.

The next day, we went shopping in Union Square, but mostly Macy's, where we proceeded to get stuff for ourselves, but nothing for anyone else. (To be fair, some attempts were made, but everyone's so dang picky that we ended up giving up on that. Some people are getting gift certificates, that's all I'm saying.) I got a few jackets, Mom got skirts, we both got wacky ornaments. We also attempted to eat in the basement food court, which was far crazier than any of the shopping being done upstairs.

As for the rest of the weekend, well, we went to craft fairs and whored it up big time. I tried to restrain myself on shopping since I had two in a day and a third one coming up (this weekend), mostly sticking to jewelry.

I also ended up getting a present early. Mom had asked me at some point if I wanted something "big" for Christmas. I didn't know what she meant (I was rooting for some kind of trip), but it turned out that she meant furniture. She said something about JC Penney's, furniture, and "put things in."

I assumed she meant that she wanted to give me more bookshelves, which prompted me to be all, "I already have enough furniture. I can't fit any more in. PLEASE DON'T GO OUT AND BUY ME MORE."

Well, we went to that store at one point while she debated what to get Grandma for Christmas (me: "She has no idea about anything any more. Please stop asking me what she'd like to wear."), and I wandered off into the jewelry section. Where I spotted the jewelry armoires...which I have been wanting one of for a few years now.

At which point I went over to her and said, "I take back what I said before, you can get...whatever... for me."

Um, yeah, surprise gifting just does not work for us at all any more.

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