Tales from La La Land

Just a quick update on Christmas with the family. It was a success. If you consider total chaos a success.

All four siblings — myself, Brooke, Michael and Stephanie — were in attendance. It’s the first time in over 20 years that all four of us have spent Christmas together in the same room. It’s also only about the fifth time in the last 20 years that we’ve all been together.

Brooke has two daughters — Nora and Isabel. They are the oldest of the nieces. They live in Portland, Oregon and are loving them some Hannah Montana right now.

My brother’s daughter, Avery, was also in attendance. I prefer to call her an Aross in training, but I think that makes my brother nervous. Who wants anyone to turn out like me? Probably no one. The older girls got her in the hannah vibe and her and Isabel rocked out pretty hard.

Speaking of my brother. The guy is a semi-pro poker player. He just “happened” to have a poker table top in his car. So, he busts it out and my brother-in-law, Nick, also gets excited. Because he is also semi-pro or something. My brother was trying to explain different things to me (800 mimosas later), Laef (62 Blue Moons later), Art (several hundred Early Times on the rocks later) and Neal (many Pepsis’ into the night).

Now, Mike’s wife, Amy, was not to keen on the idea of poker. Probably because he brought the table in around 10 p.m. and I’m pretty sure he’s been known to roll in from poker games at 3 a.m. The next day was Christmas, which means a 6 a.m. wake up call from all the young peeps. So, Amy made it pretty clear to my brother that he better hurry his ass home.

So, he took about four minutes and took every last penny from all of us. It was quite a show and quite embarrassing, I must admit.

After the shark left, the boys played more cards. This time it was change-only.

My parents had a friend dress up as Santa to come over the kids, and after a few tears of complete fear and a couple of baffled looks from the older kids, it was a success.

All in all, it was really fun. Although, I’m not sure if Art had as much “fun” seeing as he was constantly cleaning up after us, vacuuming, losing money, cooking, etc. I think he was happy when the chaos ended.

My friend Andrew is a ginger…er..I mean, a red head. No lie the quest to find out the secret name for his, um, friend down below has been an eight-year debate. The Mrs. L-T will not give it up and despite a lot of guesses, we still don’t know. So, I’m looking for all the possibilities that a red-head could have for a nickname of his “best friend.”

Amy, please remind me of all the guesses.

1. Big Red
2. Clifford
3. Ginger snap
4. Huge Red
5. Pinkberry

Oh, if it will help you guess, this is him:

This is exactly what Laef didn’t want. On many occasions he has asked about my myspace blogs and why they don’t mention “us” or more normal things than, say, my adolescent adventures.

Heather E. has a blog that Laef reads regularly. She was married two years ago. Don’t write in and correct me if I’m wrong, we’re just getting into the whole send-out-cards-for-friends thing. I have it written down somewhere, but this is not a fact-checking blog. Anyway, Heather details a lot of things about her life with her husband. And, it’s hilarious.

So, I debate. Do I write about certain things or do I not? I do not want to embarrass him (or ourselves), but I think for the most part, we live a pretty normal, happy life and go through the same things as a lot of other couples.

Exhibit A.

Video Games. A lot of things fall into this category. X-box. Nintendo. Wii. Guitar Hero. I don’t know what it is, but once it starts, it’s like DAYS of entertainment. He feels guilty at times, but it’s like totally awesome. He’s consumed by that and therefore I can watch Real Housewives of Orange County, Tila Tequila and Nip/Tuck. Basically, a whole lot of crap that I should NOT be watching.

Anyway, he’s playing some World of Warcraft thing, which I’m sure every guy thinks is totally awesome because it has like wizards or whatever. I personally don’t understand it and I really don’t think it goes away as one gets older. Time will tell. No lie, I had to come get him at 4 a.m. the other night.

Now, if Laef is worried about being embarrassed, let me introduce you to my friend Ben. OK, Ben’s cats. We recently received Ben and Annett’s Christmas card and the photo was not an engagement photo of them or any photo of them for that matter. It was something more like this:

Seriously. Jameson looks like he has a motorcycle helmet on. I have no words. I can’t even imagine what they’ll do to their children when that time comes.

So here’s to boys, video games and as Uma Thurman put it so eloquently in Pulp Fiction:

“That’s when you know you’ve found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.”

It looks like the kitties have that down pat. Cutest pic I’ve seen this year. Heart.

Oh, and P.S. I should mention that Laef isn’t ALL video games. He did put our Christmas lights on the the house….

My great friend, Benji, thought it’d be hilarious to post this on my myspace page.

So, I’m reposting it here. Just to point out that I’m badass and play quarters with Newcastle!

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=24194651

This is the first year that I got myself really organized and sent out Christmas cards to all my friends and made cupcakes to bring to work. I’ve been shopping for the past few weeks so I’m pretty much done. It’s the first time in at least 10 years that I feel really prepared.

A lot of that stems from the fact that when I worked in the Oregon athletic department I never had a free weekend in September, October or November. Once December rolled around, the Ducks were usually preparing for a bowl game, which would usually fall right around Christmas. So, I guess I have been somewhat detached from the holiday spirit. Not to mention, I just never had enough time to be organized to do it.

Laef and I flew to Missouri last Christmas to be with his family. They have many traditions and I really enjoyed seeing them all interact.

This year is the first time in years that I will be able to go home and enjoy the holidays. No worries of a pending bowl game or working on the softball media guide. When I realized that we’d be going to my parents, I emailed all of my siblings to see if they’d like to all go to Moms since we haven’t done that since, well, since I can’t even remember.

You would think that I was asking each of them to find a cure for AIDS, devise the Oregon game plan for the Holiday Bowl (one in which Cody Kempt throws four TDs) and adopt a baby from Darfur — all before December 25.

I have two older sisters and one younger brother. We are the American family. My oldest sister has two daughters, my next oldest sister has one daughter and two-stepchildren and my brother has a one-year old daughter and a baby boy on the way. I’m the reject living in sin with my boyfriend who is eight years my junior.

There have been arguments about everything from when to celebrate, to what kind of food to eat, to when the “big” dinner should be to how much we should spend on each other to where everyone will sleep, to who is allergic to dogs to who hates Turkey. Anything that can be debated is being debated.

And, I love it.

I guess I have this vision that despite all of the craziness in each of our lives that for those two days I will take it all in and enjoy the fact that I’m lucky. I have a family — a crazy one — that will provide epic material for this blog.

Stay tuned.

P.S. My number one favorite thing in the world right now: Pinkberry. It’s a frozen yogurt shop and the yogurt has zero fat calories. The fruit they put on top is unbelievably fresh and delicious. However, I went with the cocoa pebbles and yogurt chips the other day. It’s UNREAL.

This week marked yet another scuff on the pro career that is Joey Harrington’s. When he was traded to the Falcons I thought it’d be a good fit for him (although, I’m sure he doesn’t consider himself a back up) because he wouldn’t be front and center and wouldn’t be expected to carry a porous team to victory. And then the other Michael Vick Nike dropped and I couldn’t believe that yet again, Joey would be in the middle of a no-win situation.

I tooled out a bit and looked up Joey Heisman’s NFL wins. The guy has been a part of just 27 wins (an average of just four wins per year). To this point, his NFL record is 27-56. That is a lot of losses for a guy who changed the way the nation looked at Oregon football.

A lot of people asked me this year if I missed Oregon or if I was sad that I was missing out on all of the hype surrounding Dennis Dixon and the team. Sure, I miss certain things, but in terms of the job, I still believe to this day that those years — 2000 and 2001 — will stand as the greatest years in Oregon football.

After the Fiesta Bowl win, my boss at the time, Dave Williford, said, “Enjoy this. It wasn’t always like this and it won’t always be.”

I didn’t believe him. I had joined the Oregon staff just as they were building steam. My first year they defeated Texas in the Holiday Bowl despite the fact no one knew Oregon from Oregon State. My second year was the Fiesta Bowl season. I didn’t know any different.

And then Joey went away. And Maurice Morris. And Justin Peelle. And Wes Mallard. And Peter Sirmon. And Keenan Howry.

Sure, Oregon had some wicked talent this season. They were on a fast track to unchartered territory. But over the course of a season, things happen. Injuries happen. And the train derails. It takes so many little pieces and so many circumstances for a program like Oregon to be on the national scene. In 2000, everything went so right for the Ducks.

Since then, Oregon has used Phil Knights money to promote itself and get recognized. It buys the gadgets and the shoes to lure USCs rejects to its campus. But, somehow, over the past five years, that really hasn’t mattered. The “stuff” doesn’t matter. It doesn’t help get the blue-collar kind of guys that Oregon built its success on in 2000 and 2001.

I’m rambling, but the point is, Dave was right. And he knew it. The following year, we trekked to Seattle for the Seattle Bowl and got thumped by Wake Forest. I was no longer basking in the Arizona sun in January. I was drenched in Husky territory in early December. The year after that, I was home for the holidays enjoying no bowl. Then came the Sun Bowl (loss), Vegas Bowl (loss) and now Sun Bowl….

I guess it’s safe to say that while Joey is trying to find his way in the NFL, Oregon is trying to find its way without him.

I’m creating a new blog. I blog on myspace, but there are a lot of myspace/facebook haters out there, so this will be for the haters. I will admit that Facebook is losing it’s mind with the poking and super wall-posts and IQ tests.

Anyway, I don’t have a whole lot to say right this moment, but wanted to write something so that I could let me people know I’m on the blogging mission again. And, this one may be a little more out there. Myspace makes me nervous. Believe it or not, I censor a lot of things on there because I am not sure who’s reading.

In the spirit of the holiday’s, I guess I’ll give you a list of what I’m loving right now and maybe you’ll see a gift idea or two.

1. Chocolate peppermint cookies from Whole Foods. You only get like six cookies for $4.99, but they are worth every single penny.

2. Band of Horses. Yes, I know I’m not a cool music peep and that this band has been around for quite a while, but it caught my ear recently and the new CD (as well as the previous) is really good.

3. Illuminations candles. If they don’t have an Illumination in your town (Eugene), you can order online. For the Halloween season I had pumpkin spice and mulled wine. Now I’m using the Christmas Tree and the Cranberry Orange. Phenomenal. And, Laef really likes when I spend $30 on candles.

4. http://www.barkerandmeowsky.com/ If you know anyone with a cat or dog, this web site has the cutest gifts — everything from treats, to toys, to dishes to collars.

5. Spiced rum and egg nog with a dash of nutmeg. Yum.

That’s about it for now. Hopefully, some exciting things will happen soon.

Happy Holidays!