Monday, November 28, 2005

there was no work...

and it was sooooo good. These past four days of no work, no calls, no blackberry messages, no last minute assignments were exactly what I needed- a recharging of the spirit. I love my job, but lately I'd begun to feel that drain, that tiredness that doesn't let up even when you get out of work at a semi-reasonable time of night. Last weekend I realized that I needed more than one day off of work, I needed a good couple of days free of the computer and agreements and clients. Despite some false alarms on Wednesday night, I did get my few days away from work and I feel much better.

This year's Thanksgiving was a new experience for us. Josh's exam schedule and my crazy work schedule kept us from traveling to either Florida or California to visit family, so we decided to stick around the area and visit nearby friends. As Josh spoke to his classmates and found that many of them, particularly some of his foreign friends, had nowhere to go for the holiday, he began extending invitations for people to come to our house. We ended up hosting a whole contingent of students from all over the world- India, Mexico, Columbia and Argentina.

Frankly, last week I was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing. Not only did I have to prepare a whole Thanksgiving dinner, I had to prepare it without my mother-in-law hovering over me giving advice. Plus, as international students, they were wholly unfamiliar with the whole Thanksgiving thing. They had to pick their eyes up off of the floor when I told them we were eating at 4pm. "Four?" Asked one incredulously, "I take my afternoon tea at four!" So I told them not to eat for the whole day in preparation of their Thanksgiving feast.

My fears were for naught, because the dinner went off without a hitch and they were suitably impressed with Thanksgiving and all its spoils. We played Pictionary afterwards, followed by an unsatisfactory game of Scene It. Turns out that foreigners don't do well with games about U.S. movies- go figure.

Friday was spent shopping shopping shopping, Saturday was spent cleaning the house and saying goodbye to a friend moving abroad, and Sunday was spent vegetating around the house and admiring our new television. Her name is Wanda. And I organized my cds, because that could be done in front of Wanda.

Oh, and I put white lights around our railings on the front stoop. Given our half-Jewish family, we don't do much in the way of Christmas decorations, but the husband consented to some decorative white lights, and so I put them up, cursing all the time at the freezing weather and tangled bulbs. We're festive though!

Now I am back at work, ready to take on all client requests and deadlines. I probably have another 25 days in me, then I'll need another mini-vacation.

Hope your weekends were fabulous and restful as well!

13 comments:

Suzanne said...

I'm glad you had that much-needed respite. You can only go so long without recharging your batteries.

Your international Thanksgiving sounds lovely! How nice of you to open up your home like that.

Phantom Scribbler said...

I am so bleeping impressed that you pulled off a Thanksgiving for all those people without even a mother-in-law to help! Did Josh cook, too???

halloweenlover said...

Josh helped a little bit, mostly with the turkey because since I'm not eating turkey anymore I refused to handle it. I stood there and told him exactly what to do, but he did the actual seasoning and basting of the turkey under my direction.

I made everything else, including a tofurkey! The Tofurkey was actually delicious!

Running2Ks said...

That was incredible. I love that you had an party created on the fly like that. I think those are the best (sometimes) because you don't have any pressure--just people having fun and pitching in. Nice to hear Tofurkey is good--you are the second person I ever heard to say that.

I'd love to see your festive decorations. And I hope people are just drifting to holiday mode again at work so you can vacation there :)

blackbird said...

and you are upset that you didn't get to post for show and tell?
my dear,
I think it is so nice that you hosted people who had no celebration to go to!
So kind...
I'll bet it was a wonderful meal.

ccw said...

This sounds like a wonderful holiday, despite not having your family. It was so generous of you and Josh to open your home.

I love that the TV has a name. I always name our Christmas trees, but I have never named a TV.

Yankee, Transferred said...

I love the holiday gatherings for friends. We call our house The Pine Street Inn (have you lived in the Boston area long enough to know of it?). We started out with 27 on our guest list but a group shifted to someone's grandmother's house so we ended up with 14. It was fun. I took 5 days off. It was great!

Natalie said...

ahh...the meal sounds delightful (even the Tofurkey, which is still somewhat of a mystery to me....).

Glad you had a much needed rest, I completely understand. Sometimes you just need to recharge your internal batteries.

Peggy said...

You call all you did resting? I am tired just reading about it. Sounds like you had a great weekend

halloweenlover said...

Nino, I love calling them the "foreigners". I also call my parents foreigners, but we pronounce is forEGGners as a joke.

Gawdessness said...

Wow! I don't think "there was no work" is an accurate description but it sounds like so much fun.

Loved reading about it. I can see how scene it wouldn't work but pictionary would.

R.H. said...

RH is a foreigner in his own country. Mainly because he has never seen an episode of Desperate Housewives. Well he doesn't have to; his neighborhood is full of them, carryings-on everywhere. But not for him; not for RH.
Yes, well, he is a bit of a weirdo, RH. Strange chap. Should be quite a hit in Greenwich Village - hopefully with Desperate Singles.
(Oh golly)

nancy said...

I always named my bicycles. Your day 'off' sounds decadent. You are much more efficient at recharging your batteries than me. Good for you!