Today I am thankful for the elastic waistband

Oh ... my ... God ... I am fat and old.

Here I am, lounging around on a Saturday night, watching Peanuts movies on the Family Channel, and I had to change into my sweat pants because I've been overeating for a week.

Burrrrrp. Oh yeah ... that's better.

I got an early jump on Thanksgiving last weekend, cooking up such fare for Moss, myself, and I as roast chicken, mashed potatoes with horseradish and sour cream, Polish cabbage and egg noodles with more sour cream, shepherd's pie, a few ham and fried egg and swiss cheese sandwiches ... and then Thursday happened, with the shrimp cocktail, creamed pickled herring, and sardines and crackers before dinner (us Swedes ... that's how we roll -- obscenely piscinely) ... along with chips, dips, chips, salsa, and the occasional radish, scallion, baby carrot, and cherry tomato ... and then the standard turkey dinner with stuffing, gravy, potatoes, gravy, succotash, broccoli in cheese sauce, rolls and butter, candied yams, and cranberry sauce ... and thennn ... pumpkin pie and red velvet cake for dessert. Not to mention the beer and wine. Lots of beer and wine, all week long.

Don't look at me. I'm ... hideous. Grotesque.

OK, enough of that. I still have leftover turkey and potatoes and gravy to dispatch. Plus one last wedge of pie. And maybe I'll roast some broccoli to assuage the conscience. Or brussels sprouts. I have a bag of fresh brussels sprouts I haven't dented yet. Anyway, we're on a schedule here! No crumb must go uneaten this weekend! And no alcoholic beverage shall escape the filtering labors of my liver!

Yeah. So I crated up the cats and headed up north to the far far far north burbs for Thanksgiving, which was pretty calm and peaceful, and gluttonous. Well, not so peaceful for the cats, who were still sleeping off the excitement today. Mingus had spent a couple weeks up there recently, while Piper was convalescing, so he was right at home. "Hey! I know this place! Toys! Food! Attention! Goofy old fat white cat to chase! Yayyy!" Piper was more timid and 'fraidy. She spent most of the time hiding behind the couch, only venturing out to eat up the last of the summer catnip and dig up some houseplants.

But family harmony prevailed this year. For one thing, my dad and I discovered we share a rare political commonality, in that we both aren't crazy about Obama. For different reasons, of course, and to different degrees. My dad, being a right-winger, can't stand him. I, being lefty to the core, am merely unhappy with the rightward lurch he's taken since ... well ... since his Senate term started in 2005. And I suppose dad has more reason to be disgruntled than I do. He thinks his world has been turned upside down. Whereas I ... don't. Both divergent sides of that viewpoint coin being the nut of our respective discontents. But you take your commonality where you can find it. It beats the yelly "America: love it or leave it" lecture I used to routinely get as an argumentative youngster.

Ah, memories. And speaking of which, Family Channel showed "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" tonight, which I haven't seen since I don't remember when. But I remember the first time I saw it, which was sometime in 1970, at the no-longer-extant Waukegan Drive-In. It was the first movie my parents took me to see. Not a bad start.