November 24th, 2006.

I spent Thanksgiving with Heather’s family. We spent the day playing on their new Wii system and even trying a little bit of Xbox Guitar Hero 2 action… we had the obligatory huge turkey dinner, and a little bit of non-obligatory tofurkey… it was a good night. My mom was in Houston with my brother, and I got a phone call in and spent some quality time with my mom’s voice mail. My brother and I, however, aren’t really allowed to talk until I’ve seen the new James Bond movie.

Heather and her brother Justin getting ready to shred their way through some Guitar Hero II. I was terrible at it. Though I eventually got the hang of the bass line of “Message in a Bottle”, the guitar solo of “Sweet Child of Mine” was a nightmare of missed strings. We do feel that the more time people who WOULD be great guitarists spend their time practicing Guitar Hero, the less time they have to become our workplace competition – so KEEP ON ROCKIN!!!!

Rowan and my new… coworker (oh, it chagrins me to say it!) Megan making horrific duck noises with a chanter on my first day at the House of Musical Traditions. Now – before too many people go leaping at my cred and trying to rip it to shreds, by the end of the year, I think I’ll have worked 7 days at HMT! I’m STILL A FULL-TIME TOURING MUSICIAN BITCH!!! (yes, I have some issues on this subject)

After dinner, I went over to Rowan’s and hung out with him and Christy for a couple of hours. We watched Slither. Ahem. I’m sorry. “SLiTHER”, and I decided that this was perhaps the perfect Amy movie – combining both bugs and zombies and even Nathon Fillion. The latter was Christy’s deciding factor in picking the movie out…. however, despite the fact that the recipe they used for blood sounds like it might’ve gone well as a Thanksgiving desert topping, I stress that SLiTHER wasn’t really holiday appropriate.

Why am I sleeping over at Rowan’s the night after Thanksgiving you might ask? Why am I invading their romantic Thanksgiving evening for two and leaving the family I’d spent dinner with?

Well… Rowan had mentioned that they were having trouble filling shifts at the music shop where he works, the House of Musical Traditions. Heather’s been picking up a couple of hours here and there at her mom’s knit shop (Woolstock – like Woodstock… get it? – I was going to show you the logo that Heather designed, which is a very clever take off of the original Woodstock logol, but it’s not on their website! craziness) and so, figuring it wouldn’t hurt me to a) have a little extra income, b) help Rowan and his store out, c) get a nice music store discount and d) remind myself what I’m fighting to avoid (i.e. a day job). And so… I’ve got my first shift at the House of Musical Traditions tomorrow. Insanity.