thanksgiving was pretty successful, i'd have to say.
gregg cleans up alright, it turns out... despite all my worrying, he managed to come through and not just survive my family but even managed to impress them. Macallan scotch and being a closet Coug for the win.
all in all not a bad turkey day. 
it's that holiday again, the one on which we are supposed to reflect and give thanks for all that we have. i have plenty to be thankful for, to be sure, this year more than others, it seems. i'll spare you the list, but needless to say i do not live a life of need.
this year, thanksgiving is going to be an adventure; not only am i bringing the new boyfriend to meet my family, but we are having a huge dinner with 18 people. i've never had a thanksgiving that large, and i'm not sure i've ever seen 18 people crammed into my grandparents' house, but it'll be fun.
we're going to have:
my grandparents (all 3 surviving)
my parents, my brother, my sister
myself, the boy
aunt and uncle (mom's older sister and her husband)
aunt, uncle and cousin (mom's younger brother, his wife and their 6-year-old)
aunt (dad's younger sister), her 11-year-old daughter
aunt's fiancee and his 24-year-old son.
and that's just the people, that's not the food. there'll be more than enough food, i hope.
should be interesting.
and we're a third of the way through november now. past the midpoint between the equinox and the solstice, so more than a quarter of the way through the dark part of the year, and coming into the darkest. i kind of enjoy it, though, when it's pitch black by 5:45. except for the whole commuting in the dark thing... makes me glad i have good lights on my bike. (thanks in no small part to a certain someone who makes sure i am well illuminated.)
i've never been particularly prone to seasonal affective disorder; in fact, some of the deepest depths of my depression were during the summer. the lack of light doesn't seem to affect much other than my sleep schedule; however, with other factors at work on my sleep schedule these days i have found myself out of bed by 7:30 and out the door before 8:30 most mornings, instead of ignoring the alarm clock through 10 snooze cycles and bombing down the hill at 9:00, then pretending to be on time to work. plus, the mornings are still nice and light right now, so it's like i'm wasting daylight if i'm not up and at 'em before 8.
grad school application deadlines are rapidly approaching; i'm trying not to panic. they'll get done, i'm sure, it's just a matter of sitting down and writing. and filling out damn online forms. harvard wants not only a transcript, but also a form-based enumeration of all the classes i took in my major field of study, in related fields of study, and in mathematics. plus $90, by credit card, for the privilege of applying to their university. it is where i want to go, though, and i'm really excited by the research going on there, so I'll buck up and pay the fees. I'll just bitch and moan about it in the process.
it's a three day weekend, which is awesome, and which also means that my new sweetie and i will have a day off in common this weekend. this has never happened before; it should be fun.
and, completely unrelated, here's a picture from the latest episode in bicycle hooliganery:
