Turkeys are cheap if you buy em the day after Thanksgiving. The bird is in the oven! The kegerator is full of Paulaner Hefe-Weizen!

AND after the meal, we’ll be gathering around the tv to watch the break dancing cinematic classics Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2. (I hate sports, so this is what we do instead of watching football or whatever it is people do.) We’re calling it “Thanksgiving 2: Electric Boogaloo.” I KNOW we did the exact same thing on February 25, 2009, but “Electric Boogaloo” is too fun to say and “Thanksgiving 3: Electric Boogaloo” sounds stupid. Technically, this could be “Thanksgiving 4: The Quest For Peace” – but I don’t want to over think this.

If you know where we live, you’re invited to stop in and eat and drink and whatnots. If you don’t know where we live, just put “chad riden’s address” into your GPS thing and you’ll find it.

Here’s the Facebook event page for Thanksgiving 2: Electric Boogaloo 2: Electric Boogaloo’er.. I’ve invited 200+ people over for dinner. I hope nobody lets me down. I know it’s late notice, but “planning” is for ass-hats. If you can’t make it for any reason, we’ll take that to mean you don’t love us.

My 3-year-old daughter has an arch-enemy on the playground: “The Girl In The Yellow Shirt.” Callia is always honest with me about whether or not she got into trouble or did anything bad at the daycare. She always tattles on herself and then apologizes to me and anybody else who was involved, without being prompted. The other day I went to pick her up and she had a report for me: she’d gotten into trouble.

It all comes down to what seems to me to be a personality conflict between Callia and someone she keeps referring to as “The Girl In The Yellow Shirt.” No name, no other details.. no notion of who this person is. She was wearing a yellow shirt and she was trouble. It took a while for me to get the whole story out of her.. but Callia and I talked about how we treat and deal with other people & that was that. Lessons learned and all is good.

Today, when I picked her up Callia declared that she’d gotten into trouble and was bad. One of the teachers came over and said that she was very impressed.. that a girl had hit Callia and she didn’t retaliate – she just told the girl “NO! Don’t hit me.” and walked away. Callia chimed in saying it was (who else?) “The Girl In The Yellow Shirt.” Uh-oh.. recurring problems with this chick.

I was curious, though.. so I had to ask, “was she wearing a yellow shirt again today?”

“Yes.”

“Two days in a row? Yellow shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“Really. That’s weird.”

“She’s mean.”

“I guess so..”

I’m not sure if this girl even exists.. and I’m not sure which scenario would be better: imaginary enemy or real enemy who already has picked out a trademark Super Villian outfit. Either way, I’ve got my eyes open and I’m lookin’ for yellow.

Callia’s third birthday has come and gone.. but Callia is still excited about it all. Today in the car, completely out of the nowhere, she says, “Daddy, I want a candle in my applesauce and people singing Happy Birthday.. .. ..and presents.”

Hey, who doesn’t want a candle in their applesauce?

I’m not sure where exactly it came from.. it could have been Leonardo, the Terrible Monster (which is a funny book), or overhearing people say “murmer-murmer terrible twos..” but Callia now over-uses the phrase ‘this is terrible!’ It usually isn’t that bad.. but we were flipping thru channels today and landed on community access. “This is terrible!” she exclaimed. I laughed. “What is terrible?” “THIS!” (pointing to the tv.) “Yeah, you’re right.” (click).

Friday morning I was off work and stayed home with Callia and Laura. Laura had worked the over night shift Thursday night and was just getting ready to go to bed when Callia wanted to go upstairs and get some breakfast. I took her up there and fired up a pot of coffee and tried to figure out what to fix for her. She grabbed an apple out of the bowl on the table and started eating that. “Sweet!” I thought, “that solves that problem.”

Mr. Mom put some dishes away and was straightening up the kitchen / dining room. When the coffee was ready I fixed myself a cup and had the tv on. Laura came upstairs after a few minutes and asked Callia if she had eaten breakfast. Callia said, “No. I heard some talk about breakfast.. but I didn’t get any breakfast.”

Is there any doubt who she takes after? Callia is a three foot tall female version of me. I fear the future.