a few blogging points today

A few blogging points today so I guess it might be a long one.
First I decided to play tourist with the in laws and Jeremy on Thanksgiving, I honestly was not looking forward to getting up at 5am and trekking down to the city to see some giant helium balloons on a day when I could easily sleep a few extra hours. Reluctantly I got out of bed, put clothes on and we boarded the 6 train for the parade. We made our usual stop over at 125th st, but knowing that today was a holiday AND it was before 6:30...there was no express train, but it was insisted we got off, and what do yah know I was right, no express train, but we took the 4 train anyway and got off boarded the next train...N or something and then got off in Times Square. I realize this is a big parade and people line up early but you would have thought it was New Years Eve and people wanted to get a glimpse at that glittery ball slowly dropping on the pole. So we walked a few blocks and claimed stake next to what we thought would be an open corral (since we are cattle and need to be corralled. It turned out we were right and being the gracious humans we are pushed our way to the front...knocking over an old lady in the process...I wish. No but we did get to the front and I was half on half off the side walk, standing...in the cold...for almost 3 hours. Then the parade started. A barrage of giant helium balloons including Smurfs, Dora, Shrek, and others came down the road. Giant Kermit was in there, as well as the cast of Sesame Street, come on I almost cried when I saw the cast of Sesame Street...childhood memories...and THERE THEY ARE!! Later on singing Kermit on a float came. I had the joy of standing next to two what seemed like late high school/early college girls who LOVED Mylie Cyrus and David Archulleta...as in the kid who SHOULD have won American Idol...like I care, there is a bad picture of Mylie...for Bob. Oh well the parade came and went and Santa showed up as usual. It was a fun time, cold but fun, and I will probably never do it again.

point two...making my first turkey
So since we decided on hosting thanksgiving we were wondering when we would have time to cook since we were going to the parade. We started out with the idea of just cooking a boneless turkey brest a-la-Rachael Ray...but of course 5 store later I couldn't find one. So I moved onto the idea that my sister in law gave me and get just the breast, again would have taken the same amount of time it would have taken me to cook a real turkey. SO we went with the real turkey and it would have been ready within 4 hours, awesome. So I think I am a pretty good cook, not good enough to warrant my own Food Network show but damn my turkey was delicious! I mean it was suculacnt and delicious, I brined it although after reading several places not to follow the "new trend" and brine the turkey and having 28 other thanksgiving dinner and various other turkey holidays I have had enough turkey to know, brining is the way to go! Everyone pitched in and it was a great time had by all. The next day we all slept in and attempted suicide by going to Macy's Herald Square...urgh...we moved on past the mad house. We saw Grease and at first I really could've cared to go, but I must say it was good. I was very pleased with the musical, I was upset that Max from the TV show wasn't in it. Ace from American Idol was though, really I didn't know who that was, heard of him but didn't care for him. Oh well it was a fun time.

next point: following advise on bars in manhattan...if a celeb or psuedo-celeb advises you to go to a certain bar, I think there is a rule, PEOPLE FOLLOW WHAT THEY SAY! SO of course on a saturday night it is going to packed to the brim. Of course it is also probably on the expensive side, unless it's Rachael Rays's 40 Dollars a day. It wasn't so expensive, pretty good beer, but it was crowded. I am glad I went, the two bars we went to McSorley's which makes their own Ale. It was good, and for some reason we each got two...and we better have we waited about 20 min just to get in, and Pepe wasn't working. The other bar we went to was called the Burp Castle this place was cool, not as crowded but damn expensive, kinda small place. Oh well what are yah gonna do, right?