Polka Polka Polka

I went down to my grandparents' house this weekend for a cousin's bridal shower and an early Thanksgiving dinner(well one on each side of the family actually). I am blessed to have such a large loving family, and all 4 of my grandparents still with us. On my dad's side, there is always delicious food at my grandparents' house - and luckily grandma passed her good cooking skills on to my dad, and maybe one day I'll pick it up. On my mom's side it's usually large, loud family gatherings with lots of kids around. This weekend I stayed overnight by myself at my mom's parents' house, which has not happened for a long time. Grandma showed me a bunch of old photos from when my mom was young, and there were some of my dad too since they started dating in high school.

We also did what they normally do on Saturday nights...watch polka dancing on tv. They used to go polka dancing when they were younger, and they like to watch it to reminisce and enjoy the music. I actually didn't mind watching it because I found it amusing, but for different reasons. The particular show we watched was a 1989 episode of Big Joe's Polka who is a big man who wears a sparkly accordion vest, hosts the polka band shows, and makes terrible jokes all the while. One of the bands that played was called the Polka Nuts, and I was surprised to see that they were a family - a dad and three kids younger than me, probably in high school. I wonder if their friends thought it was cool...? They had some pretty awesome 80's hair, and are actually very talented. Besides the singing in this video:

Unfortunately that was the only one from that band on the show that I found on YouTube. I did find this though that is much more impressive with 3 of them playing the hammered dulcimer:

There's my partially sarcastic tribute to polka music. It also makes me think of Home Alone, which oddly the only videos I could find on YouTube of the polka band introduction scene were in different languages. That movie deserves it's own tribute page, maybe closer to Christmas.

6 weeks down...too many to go

Well, it's been 6 weeks now. This is the normal amount of time that passes between my (now) husband and I seeing each other. Not thinking about the fact that we should be living together now, these 6 weeks have actually gone faster than others have. Being busy definitely helps. I haven't been hearing from him a whole lot, but about twice a week which is enough to keep me from going insane. The worst part is when he shows up in my dreams. I'm so happy to see him and then I wake up and realize it wasn't real. Or like last night in my dream he rescued me from someone trying to hurt me and I was so happy he was there for me, but then I knew that he was on leave and couldn't stay so as he kissed me sweetly on my cheek I started crying and then woke up crying. I don't typically remember my dreams that often, but these last weeks I have been having crazy weird dreams almost every night. Thankfully I have not been having bad dreams about the war or anything happening to him (knock on wood).

I got to chat with him on facebook this morning and it's always good to talk to him, but also hard to hear that he is exhausted working 20 hour days, not eating well, not sleeping enough, and generally frustrated. I was glad to find out though that he has internet access at the new place he is at, but who knows if he will actually stay there. For now though when he has time he will be able to email me and hopefully that will make him feel a little better to be able to vent or talk to me. I feel better just knowing where he is and what he has been doing. I have learned to not have any kind of expectations as far as communication goes. Once you get over expecting an email or phone call everyday it does get easier. I can say though that listening to sappy country love songs right now is not helping.

This has been a good weekend so far. I hung out with one brother Friday night. We tried out a new pizza restaurant, watched a movie and drank some wine, and sat in the hot tub for a while. Yesterday my other brother and I drove down to the town where both sets of our grandparents live. It was our parents' anniversary (they were down there already) and they had met there as highschoolers, fell in love and got married a few years later before moving to the cities. It was also King Turkey Day, which is a celebration for the city being one of the largest turkey producing areas in the world. It rivals Cuero, TX for the "title" and they have a turkey race down mainstreet every year with a MN and a TX bird competing. There are all kinds of festivities on this day, including the 2 hour parade that we watched in the cold and sprinkles yesterday. It was a fun time, and I got to see a bunch of my cousins including the two new babies born in August. We decided that we should make Turkey Day our new family gathering instead of holidays when it's harder to travel and get everyone together.

Today I was going to go to tai chi because I missed my Tuesday class last week, but I was so tired this morning so I decided to sleep in instead. I did some cleaning, some putting away, and now some blogging. Dinner with friends later :)