Quick Vacations

Isn't it amazing how quickly five days off from work can go by?

We started off the holiday Wednesday night by purchasing a complete "nursery in a box" to outfit the baby's room. Wednesday evening I began assembling, with assurance from the web community that this particular product was "easy to assemble." I should know better. I began by dumping parts A through ZZZ onto the family room floor. I started with the chest of drawers, and after about 20 screws, I decided that a power tool was in order. Lucky for me my powered screwdriver had a dead battery, so it was helpful for approximately half a drawer. Things were sailing along with little trouble, until I started to notice that for three pieces of furniture, the assembly instructions consisted of one sheet of paper. It was at this approximate level of detail:

1. open box
2. put together chest of drawers
3. stop swearing. put together crib.
4. stop kicking and swearing. dress any wounds from screwdriver.
5. put together changing table.

At one point I screwed the back panel onto the front of one of the pieces. Argh. The other annoyance was that after about 500 screws, the company switched to fasteners requiring an allen wrench. It was barrels of fun trying to twist in another 500 screws with a tool designed for hands the size of a toddlers. The whole experience took about three hours, but in the end, we got furniture that actually looks decent and serves the purpose. Erin was delighted, and she didn't even notice all my mistakes.

Thursday was spent in Bedford with our family. We had a nice Thanksgiving. It was a great chance to update our families on what's happening with the adoptions, and it was also great to hear what is going on in everyone else's lives. Plus I managed to eat a small planet worth of food.

After spending the night at a local hotel in Bedford (these words alone should suggest "not gonna be 4 star") we headed to the new casino at French Lick. I should note that Erin and her mom nearly got us run out of Lawrence County when they inquired at the front desk of the local hotel about the possibility of obtaining an alcoholic beverage on the evening of Thanksgiving. The kind lady gave us a "drinkin's sinnin'" look before telling us that no (respectible) place would be open for such a drink on a major holiday. To make matter's worse, wife and mother of wife then proceeded to ask "Well then is there anywhere to get some dessert? Maybe a hot fudge sundae?"

"McDonald's is 2 blocks down on the right."

Sigh...

French Lick, the home of Larry Bird and former home of my favorite establishment -- "French Liquors," is home to a new casino attached to the French Lick Springs resort. For those who don't know, French Lick used to be quite the gambling destination for the likes of Al Capone and other sordid characters of the 20th century. Now it's turned its greedy gaze to the citizens of southern Indiana. It's always entertaining to see a glassy eyed pensioner chained, quite literally, to a slot machine -- cigarette firmly lodged in the corner of the mouth, mixed beverage in hand, shouting obscenities at a slot machine in the parlance of southern Indiana:

"We's lost six months of disability on this here machine!"

"Mavis, see if you can track down one of them girls to get mamaw another pack of Marlboro's."

It was a Thanksgiving cornucopia of "I seen's," "we's," and "don't got's."

After a day at the casino, we took in some shopping at the outlet mall on the way home, moving us closer still to finishing our Christmas shopping for 2006. All in all, not a bad way to spend a holiday. Any vacation featuring vast quantities of food and slot machines can't be all bad.