Play Me Some Mountain Music ...

... like Grandma and Grandpa used to play!

I went home for Thanksgiving, home to the southwestern corner of North Dakota. Right on the edge of the Badlands, and right on the edge of normalcy. Pick your poison, people.

Thanksgiving with my family is always fun. We eat a lot. And drink a lot. And play highly competitive games of "Trivial Pursuit" or "Catchphrase." My team got smoked this year. Not cool.

On Thursday evening, after we had eaten (and gone back for round two and three), one of my aunts was talking about the real estate business (she's a realtor), and she said the phrase "jew me down." SMACK. That was me slapping my forehead.

I brought my friend Alex home for Thanksgiving. She's from New York. She's an Americorp volunteer. She was in the living room listening to my aunt. She's Jewish. SMACK.

Then Alex and I tried to watch "Grey's Anatomy" while my retarded cousins jumped on our backs and threw footballs at us (in my grandmother's house, by the way). After the show, my brother-in-law decided announced he was going to the kitchen to mix a new drink. He called it the "McDreamy." The McDreamy consisted of apple cider, peach-flavored Sunny D, Mountain Dew, and Karkov vodka. The McDreamy is fabulous. My grandma bought a 16 gallon jug of vodka especially for Thanksgiving (though she's usually a whiskey/coke gal). We drank lots of McDreamies. Yum ...

So, that was Thanksgiving. On Friday night, my sister and I called up another friend who was home and we all hit the hip town of Dickinson. Army's West bar has the hottest (and only) dance floor in town, so of course, we were there.

Here is a sampling of t-shirts worn by men and women at Army's:

"Life is hard. Hump harder."

"Hi. You'll do."

"Chocolate, coffee, and cowboys. Somethings are just better rich."

You can take the girl out of the country ...