Happy 4th Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

An evening at Chino Latino was a fabulous way to celebrate. Above are the monkeys they served hanging from our glasses. It was especially fun because the menus were printed just for us with a big, "Happy 4th Anniversary" on the bottom.

Our fortunes for the night:

Kevin:

"You strike me as a bottom."

and

"Studies show that only 50% of people wash their hands after using the restroom. Guess which of your tablemates didn't make the cut."

Megan:

"There is a full length mirror in the bathroom. Use it."

and

"Careful, your face could freeze like that."

Not great fortunes, but infinitely better than the one Kevin got a few years ago: "Make sure it says deodorant AND antiperspirant." He was sure the fortune was wrong for him, so he took another cookie, and the new fortune said, "Make sure it says deodorant AND antiperspirant." The waiter confirmed that the fortune was right for him.

Speaking of the bathroom, it was beyond strange. I walked in, and was immediately confronted with a line of men washing their hands. HOLY CRAP! I turned on my heel, and a woman grabbed my arm and said, "Yeah, it's weird, but this is the right place." Then she lead me to the women's section. The men's and women's bathrooms had shared sinks, and then there were rooms leading to the separate toilets. Sheesh....way to freak a girl out. If I had had to go even a tiny bit more, there would have been a big mess right there on our anniversary.

Thanksgiving Trivia

(This card is designed by the fabulous Kara. Gobble, gobble)

Q: Which native population first developed half of the world's current food crops?

A: You guessed it! The Native Americans! We have two days off of work to celebrate the enormous contribution that Native Americans have made to our lives. Horray!

Q: Which single disease killed the largest percentage of people in any region?

A: British fishermen in Massachusetts spread a plague in 1617 that killed between 90 and 96 percent (HOLY MACKEREL!) of the Indians in southern New England.

For more interesting facts about Thanksgiving, check out this article. The added bonus to this article is that the facts are based on journal entries of early settlers. (Do I hear the ears of all you genealogy buffs pricking up?) James Loewen has dedicated his life to researching history using old artifacts, and he has written lots of books so that you don't have to reproduce his research! Rethinking Our Past is my favorite book of his. He is very witty.

Here are a few excerpts from the above article:

"Indians are marginalized in this civic ritual. Our archetypal image of the first Thanksgiving portrays the groaning boards in the woods, with the Pilgrims in their starched Sunday best and the almost naked Indian guests. Thanksgiving silliness reaches some sort of zenith in the handouts that school children have carried home for decades, with captions like, "They served pumpkins and turkeys and corn and squash. The Indians had never seen such a feast!" When his son brought home this "information" from his New Hampshire elementary school, Native American novelist Michael Dorris pointed out "the Pilgrims had literally never seen `such a feast,' since all foods mentioned are exclusively indigenous to the Americas and had been provided by [or with the aid of] the local tribe."

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"Colonel Thomas Aspinwall, advises us not to settle for this whitewash of feel - good - history. "

"It is painful to advert to these things. But our forefathers, though wise, pious, and sincere, were nevertheless, in respect to Christian charity, under a cloud; and, in history, truth should be held sacred, at whatever cost."

As a fellow seeker of truth, I wish I had access to more unfiltered truth. And that truth wouldn't use such big words.....I had to break out the dictionary for 'advert'.