"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

I know that's a famous line, but I didn't know where it came from until tonight! I had a great time seeing To Have and Have Not at the Grand Illusion with friends. Sometimes it's hard to get me to watch the oldies, but more often than not I end up liking them. The theater is showing a series of Bogart and Bacall movies over the next few weeks, so I may have to catch another one soon.

Emily and I had the following conversation the other day when a commercial for the Macy's parade came on.

Em (with obvious excitement): Oh! The Macy's Thanksgiving Parade! I haven't been to that in ages.

Me: I've never been. I don't think I've been to a parade since I was a kid.

Em (practically bouncing in seat): Really?!? We should totally go to this! Do you wanna go? Wanna go?!?

Commercial flashes to parade info and time.

Me: Uhhhhhhhh. 9am?

(brief silence)

Em: F*ck that shit. Maybe we can just go to the torchlight this summer.

Em went from thrilled to huffy in about one second. She's right. We might say we want to go, but the odds of either of us getting up that early on Thanksgiving are very slim. Very, very slim.

Yay! I'm excited for Thanksgiving! My little group of friends has decided on McCormick & Schmick's for dinner, and I love examining the menu to think about what I will order. I can't wait! After our feast, we're all going to have dessert and play games (and maybe watch some Mystery Science Theater!) at one of our houses. Today, I offered to make a caramel apple pie, because everyone wants pie, and I'm not a huge fan. But, this is one kind I like and think everyone else will like, too. I talked Em into making the crust for me, though, since homemade pie crust is beyond my scope in the kitchen. Melting down caramel is okay, but crust is scary. She is a very good friend for agreeing to that.

So, you may know that I've been on a J.D. Salinger kick for the past couple of months, reading and rereading the books. After finishing Nine Stories the other day, I decided to do a little web research on Salinger since I basically know nothing about him. Well. I learned a lot. Quite a bit of it was surprising to me. Namely, that he is still alive. I feel stupid that I was clueless about this, but I had always just assumed he was no longer living since his last book came out in the 60's. Also, I found it interesting that, according to his daughter, he has safes full of manuscripts to be published after his death. No matter how much he dislikes publicity and attention, I think it has to be weird knowing there are a bunch of obsessed people out there (you know this is true) waiting for you to kick it so they can get their greedy hands on your new books. Bizarre.

Is anyone else going through a dreading New Year's phase? Right now I am convinced that it is the worst holiday EVER, and I don't know why, really. I mean, it's hardly ever fantastic no matter what I'm doing, but it's usually not terrible either. Most of the time I can muster a little excitement for the fresh start ahead and have a bit of fun. I'm just not feeling it this year. I've decided my New Year's theme song is "Suzie" by Boy Kill Boy. Countdown to the disappointment is right.