Monday, December 01, 2008

Thanksgiving III

This year, Thanksgiving took shape very much as it has in the past four years. Even though I hope to one day go to a restaurant for Thanksgiving, we're not quite there yet. In the meantime, I don't complain about the way this holiday goes. It's an event that I engineered. I don't mean that I invented Thanksgiving, I mean... well here's what I mean:

A few years ago, someone in the extended family (in an attempt to commandeer all the holiday events) announced that the Thanksgiving holiday would be held at their home. Step two was to delegate. Each invited party was to cook an assigned dish and bring it. The hosts cooked a bird and that was that. Reasonable? Well, sure (and nothing beats a good 'ol reasonable holiday) but I'm not a big fan of the, "Hey, why don't you cook yourself something and eat it over here" approach to holiday entertaining. If I invite - I treat. And, no, I didn't do the inviting or the hosting, but with a sensible, compartmentalized and frankly, cold and impersonal arrangement such as this, it seemed to make little difference exactly where it was hosted, and that bugged me.

So with a little concentrated brain power and some carefully chosen words, I managed to get the Thanksgiving feast relocated and redesigned and it's now a much less Socialist-driven affair. Na Zdorovie!

This year, while we snacked on various and sundry appetizers, an old man holding a beer with his one good arm, climbed up on the excercise bike and tried hard to pedal. It had been set to its most resistant setting as a deterrant to the very young.


fig. 1 "Disaster"

He didn't fall, but can you imagine if he did? At the very least, the beer's going flyin'. There ain't much to grab onto if you do start to fall, and you know he's going to land on that bad shoulder. I told him I was taking this picture so I could show them at the hospital exactly what happened. ...and he laughed and laughed.

Then we hit the Thanksgiving plate assembly line.


I'd like to note at this point that, being the pain in the ass that I am, I wear my shoes in the house.

I make sure they are clean and dry and that I'm not dragging dirt around or leaving little puddles for the sock-wearers to discover, but I do not mope around in my socks. It just ain't how I roll. I wear shoes.

None of this is what's important here. What's important here is that we ate this...



Closer look, maybe? Okay.



Oh my GOD! I'm telling you, I got nothin' against the whole food chain concept, and, well, aside from the fact that you shouldn't just be randomly cruel to an animal, can't say I'm really onboard with the animal rights movement. As I've plainly stated many times before, bacon is freakin' ridiculously good, but come ON! LOOK at that.

Here's my whole problem with meat; you gotta catch it in the right light. You gotta catch it on the right day. You have to smell it at the right time. And if all these things line up just right, you still have to be really careful how you handle it. On top of all that, it has a fairly limited window of opportunity concerning consumption.

So good luck with all that.

...and Happy Holidays.

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