Ah, Thanksgiving. Usually, I feel fairly relaxed after the four-day weekend. However, when two of those days are spent long-distance driving in a car that hurts your back just after an hour into the drive, then your left with just the minimal two day weekend to relax and that is never enough. My Thanksgiving began with two inches of snow plopped upon my car and the doors were frozen shut! I've never had to deal with that before. The last time I had a car, I had a garage to put it in. I'm beginning to wonder how I'm going to deal with this new issue this winter. Any ideas? I guess I'll need one of those key-chain de-icers and an electric starter. Gods, I hate this climate!
Down in the right-wing conservative Christian Republican South, where I spent turkey day, the living is very slow like a so-cal beach town. Okay, probably not quite like that but maybe like a Faulkner novel. Yeah, that's actually pretty close. Anyway, we had sixty or so folks and a spread of food like you've never seen, even on a Vegas buffet! Three turkeys, two hams, and entire crock-pots filled with just one side dish like mashed potatoes, greens, beans, mac and cheese, dumplings, gravy, and corn. The sweet potato caserole was good enough to have for dessert but as far as southerners are concerned it's just a side dish. The sweets table, yes table, had so many pies and cakes that some weren't even touched. And, of course, there were drinks everywhere. An ice bucket in every corner with cokes (we call every kind of soda coke whether it is or not) and pitchers of sweetend ice-tea.
The festivities took place way out in the hills of Tennessee in a wee little town called Pleasant Shade. Kids ran about everywhere but, thankfully, had two rooms sequestered off for themselves upstairs. The adults were basically broken up into two groups. Most of the older women stayed together and chatted (gossiped) about anything and everything/one. While the guys crowded around the TV watching the TN vs. KY game. And what a game it was! TN came back to win in the final 20 seconds. The guys about brought the roof down with their hollerin.
It seems to me that if we close up shop for two days, plus the weekend, every Thanksgiving that we might as well close up for the week. I don't know about you but my work ethic had already gone on vacation last Monday morning. Now, I'm just counting down the days until the Xmas break. 2 weeks away! I'm doing it right this year. One week in Florida and one in California. How will I ever come back?
