Churkey (and other yummy goodness)

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I hope everyone had a great one. My Aunt Kathy is currently living with my mom, so there were three of us for the feast. My mom decided to cook (and stuff!) a chicken instead of a turkey. (Heehee, churkey.) I'm not entirely sure why she decided this, but it was fine by me, as I don't particularly like turkey. We also had three pies: pumpkin, sweetpotato and pecan. I really dislike sweetpotato pie. For years my mother has insisted that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between pumpkin and sweetpotato, so yesterday I had a blind taste test. I immediately knew which one was yummy pumpkin pie and which was nasty sweetpotato. Hah! Anyway, the food was delicious, and even without a tryptophan-containing turkey, we all needed a serious nap after dinner. Here are some pictures of our feast:

And now for some random Thanksgiving tales:

While in college: Those of you from Lake City might possibly know who Cleopatra J. Steele is. For those of you who don't, she is a pastor of a somewhat cult-like church which operates just north of downtown Lake City in the rather, shall we say, ghettoish part of town. In addition to a church, she runs a thrift store and several halfway houses and homeless shelters, all in that neck of the woods. (My Aunt Kathy, the one currently living with my mom, suffers from severe mental illness. She has lived in a couple of Cleopatra's shelters, attended her church, and has known Cleopatra for years.) I've never been able to decide if Cleopatra is actually doing good, or if she's simply running a really good scam. Anyway, every year for Thanksgiving her church sponsors a dinner for the homeless and otherwise needy in an empty lot near her church. For two or three years while I was in college, Melissa and I (and sometimes her mom, sometimes my mom) would go to help serve the meals. Or well, the first year we went to help serve. After that we just went to eat. Yeah.

Thanksgiving 2001: Melissa and I had just returned from our really horrific trip to Korea. Melissa and most of her family went somewhere (North Carolina?). However, Alex (at the time Melissa's boyfriend, now her husband) and I remained in Lake City, taking care of Melissa's mentally and physically handicapped brother. Alex went home (to Macclenny, FL) for Thanksgiving dinner, and returned bearing tons of really yummy food. Yay! We watched a twenty-four hour Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon. Also, at some point during that weekend, Glenn and Stephanie stopped by. I'd just woken up and looked like crap and didn't want them to see me. I told Alex to tell them I wasn't there, but instead he invited them in and told them I was hiding behind the TV. Thanks a lot.

Thanksgiving 2003: I was living in San Diego, CA, and had been dating a certain guy since Halloween. Said certain guy had essentially no good qualities, except that he was a really good cook. He wanted to cook a true turkey-day feast, but between the supermarket workers strike and the fact that we didn't get around to shopping until the day before Thanksgiving, we couldn't find a turkey. So we bought and stuffed a chicken - my first churkey experience. And it was a delicious feast. If only said certain dude hadn't turned out to be a racist, sexist, alcoholic jackass, because he sure could cook.

Thanksgiving 2005: I was in Russia, and it was AWESOME. That day has it's own lengthy and picture-filled blog post, which you should totally check out by clicking here.

Thanksgiving 2006: For American Thanksgiving, I did not a damn thing. See, Korea has its own holiday of thanksgiving, called Chuseok. Chuseok 2006 was in early October (the date varies as it's based on the lunar calendar; Chuseok 2007 actually fell on my birthday, although I was no longer in Korea at the time). Anyhow, for Chuseok, I went with Gwen and Samson to his hometown for their family gathering and feast. It, too, was awesome and has it's own lengthy and picture-filled blog post, which you should most definitely check out by clicking here.

Making a Home for the Holidays

I love Thanksgiving. This is easily explained by another 3-word sentence: I love food. The last several years have been kind of unusual Thanksgivings, as I've not spent a lot of time within 1000 miles of my family in Florida.

2003: Montreal (1370 miles away)
2004: Montreal (ditto)
2005: Switzerland (4766 miles away)
2006: Florida (there's still a story here)
2007: Kitchener, Ontario (923 miles away)

When I can't get to my family for Thanksgiving, whether they are in Florida or North Carolina, I like to either 1) find a surrogate family (like Glenn does), or 2) have a nice meal anyway.

The first year in Montreal I kind of did a bit of both: a friend of ours -- who is actually from Luxembourg, not the US -- hosted a Thanksgiving with her roommates and other pals with turkey, crazy desserts, and all sorts of trimmings with a bizarre continental twist. It wasn't quite like a family occasion, since Sean was the only guy there and we were all in our twenties and unrelated, but there was a nice atmosphere and our hostess was/is a spectacular cook. Unfortunately, our friend didn't do Thanksgiving, part deux, for 2004. I don't really even remember what Sean and I did that year, so I am going to guess it involved going out to eat or something. Which is a nice idea, but not a proper Thanksgiving.

The Swiss Thanksgiving experience, though, was a really, really good time: a great excuse to round up a couple Americans, along with three Brits and a Canuck, and celebrate the food culture of the New World with some native English conversation as accompaniment. I found a 15 lb turkey somehow (turkeys are not so popular...) and called upon the spirit of "Holiday Mom" to pull off a roasted bird, stuffing, carrot souffle and mashed potatoes with some help from Sean and his roommate, Tavis. Unfortunately, while I had the day off, Sean and Tavis (American! from Alaska!) had to work. Tavis got off just in time to help me turn the turkey over, which would have been very difficult to do all by myself. He is also a really fabulous foodie and came through for us by cooking these Bailey's Irish Cream Molten Pots of Love (a kind of brownie with an oozy center and lots of booze) AND an apple pie completely from scratch! Holy shit! The Brits brought wine. The last American, a guy I met online, brought Ocean Spray cranberry sauce! It was a beautiful experience. I made sure to play my Christmas mp3s in lieu of watching the Charlie Brown special on TV.

Last year I WAS with my family. But we didn't have a proper Thanksgiving dinner: we were traveling on the Thursday and probably had frozen pizza or something. And on Friday we were in Sarasota eating a fancy seafood dinner on the beach with my brother's then-fiancee's family. Note the "then." It was magical.

And this year: it's 7:30am. I have been up for an hour and a half. I just did the dishes. I am about to start a turkey pot pie with roasted veg, veg gravy from stock cubes, store-bought pre-cooked turkey, and a frozen pie crust. When that is finished it's on to the pumpkin pie, again with store-bought crust. And at 1pm I start my shift at work, which goes til 6pm (to be fair, my boss offered me the day off...but Thanksgiving is not for daytime television by yourself). The food will be good, I know. The company (Sean) will be great, too. The Christmas wreath I bought for the front door doesn't fit behind the screen door and I have to make at least three long-distance phone calls later to get in touch with my family. I'm feeling kind of maudlin at this point, especially knowing that my two brothers at least have access to a pre-made frozen feast my parents left for them at their house and that my parents themselves will be enjoying a fine spread with some of our closest family friends.

But that's Thanksgiving as I know it: improvising, searching out turkey in foreign lands, and enjoying the best (foodiest) holiday of all with as many other willing parties as possible. I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and hope you have a great, gluttonous time, however you manage to celebrate!

Give thanks and whatnot

So it's that time of year again- Thanksgiving! And it's also the time of year that those of us who are blessed with OCD and of thinking way too much reassess the year that is almost over and what the heck just happened, and what there is to be thankful for.

For me, this year has been quite the tumultuous one. I had a major existential crisis and a bit of a breakdown. I was forced, by the aforementioned crisis as well as other factors, to evaluate my life here and everything I am doing. I missed two weeks of work, after which I got called into my boss' office, told to shut the door...and received a promotion. I got my own office and the responsibility of nine City departments' budgets. I broke up with my girlfriend of almost three years. I got saddled with the financial burden of suddenly having to take care of things I hadn't had to before. I attempted to somewhat get back into the dating scene, and the first person I met, well, let's just say it turned into a huge disaster very quickly. I had to undergo heart tests, one of which took six hours rendered me basically unconscious. I was handed down a disastrously wrong diagnosis and ended up going to the doctor to get reevaluated more times than I'd care to remember for something false. I deal by proxy with some family crises. I ran out of money on more than one occasion (many more, frankly). My "faith" was shaken and I was forced to evaluate my spirituality, or lack thereof, which was a hugely difficult situation considering it was not one I was concerned with for 20-something years. I turned 27 and watched friends move on in their lives, some getting married, etc., while I continued to live the so-called "bachelor" life and pursued my own ends.

But I still have a lot to be thankful for. My family continues to recover from some issues from the past couple of years and seems to be doing better than ever. Most importantly, they are all still here. I keep in touch with friends, for the most part regardless of our distances and differences, and feel blessed that I get to share in their joys. I just reconnected with an old friend I love very dearly and just to my excitement found out I will get to see him again after nearly three years of not even being able to speak with him. I have found some amount of "faith" in my life and a newfound spirituality which seems to have filled a void in my life. My crises reaffirmed my passions in life and reaffirmed to myself that I am on the right track; stepping back from my situation gave me the wonderful chance to see, from the outside, just how lucky I've been and just how happy I am and how right my choices have been. My relationship with my ex has blossomed into a wonderful, caring and comfortable friendship, one which we never had before. My biggest crisis this year also forced also to grow up, and to learn what it actually meant to be an adult and to be grown up and responsible, independent of any outside forces or expectations. I've had to take a hard look at my personality and figure out what defines me and "who" I am and am going to be. I've come out of the ordeals of this past year stronger, more grown up, and more mature, while also holding a newfound appreciation for the people, places, and things in my life, as well as my all-important sense of humor, which has only gotten stronger. And this year saw me come out of the other end of my struggles a stronger person and more passionate, and one more step on the way to achieving my dreams.

I have spent the last several months thinking that 2007 has been the worst, or at least the most exceedingly difficult, year I've had in my 27 years of living, at least from what I can remember (there are some high school times that would be hard to beat if I really thought about it). And 2007 has been the worst year of my (at least adult) life, no question. However, now I also realize that it might have been just what I needed; that the trials actually made me a much stronger, and much happier person. Don't make any mistake though: I'm still a curmudgeon. I wouldn't be Nick if I weren't grouchy. (A funny story: when I was going through the worst of my breakdown earlier this year, for several weeks I was not grouchy, not complaining about stuff, getting worked up about something on the news or in the car. One day, I saw something on TV and became very grouchy and began yelling at the TV. The person who was in the room with me, my ex and current best friend I believe, commented "Nick's back")

This year, I am thankful for my family and their love and support, especially my baby brother who is growing up too fast- this will be his last Thanksgiving at home before he goes off to college. I am thankful that he has listened to his big brother and has not made the same mistakes that I made. I am thankful for the beautiful friends that I have. I'm thankful that I have been given the opportunities I have been given, and that even in the middle of my crises, I was able to rise to the occasion. And yes, I'm thankful for my breakdown this year and the trials I have had. I'm thankful for the appreciation for my life it has afforded me, as well as he fact that I am now a more responsible, ethical, better person, with a clear picture of who I want to be and where I am going. I'm more confident now than I was before. I feel complete just being myself, not feeling I need any outside forces or influences to be "complete." And, of course, I'm thankful that I'm here to be thankful at all.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I love pumpkin pie.

Thanksgiving has never been too much of a big deal for me. It's not that big a holiday in the old country (just one Monday off), and while it was nice to have a 4 or 5 day weekend whenever we moved to the States, it's just never been that special. We used to eat every meal together as a family as kids, and we never had extended family over.

But I haven't even been home for Thanksgiving in almost 10 years. Maybe I went my freshman year of college. I don't remember. Usually I would just buddy up with some friends (the Killians a few times, and the Schulzes) and eat with their families. The past few years I've just done things with other people who weren't going home with their families.

One thing that I get excited around this time of year for is pumpkin pie, and other pumpkin flavored items. (They have pumpkin spice beer at a lot of bars around town right now, but every single one is always out of it, so I think it's a big lie and none of them really have it. Also, people just equate "cinnamon" with "pumpkin spice," so it's probably gross anyway). Pumpkin is my favorite seasonal flavor. It's way better than peppermint (Christmas), peep (Easter), watermelon (summertime), and even cadbury filling (Easter). Maybe it isn't way better than cadbury filling, but it's still better. Even as I write this out (and maybe that's why I'm writing it out) I am wondering who in the Houston area I can call to go grab some pumpkin pie from House of Pies. This morning for breakfast I had an english muffin with pumpkin butter on it. I wish there was pumpkin flavored Cheerios or some other cereal.

Other food items I like at Thanksgiving: turkey, dressing, green bean casserole.

Does Jones Soda have a pumpkin flavored item this year?

It's been so long I forget how to conclude a blog entry.

Forsooth?

Wandering thanks

Almost every year, my immediate family spends Thanksgiving in the North Carolina mountains. My aunt and uncle have owned a cabin up there for years (they, like my parents, live in Florida), and they like my family to go up for Thanksgiving to air it out and clean it up before they come up for Christmas. We love it because it was usually the only time of year we could really see fall colors (sometimes) and every once in a while, it would snow!! This is super-exciting for a Florida family, and we spent a lot of time building snowpeople and sledding and throwing snowballs.

The best story to come from this, though, is a lot funnier in retrospect than it was at the time. On Thanksgiving day several years ago, before we put the turkey in the oven but after breakfast, we decided to go on a mid-morning hike. Not long after we started up the gravel road, we all agreed that we were pretty tough and adventurous and capable (a sudden infusion of mountain air can do strange things to otherwise sane people), and we decided to instead to climb straight up one of the mountains to see what was on the other side. This was no towering peak, so when we scrambled up and saw what was there, we felt unchallenged enough to climb up the next hill. I can't remember how long this went on before one of us finally stopped and noticed that we'd all lost track of which direction we'd come from.

While my family does go camping sometimes, we are expressly not hunters. I don't think there's ever been a gun in my house. In fact, I pretty much grew up equating guns with TV murderers (which I don't think is probably a bad thing, but that's another topic). So we were all getting a little nervous when we started hearing the ricocheting echoes of gun shots. My dad assured us people were just out hunting turkeys (my brother and I had seen more than enough cartoons to find this reasonable), but then we started hearing some turkeys gobbling nearby and moved away from them quickly. Later, we came across an old hunting shed with a few wooden benches, no locks, and bullet holes in the windows. I thought for sure there would be a dead body, but luckily there wasn't.

This went on for several more hours until finally we stumbled into an open pasture sloping down into a farm (farmers often don't put fences on the higher side of their farms in that area because the animals don't go up to far and what kind of crazy people would be wandering down from up there?). We passed a few cows, who ignored us, some dogs (my mom swore they were wolves, but I think they were dogs since they were in the farm and not eating things) who followed us suspiciously, then a pig pen with a sow suckling a whole litter of piglets. Eventually, and somehow without getting shot at by the farm's owner, we found the house trailer, complete with a deer strung up from a tree out front, bleeding out. I don't think any of us had EVER seen something like that deer: back feet tied at the ankles to a thick tree branch, both snout and front hooves reaching for the ground, bright white stomach, eyes open, blood dripping slowly off the nose. Ick. My mom stayed with my brother and me in the front while my dad knocked on the door to ask directions back to our cabin.

Following the directions along the road, we found we were still quite a few miles from where we had started. We were exhausted and hungry, but we followed the driveway back down to the hard road, hobbled along it for at least another hour, then turned up our gravel drive for another 30 minutes or so right up the side of the mountain.

All told, I think the whole "walk" was about 4 or 5 hours. As soon as we got home we collapsed in exhaustion for a while, then got up to make Thanksgiving dinner! There weren't very many leftovers.

This year, we have a new place to visit! The aunt and uncle who own the cabin we usually stay in bought the land across the gravel road and built a few houses with one of their contractor friends who lives year-round farther up the mountain. My parents bought one and I think it just finished construction, so this year we'll be staying in the new cabin. Eventually, my aunt and uncle want to tear down their small, comfortable cabin and build a big one to retire in (there's talk about donating it to the fire department to use as a practice house, but we'll see). We've had a lot of fun memories in that cabin, and it will be hard to give up. But I guess all traditions fade away eventually. For example, now when we take pre-dinner hikes, we try to stick to the roads.

The Ghosts of Thanksgiving Past

My past two Thanksgivings haven't been the best, so I'm a little apprehensive as to what's going to happen this year. Am I going to have to move again, or is it going to be an all-out family war like always? Anyways, in an attempt to get this blog rolling again, this week's topic is Thanksgiving. I am being a tad bit lazy and resubmitting old posts from my other blog, but in my defense, they're quite amusing.

Nov 2006
Thanksgiving and the Apocalpyse - Together at Last!

Thanksgiving didn't exactly start out the best way. The day before, our landlord called to tell us she had sold our house. We now have until Dec 31st to move out. Huzzah! What a start to that day! Actually, I had no idea - but my mother decided to call me at work to tell me for some reason - I actually dreaded being at work more that usual.

The next day I went over to have the big Thanksgiving meal. I've been house sitting - hence why I had to go over. It was cool (house sitting that is) because I got to hang out with Laurie (her family drives her crazy too, so she had been staying with me since Monday) - not to mention the week away from my family. We spent the morning watching What Not to Wear.

Lunch started out normal enough, but then we started talking about moving, and why my mother might possibly lose her job. (**Not in the original post** - this apparently seems to be an annual problem, as just a month or so ago I was looking for places to move because she wanted to quit before she got fired. She hasn't quit -- yet) As soon as Kellie was done eating, she got up and went to take a nap. I got done soon afterward and started to get up from the table. My mother laid a guilt trip about me leaving - and I guess she had a point - she wasn't even done eating yet. I said that I would stay and talk, but I had things I had to do that afternoon.

So I sit on the couch and she starts harassing me about what I'm going to do about my future - saying I shouldn't go back to school, and I need to make a plan. I tried to switch gears and talk about moving again. A friend of our family has a house he's going to sell, and earlier we were talking about renting it from him. I told her that if he would let us, we should just buy it from him. She says she didn't want to - and then starts in about the end times. She's ranting about how everything will be electronic - no more cash - and how she's not going to take a chip from the government. WTF?! Where did this come from? At this point in time I told her to shut up, and that I was leaving, and walked out the door.

EVERYTHING becomes a religious argument. EVERYTHING comes around to the end times. If the end times are so soon then why should I give a fuck about my future? Doesn't seem like I have much of one. Christians have been awaiting the end times ever since Christ's resurrection. There are groups of people who gave up all they had because they were certain the apocalypse was right around the corner. Also - all the Christians are supposed to have raptured or whatever before the Antichrist and the mark of the beast - so why is she even worried about it?

I called the next day to talk to Kellie about what we were going to buy people for Christmas. I needed to ask my mom how much I owed her, because I had given her $50 earlier in the week. I made the mistake of asking how she made the leap from buying a house to the apocalypse, and she started talking about how she wasn't going to be a slave to any government, company, or person, and how she was trying to pay off all her debts. Apparently someone at the temple (Messianic Jewish) brought in a clip about people implanting chips or something. I pointed out that some people still buried money in the backyard - we're too attached to cash right now for anything that drastic to happen. I just hope she doesn't take to burying the money - I'm sure it's the next step before she decides to start re-enacting the movie Frailty ( I swear that's going to happen one day).

Nov 2005
Thanksgiving and the 7th Level of Hell

It actually wasn't that bad. But would you have read it if I had titled it "The Happy Thanksgiving of Smiles and Angel Kisses"? Well ok, you might...weirdos.

Ok so I burned the fuck out of my hand, and got a lecture while I was dying of pain about how my mother hoped I wouldn't cuss like that when I had kids. WTF? I'm not even in any kind of a relationship. I'm not even CLOSE to dating someone, so where the hell does she come up with kids? Im sorry, let me hold your hand on the burner and see if you don't cuss. Hypocrite.


Then Judy called. She was bringing someone with her. (Oh God...the Christian Cowboy! {for those of you unfamiliar with him, see the post titled "As if you NEEDED a reason to think my family is crazy"}). Actually not him, but his daughter. Apparently there were family problems and she needed to get away. From my encounter with him it's understandable.


So they came, and we ate, and things were rather normal. And then came the time that my sister and I had to talk to the girl while my mom and Judy were busy in the kitchen. She started talking about the horses out at Judy's. Next thing I know she says "Oh yeah, and Judy told me about how you guys let Nosey out". I just looked at her, and after I counted to 10 a couple of times, said "There's a little more to that story". And left it at that. (In your face MOM, who thinks I have anger management issues).


So we're talking some more, and the next thing that grabs my attention is "So I heard you met my dad". Kellie and I just looked at each other. "Yeah I know, he's pretty rude". Not such a bad kid after all. There was definitely a gap, she was 11, and we didn't have much to talk about (I didn't dare bring up the topic of Harry Potter), but it wasn't the disaster I thought it was going to be.

Completely unrelated note - everyone should go to http://www.gunthernet.com/ and watch a crazy German with a sexy mullet and too much lip gloss (yes, I'm talking about a guy) sing some, um, interesting songs.