Thanksgiving Frolics

We are just back from visiting Andy's sister Ellen in Clinton, CT for Thanksgiving. We drove drove back today-- Andy, me, Joel, Sarah. It was a good Thanksgiving--lots of laughing and eating, Ellen and her son Jon and daughter-in-law Bethany and dog Dombey; her neighbors across the street, then Andy and Ellen's brother David, his wife Ann, plus Leah and Nathan, and then Joel, Sarah, Andy, and me. The usual suspects-- Ellen's other son Greg off to Japan where he is doing Zen sittings. We had turkey, carrot souffle, two kinds of potatoes, squash, beans, Brussels sprouts, gravy, rolls, stuffing, and seven or eight desserts. And then came our crazy idiosyncratic traditions: the movie Jurassic Park, which the kids have been demanding since it first came out on tape, lots of cheering for favorite scenes (when the lawyer gets eaten hiding in the toilet; the "Things In the Mirror Are Closer than they Appear" T Rex chase scene; the Australian hunter and the "clever girl;" the kids and the velociraptors in the kitchen scene.

And then! At midnight! about half of us went shopping! That's right, Ellen's outlet mall had something called "Midnight Madness" with huge discounts and there were so many people you could hardly move. It was totally unpleasant and also very funny. Joel said that after last night the economy should be in great shape. (For David's take, see his blog here then look for November 28 Black Friday entry--and in the comments for my husband's comment on his comments). I walked around buffeted by the crowds and groggy with weariness, but did manage to buy two colors of a nice rayon-nylon sweater, very warm. Also, yet another black jacket that needs sleeves shortened.

We got to bed in the motel by 3 a.m. or so and then up and at Ellen's for breakfast (bagels, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, pound cake, cookies, date nut bread..), then off for New Jersey.

Back home, I went down to the garden to get salad and cilantro for cilantro pesto over pasta. The cilantro pesto tasted so green and alive– I loved going down to the garden in the fading light, hands cold, birds on the feeder behind me, that dun and brown calm with gray branches, last clinging leaves, sharp cleanliness of late November. Very late November, actually: two days left. And now I'm waiting for Joel and Sarah to finish visiting with Alice and Howard Robinson Gilman and bring the parakeet home!