Turkey day

Well, this was a Thanksgiving with a shadow. My family experienced a very sad loss, one that I am having trouble accepting. It just doesn't seem right.

So it was a little surreal this Thanksgiving, when one of the things I always feel thankful for, that I come from a family blessed with bright, vivacious people who are generally safe and happy, ended up not being the case.

Life was chugging on persistently, however. Ray and I faced perhaps our greatest relationship test ever: assembling an Ikea wardrobe so that I'll have a closet upstairs in his house for when I eventually trickle all my stuff over. The first day we put it together (TG) was pretty smooth sailing. The next day, when the back of the shelf did not go in the slots in the sides, well, there was some frustration. However, the application of a hammer to the particleboard fixed everything, even though I got a little overzealous and started kind of randomly banging on the wood, causing Ray to shout, "What are you doing?" Just feeling the Thor inside, buddy, that's all.

We went to the McMillans' for dinner on TG. Sheri and Lance were put in charge and holy guacamole did they outdo themselves with the turkey. I am no fan of the big bird, it's cottony and tasteless and generally worthless unless in a sandwich, but this was a smoked and roasted triumph of flavor and juiciness. Also, it was one of those farm-raised organic specialty turkeys. Janice made some fantastic brussels sprouts (I know, shocker to me, too, but I ate two servings). The sweet potatoes, the stuffing, the roasted asparagus, the handmade rolls, all were delicious. The only dishes I passed up were the Splendaed cranberry relish and the creamed pearl onions. Peas, mashed potatoes, cranberry log all found a spot on my plate or sitting a little on top of some other food. Of course there was pumpkin pie for dessert. Janice used a very complicated crust recipe that called for freezing, baking with weights, baking without, ad infinitum, and the crust came out burned looking (but not tasting, it was really very good). She was irked, because she is the pie crust queen. As her grandson says, "Why mess with perfection?"

For work I had to write a story recapping last year's dreadful storm. I swear I have some low-lying PTSD from the thing, I was getting chills just talking about windspeeds with some weather guys. They were saying that the wind was not as fast as people recall it being, which kind of put my back up a bit, because it was more than fast enough. It put my window out, for pete's sake, and there were a couple of points where I wondered if the building was strong enough to not tip over. I mean, this was a really scary storm, and it lasted for 36 hours, during part of which I was driving around covering the blamed thing seeing all the destruction that was in process of being wreaked. As a reporter, I struggled to find a balanced, objective voice that managed to capture the "OMG the sky is falling!" feeling I had. I think eventually sheer exhaustion (I hadn't slept, you can refer to that post to recapture the dramz) managed to sedate my language.

I am still working on that Banjo song for all my loved ones. I hear homemade gifts are really in this year. Just call me a cheap recessionista if you don't like my song stylings. I've been hampered by carpal tunnel/nerve damage in my right index finger and thumb, the "pickholders," if you will.

Also, because I have not been terribly motivated to work out, I have finished "The Dirt On Clean," about bathing habits of the Western World through the ages. When the author says we've really gotten away from our own scents as human beings I think she may need to spend a little time amongst the stinky to realize this is not a bad thing. Trip to the library will cure that longing for a less-bathed America. I also read, oh man this is embarrassing, "The Host," Stephenie Meyers' follow up to her Twilight vampire teen abstinence books. Although I read a lot less into the abstinence thing than the "will her demon lover love her or kill her?" as a kind of DV metaphor. The girl protagonist really feels inferior in every way to her vampire boyfriend (who is booooorrrring), and he makes odd comments about how he could do violence to her, and acts all controlling at points. He has no sense of humor, either. The other thing that bugged me about those books was the crass consumerism — the vampires are ridiculously wealthy so they only wear (designer) clothes once — oh, they're so intent on preventing human misery they don't kill people but sweatshops are fine in vampire political economic theory (and they don't sleep and live forever and do everything very fast so they could be reading up on all this), they kill top predators like bears and lions because it's more "sporting" for their dinner, even though there are plenty of deer, they drive a lot of expensive cars very fast, they just seem like very uncaring characters for a cast of vampires who are supposed to be so humane. I guess the lesson is that vampires are vampires no matter how you slice them.

So with all that in mind, plus the fact that I was compelled to read those Twilight books, I checked out "The Host" and although it was much better, there was the acceptance of casual violence to a woman (because she's taken over by an alien, so it's acceptable when her not-ex slaps her or some other guy trys to kill her). And at the end there was a bunch of disturbing stuff about like three girls in a row who were in their late 20s but looked a lot younger (one who was actually a lot younger) or something and their pairing up with significantly older guys. Weird. Hey, they were in a desert compound, trying to escape notice by civilization, this is what happens out there, young gals marry/pair up with much, much older guys. Or something. There was more to the book, obviously, but all that has been said in other, more comprehensive reviews. I don't bother with the comprehensivity any more, just the bits I think about that other people haven't.

Up next: The wondrous life of Oscar Wao. I think this is a book I need at this point, it's being literary and all.

I'd Twitter the reviews, but really I have to use a little more than 140 characters.