A very nice Thanksgiving. No, a great one.

I had been very glum about not having (blood) family for Thanksgiving this year. I moped for a while and then had the bright idea to invite a friend from college days who had shown up at my church two weeks ago. Procrasted, and then decided to call. Looked in my organizer and... don't have their phone number. Tried to look them up online; no dice. I have their email address, though, so went to compose an email. As I wrote the email, I realized that at least one of them has plenty of family nearby, dangit. Glum again.

Finally I kicked myself in the ass and called some good friends to invite them. They could come. Wonderful.

So I'm happily making preparations, having realized that the reason I love this holiday is that I love to cook and I love to eat, and Thanksgiving beautifully incorporates both. And Thursday morning comes, and I get the turkey out. And have a horrible moment of, "That didn't smell right." I convince myself it's just the juices that leaked out that have spoiled, but the bird, still in its bag, is just fine. I pull it out of the bag, rinse it, and sniff again. Definitely bad. I'm freaking now. Thankfully, I'm cheap: Trader Joe's had had all their birds for $9.99 when we were there on Monday, and I had bought one to roast at some later date, and thrown it in the freezer. Ignoring my mom's suggestion of going out & buying two chickens to roast (my assertion was that it must be illegal to serve chicken on Thanksgiving), I thawed the bird in the sink in cold water--and called my guests to tell them dinner would be delayed. In an hour, she was ready to go. I oiled her, salt & peppered her, and popped her in the oven at 1PM, just 1 1/2 hours after her original start time. Despite only remembering to baste her once (did I mention I have a bit of ADD?), she turns out terrific.

(G and I even manage to start a jigsaw puzzle, one of my very rare joys. We all manage to finish it late in the evening, to the enjoyment of all. Oh, and I manage to be out of the shower when folks arrive!)

Guests arrive on time, every one of them, and we have a little cheese and crackers while the final preparations happen. We end up sitting down--wow--right on time, and everything really turns out great.

Just before we sit down, though, folks are intimating that something is going on out front that I will likely not like much. Turns out Sue brought along a turkey to put in front of my garage. Lest you think it's a cardboard cutout, think again. (that's not my front yard, but damn if that isn't the same turkey.) It has a light inside as well, so folks got to see it even after dark, woo hoo.

We round out the evening with several rounds of Uno Attack!, which is way fun, and G even won the first game. Then went on to try to play the "trade hands" card to trade with me, even though he was holding 1 card and I was holding a lot. We convinced him to play his other card instead, and when he realized what he'd done, he burst into tears, finally telling me he knew what he was doing--he wanted me to win. What a sweet kid.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.