2008-11-29 - 9:16 a.m.

...day after The Day After Thanksgiving...

So, I live in Canada, which means I live in a place that celebrated Thanksgiving eons ago. That's nothing new. I've lived in a lot of places where American Thanksgiving hasn't been celebrated. But there is a difference here.

When I remind people that today is MY Thanksgiving Day, they smile with a glimmer of recognition of what that means, and wish me a lovely holiday. Another portion of the population looks at me and says, "Oh you're AMERICAN..." with a tone that suggests that I've just told them that I hold ritualistic bloodletting sacrifices in my living room, and they don't entirely approve, but they want to be polite about it...But it's too late, they've already grown to know me as a person and so I'm just one of those DIFFERENT Americans. (which, when I think about it, is the same attitude I encounter in other countries, it's just that they pretty much know up front that I'm not FROM here when I butcher their language).

Rambling. I'm rambling.

Anyway, so the good thing, is that I now live in a place where people KNOW what a big deal Thanksgiving is, and they know enough to joke with me about this whole "Black Friday" thing. Actually, I could now go off on another tangent, because my whole life, I've loved shopping on Black Friday, because it frequently fell on my grandmother's birthday, and we always took her shopping for her family birthday present, an experience akin to ritualistic bloodletting sacrifices in its ability to curl your toenails with predictable family dynamics. Also, I'm just a sucker for Christmas decorations and I love Christmas music, so the freshness of all of this happening on one big day always got me tremendously excited. Black Friday was like a huge starting gate for the Christmas season, a day when we could finally put on the Christmas CDs and enjoy the season. I guess I'm not a scrooge when it comes to these things. These days, I love the pageantry, even if I dislike the commercialism. Give me a gigantic blowup Santa riding a huge red lobster and I'll laugh my ass off with the fun of it before I feel disgusted by it.

Oops. Rambling again. Where was I?

So this year, I taught my last lecture of the term on Thanksgiving. I ended my lecture thinking, "I'm thankful this is OVER." Instead I said to them, "This is American Thanksgiving, which is my Thanksgiving day. And I just wanted to let you know, that I'm thankful that you've been such a pleasant class to teach." In spite of the 5-6 cases of plagiarism (which were NOT fun to deal with), I did really enjoy this class overall.

And then I prepared the Thanksgiving feast on Friday, which was, if you think about it, was actually Susi's SECOND Thanksgiving Day (her Canadian Thanksgiving being her first). This kid has a lot to be thankful for.

I cooked up the whole kit-n-caboodle, and we are now drowning in leftovers.
I've just started cooking a turkey carcass soup. K and I expect that we will not be needing to cook for the rest of the winter. Even the CATS are already so stuffed full of turkey that they've walked away from a tray of greasy turkey bits on the kitchen floor. (Note to self: pick up tray of greasy turkey bits before Susi wakes up).

This isn't what I originally wanted to write about, but I'll just end this one by saying that my two days of Thanksgiving, even in a country where the days aren't officially celebrated, were pretty darned good. We had friends over, we ate and drank and laughed. Susi was amazingly cute and well-behaved.

And I felt thankful for alot of things apart from my pleasant class. Highest on the list are Susi and K, and the best parents in the world, and a fabulous set of brothers and sisters and in-laws. Next on the list is an overall happiness with my life, both the current one that I enjoy - even with its occasional fits and starts - and the one that I've lived - with all of its bumps and wiggles along the way. I'm thankful for all of the people who have been in my life and shaped who I've become - this includes my d-land community whose words are lively, loving, ranting, ecstatic, complaining, mundane, aggravating, hysterical, and comforting - just as life is. Life is good, I'm very very lucky, and oh-so thankful.