Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past

I can't say I'm a big fan of Thanksgiving. I mean, it's a nice idea and everything, but I've never had one of those big happy families (or even happily dysfunctional families) who has a big warm celebration. It's always been sort of a non-event.

Last year, I spent Thanksgiving bartending for a private party where the obnoxious and quite bitchy wife thought that my $15 an hour should include bartending services as well as washing all of the dishes for the entire function (there were around 40 people). Not my idea of a good time. So, I did half of them and then informed the very nice husband that I needed to get home so my sitter* could go home. Don't look at me like that. I had already stayed 2 hours longer than I had agreed to when we made the arrangements.

The year before that, Maria Teresa and I were in the process of returning to Sana'a after cutting our end-of-Ramadan-Yemeni-exploration-tour a bit short**. I tried to send an SMS to US Embassy Paul who had driven us home from the Marine party a couple weeks earlier, but instead I got the wrong cell phone number from Suhail and ended up having an interesting conversation with Welsh Security Consultant Paul*** who was quite confused as to why anyone would want to wish him a happy Thanksgiving. And, instead of turkey and all the fixins, I partook of pasta with tomatoes and tuna (my standard fare when I didn't want to make the trek to Funny Bunny or any of the other fast food joints). It was also the first time I had heard from my parents since I had moved to Yemen 2 months earlier (they were kind of pissed that I was gallivanting around the land of "towel-headed bastards" and "sand niggers").

The year before that, it was my last day in Taormina. I was preparing to return to Siena. After packing, I went down to Carmelo's bar and where he had made a parting batch of sangria for me (thankfully this time I didn't fall backwards down the stairs). I had to say goodbye to Nino and Andreas and Emi and all of the fantastically strange people from Casa Grugno (where I had done a 4 week cooking course). Malcolm renewed his offer to marry me so I could get a European passport, and then he and Allison (a very stupid yet intelligent Republican from Denver who went to our language school) accompanied me down to the train station so I could catch my night train to Tuscany.

The year before that was spent in Castle Pines watching an emaciated anorectic girl**** cut her piece of turkey into microscopic bits while her obese parents beamed with pride at their thin daughter. They were also pushing her to marry the senator's son she was dating despite the fact that he had gotten her hooked on pot and had given her a couple of nasty diseases.

This year I am doing nothing Thanksgiving related. I had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for lunch. I have smoked many cigarettes and spoken to no one. In a couple hours I will go with Chipper and his family to see Harry Potter. But that is the extent of the activities for my day.

Christmas will probably be the same. Except Boy will be living in my house so I'll probably have to talk to someone at some point. And I probably won't be seeing Harry Potter again.

*Sometimes it's fun and useful to invent children

**Maria Teresa forgot to bring enough cash and we arrived in Sana'a with about 30 cents between us

***His neck is larger than his head and he's really funny when he's drunk

****My Arch-Nemesis, Jordan - my mother and her parents grew up in the same town - she is two weeks older than I am and has spent her life perfecting demonic behavior*****

*****One of her favorite things to do between the ages of 5 and 10 was to tie unsuspecting visitors****** to chairs, leave them in the closet and then periodically return to pour cold water on them

******As it happens, I was only unsuspecting once, but I saw it happen to others on multiple occasions