Here's something you might be interested in.
One of my old friends from high school asked me via Facebook, about my Thanksgiving traditions and customs. I told her with a Jewish family, it was always buying Butterballs half-off.
But the last two years, I've had the Thanksgiving feast with Amy and Eber, a couple of interesting local writers I met at a friends party five years ago.
Last year Eber was doing a lot of texting. I was next to him on the couch, having our usual movie debates. He looked up and apologized for the flurry of texts, saying "My son just quit his job and go be on 'American Idol'."
He went on to explain that his son Adam [Lambert] was the understudy in Wicked -- a play my girlfriend loved. A play I didn't see because...well, it's was a play.
He told us something about Adam making the top 10, but that he couldn't share any more of the details with us. We told him we'd watch the show. We never did.
It was cool to see all the stories as Adam was rising to the top.
Since his son appeared on Letterman the night before, I looked for my Letterman shirt to wear. I couldn't find it.
I walked in and found most of the crowd was in a room making turkeys out of construction paper, glue, and various buttons, stickers and things to adorn the bird with.
People would start out drawing their hand and go from there. I made a fist with a middle finger. I called him Vance the Vegan, and he was flipping the bird (pun intended) to everyone that was going to be eating other fowl.
A guitarist named Erik made the best one. He glued feathers on it, and a piece of dangling jewelry, draped from the neck. He said it was the turkeys bling.
We glanced at Ebers CD collection. Usually I notice people have a shelf filled with crappy DVDs (why do so many people own Independance Day?). He has one of the best CD collections I've ever seen (and he let me borrow his Zombies "Odyssey and Oracle").
It was still 45 minutes until the bird would be done, so I took my glass of wine into the backyard to enjoy a cigar. I could hear people showing up, saying hello, and asking Eber about the latest controversy involving his son. At one point I heard Eber say "I asked him if he has someone he runs these things by before he does them."
There were two different tables, and I'm positive ours had the more interesting conversation. A teacher from Encinitas had some great stories. Her husband, a tall guy with long hair and a drum shirt (he was another guitarist), talked about bands from his hometown, Detroit (I've never met someone from the Motor City that didn't love their Detroit bands; but in their defense, they have produced some great stuff).
There was one couple that had cute accents. The guy was from France, his wife from Iran. They met when he was her boss, and that led to a lot of great conversations about office romances and the various things we've all seen over the years.
I've never seen a better selection of desserts on Thanksgiving. Aside from the pumpkin and apple pies, and few other goodies...I loved the six different flavors of Ben & Jerry's set out.
With a slice of pie and chocolate brownie on top of it, my belt buckle snapped as the first spoonful entered my pumpkin pie hole.
There were people showing up as we were leaving. One woman said she had been to two places earlier. And I wondered how common it was for people to go to various relatives on turkey day. I figured they all met at one place. And if you were married, and there were two different families, you pick one and enjoy the day there. Maybe the following year, you can spend it with the other folks.
And there are some that will avoid their family at all costs. It's one of the reasons the premise of Four Christmas was so interesting. It was unfortunatley, not a good film.
One of my old friends from high school asked me via Facebook, about my Thanksgiving traditions and customs. I told her with a Jewish family, it was always buying Butterballs half-off.
But the last two years, I've had the Thanksgiving feast with Amy and Eber, a couple of interesting local writers I met at a friends party five years ago.
Last year Eber was doing a lot of texting. I was next to him on the couch, having our usual movie debates. He looked up and apologized for the flurry of texts, saying "My son just quit his job and go be on 'American Idol'."
He went on to explain that his son Adam [Lambert] was the understudy in Wicked -- a play my girlfriend loved. A play I didn't see because...well, it's was a play.
He told us something about Adam making the top 10, but that he couldn't share any more of the details with us. We told him we'd watch the show. We never did.
It was cool to see all the stories as Adam was rising to the top.
Since his son appeared on Letterman the night before, I looked for my Letterman shirt to wear. I couldn't find it.
I walked in and found most of the crowd was in a room making turkeys out of construction paper, glue, and various buttons, stickers and things to adorn the bird with.
People would start out drawing their hand and go from there. I made a fist with a middle finger. I called him Vance the Vegan, and he was flipping the bird (pun intended) to everyone that was going to be eating other fowl.
A guitarist named Erik made the best one. He glued feathers on it, and a piece of dangling jewelry, draped from the neck. He said it was the turkeys bling.
We glanced at Ebers CD collection. Usually I notice people have a shelf filled with crappy DVDs (why do so many people own Independance Day?). He has one of the best CD collections I've ever seen (and he let me borrow his Zombies "Odyssey and Oracle").
It was still 45 minutes until the bird would be done, so I took my glass of wine into the backyard to enjoy a cigar. I could hear people showing up, saying hello, and asking Eber about the latest controversy involving his son. At one point I heard Eber say "I asked him if he has someone he runs these things by before he does them."
There were two different tables, and I'm positive ours had the more interesting conversation. A teacher from Encinitas had some great stories. Her husband, a tall guy with long hair and a drum shirt (he was another guitarist), talked about bands from his hometown, Detroit (I've never met someone from the Motor City that didn't love their Detroit bands; but in their defense, they have produced some great stuff).
There was one couple that had cute accents. The guy was from France, his wife from Iran. They met when he was her boss, and that led to a lot of great conversations about office romances and the various things we've all seen over the years.
I've never seen a better selection of desserts on Thanksgiving. Aside from the pumpkin and apple pies, and few other goodies...I loved the six different flavors of Ben & Jerry's set out.
With a slice of pie and chocolate brownie on top of it, my belt buckle snapped as the first spoonful entered my pumpkin pie hole.
There were people showing up as we were leaving. One woman said she had been to two places earlier. And I wondered how common it was for people to go to various relatives on turkey day. I figured they all met at one place. And if you were married, and there were two different families, you pick one and enjoy the day there. Maybe the following year, you can spend it with the other folks.
And there are some that will avoid their family at all costs. It's one of the reasons the premise of Four Christmas was so interesting. It was unfortunatley, not a good film.