My Thanksgiving: Belated Review.

My Thanksgiving was pretty good. I had wrangled an invitation to this one couple's house who have a Thanksgiving for orphans from my one friend who used to deliver singing telegrams - she's known them forever, and I had met them at a cook-out of hers back in August - and so I went there and dragged a school friend along too who was also an orphan.

The meal was good, with turkey and ham, and two kinds of gravy. One was gluten-free and the other was mushroom, and the one guy's sister who was next to me kept (gently; she was kind of big and spoke with a soothing voice) yelling at her brother because he would tell everyone that the gravy was gluten-free.

"Call it turkey gravy," she was like, "When you say it's gluten-free, you make it sound like it's missing something essential and is a second-choice gravy!"

Later, when she found out that I was studying religion, she shared with me a book she was reading, which was written by a shaman and was talking about important parallels between native american thinking and early christianity.

Fortunately, that got someone on my side of the table talking about sweat lodge retreats, which was cool... This guy was talking about how they dug a hole in the ground and filled it with hot rocks, and then covered everything with pine boughs and you were in there in the middle of the night, etc.

The other highlight of dinner was when somehow everyone started talking about traffic laws. My one friend who used to deliver singing telegrams was talking about how her mother used to call out the window in an inimitable (sp.?) southern accent, "Darling, what are you waiting for, lights don't grow any greener!". This one MFA student who ended up at dinner also shared this neologism of stopsigns you can coast through - they're "stoptional".

Also, my one friend from school, who's always finding herself in weird, dramatic situations, was talking about how she's getting a new apartment with a guy from her co-op who was kicked out for bringing a golden retriever into the house.

"I wouldn't mind it," she was like, "But the dog was abused, and I guess that changes its fur chemistry, so it's really really oily and kind of smells and likes to rub up against everything."

At that, the gluten-free woman next to me recommended giving the dog some flower extract that you can get at any health-foods store.

Later, when everyone was talking politics, she was saying that it upsets her that Obama's health care plan makes you buy health insurance, but she can't choose alternative medicine.