Happy Thanksgiving (or Thursday..)

Jason

Ideas bounce around in my head
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For those living in U.S.A.:

Happy Thanksgiving:)

For the rest of the world:

Happy Thursday :)
 

Unimportant

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My very best wishes to everyone, whether they eat turkey or not, celebrate Thanksgiving or not, want to change the name (as claimed by a certain political figure) or not.

It's Friday for me, not Thursday, but regardless it was happy because it was graduation day, so I got to watch my students walk across the stage and claim their diplomas. That's the best part of the job, I swear. My babies, all grown up! ::sniff::
 

Chris P

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My very best wishes to everyone, whether they eat turkey or not, celebrate Thanksgiving or not, want to change the name (as claimed by a certain political figure) or not.

It's Friday for me, not Thursday, but regardless it was happy because it was graduation day, so I got to watch my students walk across the stage and claim their diplomas. That's the best part of the job, I swear. My babies, all grown up! ::sniff::

Amazing! That must be an incredible feeling.

I'm at the in-laws, who run a choose-and-cut Christmas tree farm, and this weekend is their busiest. Unfortunately, yesterday they got about six inches of heavy, wet snow that then froze solid. Looks gorgeous, but makes the trees weigh a ton, makes them impossible to work with, and can damage the trees when they are cut and moved around. Still, it's a fun time.

Also: National Dog Show was on. The best in show bulldog was an impressive specimen, but the goldie had my heart.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

It's Happy Tofurky Day here for the vegetarians and vegans. And some of us get together for a wonderful no-bad-karma-of-killing-an-animal potluck. Our hosts this year (and for many previous years) also have a meditative labyrinth on their horse and Christmas tree ranch. November is notoriously wet in Western Oregon, but this year it was dry enough that I finally got to walk it.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Kat M

Ooh, look! String!
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Thank you! Happy day after Thanksgiving/Turkey/Tofurkey/Thursday to you all as well. :)

Family got a bit crabby, but we survived. I made the greenbean casserole, which turned out blander than I would like, so obtained permission to make the cream of mushroom soup from scratch next year (our family is so set in its ways that one must get permission to experiment with the recipe). But then I remembered that our contract is up for negotiation, and we may not have Thanksgiving Eve off anymore next year, in which case we get the stuff out of a can. End of story.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Happy Turkey Day (or in my case a salad, eew tofurkey)! Fun time with the in-laws in Long Beach, MIL made fun of my bony legs and the one political tiff we got inside was more epistemological than anything. They're lovely.

And now, let us celebrate that most blessed of month-long holidays, Be Nice To People In Retail Month!
 
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Enlightened

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The tryptophan wiped me out yesterday. Had to modify my work schedule from it.
 

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!
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Usually my parents host a Thanksgiving day meal, but it's gotten a bit much for them. I volunteered to do it this time. We expected ten people in total, which is close to the limit for our small house -- we don't have a formal dining room, so a meal like this is strictly plates-on-knees in the living room.

We regularly host an Xmas Eve dinner, and I start baking & making candy for that a week or more in advance. I wasn't enthused to do two Big Meals a month apart! I looked for restaurants open that day but none of our favorites were, and the ones that were cost more than I was willing to pay ($45+ each) or a long drive closer into Boston.

Finally found a catering shop not too far from home selling a "traditional" meal package for a reasonable price. Picked it up the day before, and just had to reheat it all yesterday morning. Very happy with the results! A very generous amount of food -- the package said it would feed 8-10, and I'd say that was conservative. I made one recipe of cornbread myself, because cornbread.

Included in the package:

Turkey: 10/10 -- possibly the best turkey I've ever had! White meat was tender, moist, well-flavored with herbs, plus they carved the bird up for us at no cost. Was really nice.
Garlic mashed potatoes: 9/10 -- very garlicky, possibly a bit too much of it.
Pureed butternut: 9/10 -- very lightly spiced for a vaguely pie-flavored result.
Stuffing: 4/10 -- too dry, not as flavorful as I'd like.
Turkey gravy: 10/10 -- but Great Pumpkin! they gave us a literal vat of the stuff! (Lizmonster tells me it might be enough...)
Roasted root vegetables: 8/10 -- a bit over-roasted for me, and bit heavy on the brussels sprouts for my taste.
Dinner rolls: 6/10 -- a nice selection of three different kinds, but they were all a bit underbaked for my tastes -- should've spread them out on a cookie sheet in the oven to crisp them up.
Cranberry relish: 7/10 -- nice and chunky, but cranberry in this form is just really not my thing.
Pumpkin pie: ??/10 -- our crazy guests brought two pumpkin pies of their own, and I sent this one home with people, so never did get to taste it.

I'd asked our guests to please not worry about bringing food, but if they really insisted, "a" side-dish or dessert would be nice. Most brought 3 side-dishes plus desserts! :tongue I think we can eat leftovers for 4-5 days to come... Plus we're going to make turkey-vegetable-barley soup this weekend from the leftover dark meat, mmmm.

Lizmonster and I were a little nervous in the lead-up. My parents' conservative political views are very much the minority in our extended family, and they don't always keep their opinions to themselves. My adult daughter's boyfriend is sometimes clueless about "reading the room" and keeping his own, very liberal views to himself. And, my in-laws are both coping with frailty and dementia to varying degrees of success.

Thankfully, no one threw any verbal bombs, and no physical disasters. Low body-count! Victory! :snoopy:
 
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Unimportant

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Amazing! That must be an incredible feeling.
It's indescribable.

For my undergraduate students, it's watching them go from babies to adults, from clueless dependents to independent career professionals. For my PhD students, it's watching them go from asking 'Help, what do I do?' to 'Hmm, should I do X or Y?' to 'No, you're wrong, Unimportant, Imma do it this way because HERE IS WHY I AM RIGHT.' It's such a flipping privilege to have a part, large or small, in their successes.

And for my undergrads, I often get to meet their parents at graduation. When the parents say "Oh, so YOU are Unimportant. We have heard SO MUCH about you" it's a bit of an "uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't drop so many effbombs in lecture :D But a few times the parents have said "Thank you, my kid was really struggling and says they'd never have got through Uni without your help and support and love" and that just Makes. My. Life. (When they hug me and ask me to call them Mom, despite the fact they're younger than me, it's....weird, but definitely rewarding.)

I came to teaching late in life, and it scared the crap out of me when I got dropped in it, and it can be exhausting and depressing and soul destroying, but the rewards are....yeah, indescribable.
 
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Unimportant

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I'd asked our guests to please not worry about bringing food, but if they really insisted, "a" side-dish or dessert would be nice. Most brought 3 side-dishes plus desserts! :tongue I think we can eat leftovers for 4-5 days to come... Plus we're going to make turkey-vegetable-barley soup this weekend from the leftover dark meat, mmmm.

Woot!

Whoever hosts the dinner deserves the leftovers, so good on ya. Not having to cook for a few days is minimal recompense for all of the planning, sorting, managing, cleaning, and putting-up-with-ing. But I'm glad you weren't left with any corpses to bury or divorces to settle :D