yesthattom (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yesthattom) wrote2005-11-26 09:11 am
yesthattom) wrote2005-11-26 09:11 am
My Thanksgiving
This year we spent Thanksgiving at my sister’s place in Chicago.
Wednesday: C and I left work early (she had a half day) and took at 4ish flight to Chicago Midway. We took the “L” (the elevated train) to my sister Frances’ place. C used to live in Chicago and when we printed the Yahoo map of where Frances and Ben (her husband) live, you could see not just Frances’ place, but the 2 apartments that C has previously lived in. Pretty cool!
We took the L to my sister’s place. We were the last to arrive. I’m the youngest of 5 kids and this is the first time we’ve all (5 kids and Mom) been together since we buried our father’s ashes a few years ago. It was good to see everyone.
Thursday (Thanksgiving) my sister Frances had put together a kitchen schedule. Each block of time was marked as who was the “kitchen boss” and what was being prepared during that time. That made for a lot less stress, and no arguments about how to cook things. If 10-11am was Frances’ time to make the anti-pasto, the brussels sprouts, and the mashed potatoes, she could decide who was in the kitchen and drag in volunteers, but there would be no power games over how long to steam the brussels. Everyone brought something (we brought dessert wine, since we were traveling the furthest we couldn’t bring much else.)
Attendees: Mom, my sister Mary, her husband Christopher, and two kids (Catherine and Julia), my sister Rose, her husband John, and their child Jesse, my brother Edward, my sister Frances, her husband Ben and their 2 cats and 1 dog, me, C, and Fran’s friend and writing/directing partner George.
Dinner was excellent. Pumpkin soup, anti-pasto, 15 lb. turkey, sausage stuffing, brussels sprouts, mashed turnips, mashed potatoes, a big list of wine, a bunch of other vegetables, 8 pies, and most likely a bunch of other stuff I forgot. I didn’t overeat this year... I stopped just short of passing out. Perfect.
A lot of LJ reports of Thanksgiving meals include some story of getting into political debates with their Republican brother-in-law that turns ugly. I had a similar thing, but different. Mary’s husband Christopher is a big corporate lawyer for a 3-letter company that starts with “I”. He has a lot of strong opinions about politics. After dinner in the living-room we got into this long, drawn out debate about American politics. It was difficult to keep up with him since he’s really thought out a lot of things better than I have, and reads a lot of blogs. Now, I bet you think I’m going to say that he’s a big Bush supporter, etc. No, I was having trouble keeping up because he’s more of an anti-Bush person than I am, and the debate was more along the lines of should we start a third party or rebuild the Democrats. After about 30 minutes I paused to say, “Most of my friends will come back from Thanksgiving complaining about the argument they had with their Republican brother-in-law. I want to pause this conversation for a bit to say how thankful I am that I’m going to be able to say that I was the conservative one!”
Friday we went to Mary and Christopher’s house about 30 minutes away in Schaumburg. The kids played together while we ate more and talked. I got to show C the music collection that Christopher has... it’s eclectic, spanning Punk, to Japanese acid rock, to Punk, to Classical music, to Punk, to The Doors. He has a brand new turntable from a Hungarian company, so we were actually able to listen to vinyl records. This turntable is so audiophile-ish that you have to manually change a belt when you switch to playing 45s.
Friday night C and I went back to the city to walk around the parts of Chicago she hasn’t seen since she lived there. We went to a few record stores in Boystown, and I have to say they were damn amazing. No wonder John Cusack changed the location to Chicago when he re-wrote High Fidelity for the screen. The people that work at these places really know music.
Then the big event... we went to The Metro (where C had seen dozens of shows when she lived her) and saw Echo and the Bunnymen. It was a cool show, but to be honest, I didn’t recognize all but 2 songs. The lead singer was drunk, and kept complaining that his monitor was staticy. However, I had fun overall.
It’s now Friday morning. We’re packing so we can get to the airport in time.
See ya when I get back!
Wednesday: C and I left work early (she had a half day) and took at 4ish flight to Chicago Midway. We took the “L” (the elevated train) to my sister Frances’ place. C used to live in Chicago and when we printed the Yahoo map of where Frances and Ben (her husband) live, you could see not just Frances’ place, but the 2 apartments that C has previously lived in. Pretty cool!
We took the L to my sister’s place. We were the last to arrive. I’m the youngest of 5 kids and this is the first time we’ve all (5 kids and Mom) been together since we buried our father’s ashes a few years ago. It was good to see everyone.
Thursday (Thanksgiving) my sister Frances had put together a kitchen schedule. Each block of time was marked as who was the “kitchen boss” and what was being prepared during that time. That made for a lot less stress, and no arguments about how to cook things. If 10-11am was Frances’ time to make the anti-pasto, the brussels sprouts, and the mashed potatoes, she could decide who was in the kitchen and drag in volunteers, but there would be no power games over how long to steam the brussels. Everyone brought something (we brought dessert wine, since we were traveling the furthest we couldn’t bring much else.)
Attendees: Mom, my sister Mary, her husband Christopher, and two kids (Catherine and Julia), my sister Rose, her husband John, and their child Jesse, my brother Edward, my sister Frances, her husband Ben and their 2 cats and 1 dog, me, C, and Fran’s friend and writing/directing partner George.
Dinner was excellent. Pumpkin soup, anti-pasto, 15 lb. turkey, sausage stuffing, brussels sprouts, mashed turnips, mashed potatoes, a big list of wine, a bunch of other vegetables, 8 pies, and most likely a bunch of other stuff I forgot. I didn’t overeat this year... I stopped just short of passing out. Perfect.
A lot of LJ reports of Thanksgiving meals include some story of getting into political debates with their Republican brother-in-law that turns ugly. I had a similar thing, but different. Mary’s husband Christopher is a big corporate lawyer for a 3-letter company that starts with “I”. He has a lot of strong opinions about politics. After dinner in the living-room we got into this long, drawn out debate about American politics. It was difficult to keep up with him since he’s really thought out a lot of things better than I have, and reads a lot of blogs. Now, I bet you think I’m going to say that he’s a big Bush supporter, etc. No, I was having trouble keeping up because he’s more of an anti-Bush person than I am, and the debate was more along the lines of should we start a third party or rebuild the Democrats. After about 30 minutes I paused to say, “Most of my friends will come back from Thanksgiving complaining about the argument they had with their Republican brother-in-law. I want to pause this conversation for a bit to say how thankful I am that I’m going to be able to say that I was the conservative one!”
Friday we went to Mary and Christopher’s house about 30 minutes away in Schaumburg. The kids played together while we ate more and talked. I got to show C the music collection that Christopher has... it’s eclectic, spanning Punk, to Japanese acid rock, to Punk, to Classical music, to Punk, to The Doors. He has a brand new turntable from a Hungarian company, so we were actually able to listen to vinyl records. This turntable is so audiophile-ish that you have to manually change a belt when you switch to playing 45s.
Friday night C and I went back to the city to walk around the parts of Chicago she hasn’t seen since she lived there. We went to a few record stores in Boystown, and I have to say they were damn amazing. No wonder John Cusack changed the location to Chicago when he re-wrote High Fidelity for the screen. The people that work at these places really know music.
Then the big event... we went to The Metro (where C had seen dozens of shows when she lived her) and saw Echo and the Bunnymen. It was a cool show, but to be honest, I didn’t recognize all but 2 songs. The lead singer was drunk, and kept complaining that his monitor was staticy. However, I had fun overall.
It’s now Friday morning. We’re packing so we can get to the airport in time.
See ya when I get back!
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