From Turkey to Cookies

 I am officially almost out of stuffing and mashed potatoes – gluttony is approaching hiatus status. I wish the seemingly endless dishes of goodness remained, but I am also glad to encourage diversity in my diet. It is time to dig out the decorations and dust off the garlands and embrace the cookie. Thanksgiving was a welcome reminder of the good things I should keep in mind as the season falls dark and sparkly around me. Snow also fell on Thanksgiving and what a beautiful thing that was – big huge Charlie Brown snowflakes tumbling to the ground and wetting the deep fryer. A contradiction in holidays, but oddly poetic. I welcome the arrival of winter.

Instead of snow, however, we have 1-2 inches of rain in our very near future. Thankfully, I have my tree in and up already - all glinting full of literally over a thousand lights and smelling delightful. It is impressive how quickly a room, nay, a house, can be transformed with festive holiday spirit. Thanksgiving continues here with the coming of the dark cold months, but turkey is a sweet memory and visions of cookies are now dancing in my head.

Gobbling Thanks

I’ve been trying to imagine what it was like back in 1621 at the “first” Thanksgiving.  William Bradford and the Pilgrims threw a celebratory feast that lasted 3 days and was attended by an unlikely union of religious separatists and Native Americans.  A great bounty after a year of death and suffering and I can barely imagine how thankful they were to not only have the food, but the welcoming and knowledgeable company in the new world, as well.

Today, we chose the fourth Thursday in November to mark our day of Thanks and we are serious about stuffing not only our birds.  I’ve learned a lot from the National Turkey Federation…   Apparently, approximately 736 million pounds of turkey were cooked on Thanksgiving in 2009 with an estimated 88% of Americans bellying up to the turkey bar.   That’s a whole lot of bird.    I’m sure the turkeys this year will be equally gobbled.  President Obama will pardon one tomorrow (http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/party-events-pictures/archive/7175-the-national-thanksgiving-turkey-meet-and-greet) but that is the lucky one that gets away....

I am looking down the barrel at a relatively small Thanksgiving this year, but my Thanks and excitement for the day is undiminished.  I love to cook and this day was made for me in the kitchen.  I’ve already cooked a pumpkin cheesecake, caramel sauce, and made my croutons for the stuffing.   Tomorrow will bring another pie and some veggie prep.  Thanksgiving, itself, will bring a fried Turkey this year…   The deep fried delicacy originated in the south and it seems the south has found me.  I am not in charge of the turkey frying, but am looking forward to the spectacle.  I am happy to be an audience for the bird while whipping up the potatoes, cooking up some sides, baking the bread….     I can smell it already and it smells delish.

I will be thinking over the next few days of all the things I am thankful for (above and beyond just the food).  My struggles and hurdles are nothing like what the Pilgrims experienced, but sometimes I lose perspective.  Work stresses, people problems, travel trials, money matters…. The list of things that distract me from the good in my world is embarrassingly prominent too often.  It is a good reminder, this Thanksgiving, that there is a cornucopia of things to really be thankful for, too.   I look forward to reminding myself of those things as I embrace the harvest the next couple of days.  I expect my Thanksgiving will last at least 3 days.

Cheers and many thanks to the many of you.

Sanity Now

      I think the best part of the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear was walking to it.  Don’t get me wrong – I had a great time there (for the most part – wait for it), but getting there was exciting.   Walking  down the hill towards the Washington Monument, again, coffee in hand, we were moving en masse in one general direction with the populous.   Noone really knew much of anything about why we were there, except to show up and participate in something positive.

 

     With that, we walked and walked and were joined by more and more people – most also with coffee in hand – and soon it was a sea of people all walking in the same direction – moving toward something big.  It felt good.  I wish I could have seen that from a helicopter.   We soon realized there were way more people there than had been planned for and this was an hour before show-time.   We struggled to find a spot where I could at least see a screen every once in a while and planted ourselves.   Often, the crowd was more interesting than what was happening on screen – as a short person, I couldn’t see much.    But I sure could see my neighbors.    An older couple from Wisconsin who had an endless supply of food were trying to meet up with their son giving directions in terms of port-potties and trees (he never showed - shocker), a sarcastic woman from New York who met Devo, an extremely ugly couple trying to meet up with a friend and paying attention to nothing but that, folks in costumes, folks with signs, it was a mish-mash of a mass.  

 

      Yusuf Islam and Ozzie Osbourne dueling trains was my favorite.   I think even being squished and not being able to move for 4 hours and not seeing much and not hearing everything, it was still worth it to be part of something big.  I can always watch it on TV…   It isn’t often you can be a part of something like that.  Glad to have gone.

      It was a mad rush to get out as the sea moved very slowly and we took over the roads.  Straight to a great Halloween party and a quick change and we were back having fun with friends.  It was a fun day for sure.   Love the Halloween party where we were all characters of The Life Aquatic or other Wes Anderson movies.   Fire was started in a cement and aluminum shark mouth with a massive blow torch, great food everywhere, beer free-flowing, and jellies glowing around the pond.    Folks had great fun and it was the perfect topper to the weekend.

      Happy belated Halloween.  Stay sane.

E pluribus unum

     I’ve always loved visiting Washington D.C.  I love the Mall, the grandiose buildings perfectly placed, the great green spaces teeming with business people and tourists alike.   I love that the scale of everything seems always skewed to the large and substantial, and that the city buzzes with potential.  

          My goal this trip was to see the Capitol building and possibly the Library of Congress.  I am embarrassed to admit that this goal was partially spawned from reading a bit of Brown and the descriptions of these buildings that sucked me right in.  The Apotheosis of Washington was calling, and I was ready.   I was not disappointed.

           A leisurely crisp, sunny, beautiful morning, we walked from our hotel a few blocks from the White House, with coffee in hand, the 0.5 miles to the Capitol on the east end of the mall.  Feeling good, we found the visitor center entrance with the help of a police officer and were screened and x-rayed and ready to start the tour.  As part of the unwashed masses without reservations, we only had a quick wait.  The visitor center itself is large -- 580,000 square feet of beautiful open space surprisingly well-lit for being underground.   The tour started off with a movie; Out of Many – One.  Sounds corny and I had my reservations, but it was outstanding and really made me think about how our country and our people have responded to history and who we are as a country.    And appropriately, that was pretty much what the whole weekend ended up being about since the Stewart/Colbert rally was gearing up outside with sound checks awaiting more unwashed masses to arrive the next morning (but that will be another blog post).

          The movie got us into it and really was inspiring – if you haven’t been to the Capitol Building, you should definitely go.   Best part of the building:  The Rotunda.   Complete with the Apotheosis of Washington painted in true fresco style by Brumidi in 1865, the piece was finished after the Civil War and is 180 ft above our heads painted on the interior of the massive dome that makes the Capitol the Capitol.  Super cool not only is the painting – it is a little weird – but the surrounding architecture.   The entire Rotunda is a huge piece of art both in structure and adornment.  Everywhere you look there is beauty.  The walls are fantastic, the art on the walls are fantastic, even the floors are fantastic.  

   I learned a great deal from that visit and the Library of Congress may have been even more artistically impressive.  Everywhere we looked we saw elegance, skill, mastery, thoughtfulness, intelligence, and evidence of a great understanding that this all was incredibly well thought-out and important to share with the world.   They were masters, the builders and artists that worked in D.C., and I am so thankful for being able to experience their work in some small way.

      I will be back.  I hope you go, too.  It was a great weekend.   Stay tuned for Rally fun and food fun!