Thanksgiving, thankfully... Ramble, ramble.

Thanksgiving, per the usual formula, was alcohol-doused this year, but decidedly more pleasurable than its’ last iteration. This was the second Thanksgiving without *Grandma N., Dad’s Mom, and that meant several things… 1) Less horrific gas passing around the table, though Dad is trying to pick up the slack. 2) No mumbling of meaning-loaded phrases, such as “I wish I was dead” under the breath while my little sister says grace, or someone attempts to freshen *an unwilling party’s wine. 3) No more really big hugs, because *a certain person isn’t sure she’s ever going to see you again. 4) No more oral family histories, spun out over coffee laced with a near-deadly amount of Chambord and melted dark chocolate (or just whisky… Take it as a granted that these became more interesting as I got older, and more could be revealed to my supposedly tender ears about the fantastic perverts in my family line).
Last year, the first Thanksgiving after Grandma N.’s death, was hosted by my little sister Frog (so named because she’s a French Horn player,) and her husband Komponist (German for composer, as that’s what he is). They took the bull by the horns, as Mom was still sick and in a lot of pain last year around the holidays, and Dad was down about losing his Mother. I had to drive from Madison to Grand Rapids, MI late at night the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and then Dad ferried me over the next morning to Detroit, while I dozed. He tried to tell me a lot of things in the car, and I listened where I could, and responded while I wasn’t sleeping. In any case, it was cathartic for him, but it just made me feel odd. Because I live pretty far away, it just seems like I’ve become the family’s father confessor, sometimes. All of them ended up using me for just that purpose while I was in Michigan last year. This sucked, as it was also a relatively alcohol-free weekend, and I had to sleep on the couch that night.
Holiday-wise, though, this year pretty much rocked. The only bad thing was leaving Orpheus behind in Madison, as Dad doesn’t really want to meet him, yet. He couldn’t go home, because he had to work on Friday, doesn’t have a car, and couldn’t count on a ride from his family. He had a great time, as they don’t really do Thanksgiving dinner at his house, anyway, and he got to have Indian buffet for lunch, and watch movies all day. I was basically on “suicide watch” every couple hours by IM, as I thought he’d get depressed… It was only at the end of the night that I realized that he wasn’t just burying his feelings, and probably thought I was a bit weird for getting all touchy-feely online like that. By that time, I was drunk as a skunk along with everybody else, variously anesthetized by favorite alcohols brown, red, yellow and crystal clear. We watched ‘Ratatouille’, which Dad pretended not to like at first, but drew quite a large number of giggles by the end. Everyone went to bed happy.
The day after, Mom and I went Christmas shopping with Frog, so that we could list our wants/needs/kitchen fetishes on the list. Frog ended up needing a suit, and Mom said that, since she needed it for mid-December, we should get it now. Frog is very body self-conscious, and kept trying on things that looked like they came from either the men’s section at Pimpercrombie and Bitch, or, worse yet, the women’s section… She’s a little bigger now than she used to be, and while she’s not fat, and doesn’t have back-rolls or anything, it’s very distressing to see her in a classic black suit that gives her camel-toe, and bunches under her arms. Mom and I both got rather sick of hearing her bitch, and were kind of cruel by the end of hour three in the supposedly nice mall in GR, which doesn’t even have a bloody Williams-Sonoma. Fortunately, she went home after our disastrous trip, and I got to drink more while making stuffed peppers cubano for Mutti and Vatti.
Finally, the last day I was in town, Saturday, I started off with a trip to the supposedly crappy mall in town (which nonetheless HAS a Williams-Sonoma, thank god), and walked out with one of my Christmas presents, a 17cm. Wuesthof Ikon Classic hollow-ground Santoku that cuts veggies like they’re not even there, and makes large cloves of garlic into microscopic bits about small enough to fall through the gaps between cells in your tongue. This, I convinced the parental units, was absolutely necessary to my cooking RIGHT NOW, and thus as been ensconced in my TERRA FIRMA: DO NOT TOUCH area of the kitchen, so sharp it might just fall through the knife block. I got home at about 9:30 that night after visiting my sister and Komponist at their charming new home in St. Joseph, MI for a few hours. It was the longest Orpheus and I had been apart yet since starting to date almost a year ago. Necessary, perhaps, but it was good to feel his skin against mine again, which happened almost immediately after walking through the door. We spent all of yesterday hanging out, as I had no role-playing. Terra Firma and Sister took excellent care of Maggie, my precious slut-cat. Apparently, Maggie got very lesbi-licious with Sister each and every night I was gone. Odd, considering that she doesn’t generally like the ladies. In any case, she snuggled right up to me last night, and I had Orpheus on the other side, so it was absolutely wonderful. All was right in the world, and I was warm enough… And now I’m at work. Blah. More tomorrow!