fullI chatted with my mother, and when the turkey was ready, I attacked it with implements of destruction, and managed to reduce it to a bunch of meat on a plate without adding any of my blood to it as a condiment, and that's about the best you can hope for when I carve a turkey.
After a nice Thanksgiving Day lunch with the five of us, including much talk of Lisa and my travels in Japan, we went out into the back yard, where Lisa took some photos of me, my mother, and my grandfather.
My sister, Kelli, donated a pumpkin pie, delivered by my nephew before I arrived, but neither of them were able to attend this little gathering because of their other family commitments. But Kelli did call while I was there and we talked briefly. She thanked me for the little gift I brought back from Japan, which was a little good-luck coin-and-key chain charm. I understand from my mother that my nephew didn't care much for the soy-sauce-dipped rice cakes we brought from the Choshi Dentetsu railway side trip. I agree that they are, at best, an acquired taste, as those of you sampled them at the BASFA meeting probably learned.
After further talk, Mom and Vince did have to leave -- they're doing a show in Grass Valley tomorrow, but fortunately for them, they are already set up for it, so they didn't have to rush off immediately. A while later, Lisa and I also made our farewells. I had remembered to bring a bunch of food containers with me, so we took away our share of the feast, as requested. (There's no way my grandfather could eat all of these leftovers.) This is another good reason for staying at the Holiday Inn Express, with its refrigerator and microwave oven.
We went for a long walk around the area, which has changed a great deal since the last time Lisa was here. We observed that one of the stores here has a sign up announcing that they're opening at 4 AM Friday morning for the early bird shoppers. Bleah. Then we went back to the hotel room, where it was more or less dinner time, and heated up the leftovers and had a second Thanksgiving meal. After all that food, we had to go out for another walk, which left us feeling a lot less bloated.
Getting back to the hotel room, we considered using the hotel's hot tub, but it's so cold outside that we couldn't bear the though of walking in our swim suits to and from the pool/hot tub area, so we played a game of Australian Rails instead.
Soon I do need to shut things down, because we can't dawdle on Friday morning if we're to get out of here in time to get me on the 12:10 PM train from Sacramento.
