To My Friends Of Old....

Neil Young said it best, "One of these days I'm going to sit down and write a long letter to all the good friends I've known. And, I'm going to try to thank them all for the good times together, though so apart we've grown. . . .And I never tried to burn any bridges, but I know I've let some good things go. . . . From down in LA all the way to nashville to nyc to my canadian prairie home. My friends are scattered like leaves from an old maple. Some are weak, some are strong." 

So, on this Thanksgiving Day, and in fact on many other days, I do think of YOU, the people that have touched my life whether it was two years ago or twenty years ago. I remember you and appreciate the time that we spent together. And, occasionally while I am in the midst of my monotonous daily tasks, a passer by will see a big grin spread wide across my face. What they don't know is that I'm smiling because something has prompted me to a certain memory of you. Some may think its strange that something so distant in time and space can make me happy, but it does.

In a perfect world, we would still have time to sit around and laugh or cry together like we did in the days before, but like old Neil I've moved around a lot and so have many of you. We are distant not just in space, but we have found ourselves in different sectors of life: kids, job, hobbies, single, family, and so on.

It's been such a pleasure watching so many people grow up and become the amazing people I imagined they would be. The one redeeming factor of Facebook is allowing me to be a small part of your lives, if only through the internet.

Just know this, I consider myself lucky. I have had a great life thus far and mostly that is attributable to my friends and family.  So today I simply write - thank you for the good times we've had. They are not forgotten. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

A Thanksgiving Murder

As any good American, this Thursday I will be putting on a big Thanksgiving dinner, or Giorno di Graziamento, as they call it in Italy. But, since turkeys are seldom, if ever bought whole, I put my order in early. However, now I am fraught with guilt because it turns out that this bird, located by my butcher on a nearby farm, is living and breathing happily as we speak. He will be murdered at my behest on Wednesday. I feel horrible that my little 8 kilo taquino (turkey) will be lifeless on my kitchen counter just 4 short days from now. I am even more petrified that this little guy won't fit in my tiny european oven and I'll have murdered my little feathered friend all for naught. I actually went so far as to request that he be put on a diet for his last week of his life. The butcher agreed, so I am now not only killing him but I am also starving him in his last week of life.  My brownie points are just racking up in heaven, aren't they.

I must admit that I am extactic that my little guy will be organic and fresh, not some frozen mass-farmed slab of flesh that we have come to expect in the US. No need to thaw this guy for 5 days. Luckily that will give me time to hunt down all the crazy American ingredients for our feast. To my surprise, I have already located sweet potatoes which was no easy feat in the land of "if its not Italian, its not edible". But, I am still on the lookout for cranberries and marshmallows. How do I even translate those to ask??? I have already resigned myself to making the marshmallows from scratch so I can make the sweet potato casserole, and I may just have to improvise and use other berries (Lampone) that come from Sweden instead of cranberries. They look and feel a lot different than American cranberries but they are very bitter and red, so they should be a decent counterfeit. And, I have all but given up in locating graham crackers, and  have decided that those little "digestive" crackers and some butter will have to do. "When in Rome", as the saying goes....

So, this Thanksgiving will be a lot of blood (literally) sweat and tears, all for the sake of cultural survival. After all, lets face the fact that Americans don't have too many things that are uniquely theirs. Although a couple other countries do celebrate a day of "thanksgiving" none do it quite like us. We not only reflect on the things for which we are thankful, but we recall our history and how we began life here in the U.S.....(before all the indigenous murders started) and we do what we do best...pig out, drink, and watch football. Yeah! And, hopefully in the midst of all the mass-calorie consumption I can expose my daughter to her American roots.