The resident faculty at Blogistan Polytechnic Institute spent several days in the wine cellar library drinking thinking on our motto Magis vinum, magis verum ("More wine, more truth"), because Chef was hogging the mail room mainframe planning the BPI Thanksgiving menu. Despite this being a holiday week, the resident faculty did stumble proceed to the hot tub lounge for their weekly game where the underwear goes flying planning conference. Well, not really "despite" this being a holiday week, as they were talking about how to rescue a holiday.
More below the fold....
First, as always, we thank last week's guest lecturers. Last Tuesday, Professor of Neuroholdemology Caractacus ofrefed a docsuissin of schema theory. And last Wednesday, Professor of Ursacylicammology KVoimakas invited us to consider Long-term solutions to our economic system. If you missed either, please do read them.
Tomorrow, Ol' Crackpot continues his Things We Learned This Week series with some revealing (no, not that way!) insights about Governor Airspace, her recent political history, and her book tour. On Wednesday, Professor of Mediamaternity theKgirls will talk about how making quote/photo books helps her and her children remember special words of wisdom. Chef may be busy in the kitchen, but the Professor of Astrology Janitor has agreed buzz about with coffee and breakfast pastries.
Note: We currently have no guest lecturers scheduled for Wednesday, December 2nd or any Wednesday in December. If you would like to host Morning Feature on any of those days, please volunteer in a comment below.
Thursday is Thanksgiving, so while BPI's Konjugal Union Hall - the student union building, named after an anonymous benefactor - will be open for a Kasual Kula Krew Koffee Klatch there won't be any specific topic. But we do hope you will K-K-K-K-K-Kome if you K-K-K-K-K-Kan. The rest of the week we'll cover "events as they unfold." (You decide, we'll report. That seems bare and phalanxed enough.)
Which leaves the tale of how Thanksgiving became a holiday rescued, at least at Casa Crissie. My childhood holidays were a special time for the Dysfunctional (not our real name) family, if you define "special" to mean "an all-day argument with escape for work, school, etc." As previously related, Mr. Dysfunctional was big on doing things "as a family," and Mrs. Dysfunctional's cooking ranged from "burnt beyond recognition" to "suitable for paleontologists." Add to that the friction between my brother Annoying (not his real name), my younger sister Perfect (not her real name), and me (my real pronoun), and our family holidays should have been supervised by U.N. peacekeepers.
Still we soldiered on, sometimes metaphorically and sometimes less so, trying to make Thanksgiving something for which to be thankful.
The good news is that for several of those years we lived in Massachusetts and I played in the marching band. We didn't have a Homecoming Week or Homecoming Game against Evil Archrival High School. Instead there was the Thanksgiving Game against Evil Archrival High School and, that night, at least for those blessed by Cupid with dates, the Thanksgiving Night Dance. The bad news is that Our Wonderful High School got stomped by Evil Archrival High School every year that I played in the band, and Cupid didn't like me either.
Perhaps it was shivering in the cold while watching Evil Archrival High School earn another year's worth of bragging rights that set the table, so to speak, for our Thanksgiving disasters. Or maybe it was simply dread about whether dinner would fall nearer to "burnt beyond recognition" or "suitable for paleontologists." Either way, a disastrous dinner was as predictable as an Our Wonderful High School defeat.
And so it continued, even after we moved to another state, even after Annoying (not his real name) and I (my real pronoun) reached adulthood. (Perfect (not her real name) was born when I was sixteen.) Homeward we would trek, and would be met, with stubborn determination that this year, despite manifest experience to the contrary, would be different. Einstein said something about that, as I vaguely recall.
Then came the Year of the Boiled Dinner. No more petrified turkey (or perhaps pterodactyl, it was always difficult to be sure). This year a New Recipe would produce something different.
Or not. At least there were dinner rolls. Lots and lots of dinner rolls.
So the next year, we decided to forgo the pilgrimage and have dinner at Casa Crissie. What's more, Herself having had far too many Thanksgivings where she slaved away in the kitchen while the rest of her family watched parades or slept and showed up only when the dinner bell rang, we made a new rule: If you want it for Thanksgiving, get in the kitchen and help cook it.
Wonder of wonders, lo of beholds, and adieu of furthers ...
... it worked. Instead of dreading Thanksgiving, we spent two days as a family in the kitchen, chopping these, mixing those, preparing this, and talking about that. Thanksgiving became what I'd always imagined it might be: a wonderful experience filled with love, warmth, and laughter. Even a food fight or two along the way. Not everything came out perfectly the first year, but the oopses were met with laughter, and learning. Herself and I and Springoffs learned to cook some new things that way. But most of all, we learned to enjoy each others' company and having the time to share it.
It might not work for everyone, but it worked for us. And for that, come Thursday, I'll be very thankful indeed.
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Happy Monday!