So this is going to ramble even more than usual, but bear with me, there's some important stuff buried in here somewhere.
Today is Thanksgiving and I am an American. That means a lot of different things, but I did in fact spend the day in a fairly typical fashion - on land, eating too much food and watching some video.
But this was a special Thanksgiving for a lot of reasons - it's my cousin's first "real" American Thanksgiving food wise - and my last in the country of my birth. Kind of made me think a little bit about what has changed in my world.
My cousin is a law student at a good school - he's smart, dedicated, going to be some kind of good lawyer advocatey person - and grew up in the Soviet Union. I grew up an Army officer's child in Europe during the last of the cold war.
We're related through our mums - our great grandmothers were sisters. We only met a couple of years ago as adults and sorted out how we were related. I'm religious, he's an atheist. He's gay, I'm not. But we are family and love each other and I was horrified that his idea of Thanksgiving was curry turkey and cabbage rolls. These are fine for sides, but not as the meal IMO.
So I got out the pans and went to WinCo (thanks SNAP!) and got to cooking. I made pies. I made dressing. I made cheesecake and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and haystacks and roasted a perfect small turkey. He made dal and something else that was delicious. We ate too much. He babbled on too fast about holidays withough fighting and never having turkey like this and can he have more pie and should we cut the challahs I baked or just save them for later? We watched some NCIS, got in a spirited discussion about Shin Bet and ate some more. (It was a Zeva episode) I packed and got ready to go home - and my cousin put some leftovers in a container for me.
My friends took me to the train station and I got my ticket and settled in to people watch and poke the internet - and decided to go out for a smoke. Now I quit smoking regular cigs about 3 weeks ago and switched to an e-cig - I don't have to go outside really but I do because of marit ayin and it's just polite. So I was outside "smoking" and watching a guy who was trying to wash windows of cars waiting for people to arrive or depart.
He was out there hustling - giving good service when he got the ok and a polite and cheery thanks when turned away - and he asked me for a smoke. I felt bad - I don't have any to share anymore and I always shared before.
"Have you eaten today?" I asked him.
"Um, not really," he answered awkwardly. I dig around in my backpack and pulled out the suddenly much too small container my cousin packed.
"Mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread dressing, gravy and some nice tender brest meat on top," I said, handing over the still warm container and zip bag. "I made that myself, no scary auntie pawn offs - we laughed - you enjoy it and have a good holiday." I shook his hand and waved and went in before I started to cry.
I am sitting on a warm bus with internet and a loo going home to my warm boat with food, power and a warm bed - and my job in the morning. I have it good for someone on the edge.
I was raised to be USA all the way. This was my last Thanksgiving in America and I was lucky enough to share it with two people it made a difference to - that's what I'm thankful for.