Friday Five: Thanksgiving Thoughts

A wonderfully poetic Friday Five from Jan this week:

The Cure

Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk,
I'm not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she's just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it's snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She's been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.

--Ginger Andrews (from Hurricane Sisters)

So this Friday before Thanksgiving, think about Aunt Bert and how she'll celebrate Thanksgiving! And how about YOU?

1. What is your cure for the "mulleygrubs"?

Probably my cranberry chutney, and also making pumpkin pie.

2. Where will you be for Thanksgiving?

The offspring will be either with their father or on the other coast working, so PH and I will enjoy a rare Thanksgiving with just the two of us - we're going out to our favorite French restaurant for a French thanksgiving...

3. What foods will be served? Which are traditional for your family?

...which means no turkey, which I can live without, anyway. I believe pate, Chateaubriand and pumpkin cheesecake will be part of the menu. And red wine. I'll give thanks, indeed!

4. How do you feel about Thanksgiving as a holiday?

You mean outside of the fact that we celebrate taking the nation away from the indigenous people, or Thanksgiving as a concept? I like the latter. I think we shy away too much from the former. I'll still eat, though, and thank God for the ability to do so.

5. In this season of Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?

Relatively good health, PH and the kids and grandkids, my impending ordination (two weeks!), the good folks at Saint Middle School, endless possibilities.

BONUS: Describe Aunt Bert's Thanksgiving.

Oh, I suspect Aunt Bert lays out the old favorites, like tomato aspic, creamed onions, mashed potatoes AND mashed sweets, maybe also rutabagas, something with peas, a green bean casserole, and a massive turkey stuffed with cornbread. Giblet gravy. Cranberry sauce from the can that goes plop when the vacuum holding it in the can is released. Apple cider. Three pies: sweet potato (none of that pumpkin for her), pecan (mmmmmm), and chess pie. No apple pie, that's a northern thing, you know. Maybe some ambrosia as a digestive...and they ate the cake earlier in the week, and Thanksgiving isn't really a cake holiday, anyways.