I’m going to try to take a Thanksgiving holiday break from thinking or writing about Trump-related issues. It’s a health and safety thing; I just can’t cook turkey and dressing, make gravy, mash potatoes, etc., while contemplating an asshole-punching rampage through the center of town.
So, Thanksgiving. My sister is a vegetarian, and Thanksgiving is at her house this year. It grosses her out to deal with raw turkey, so if left to her own devices, she’d buy a heat-and-serve turkey from the grocery store. She’s done that in years when I was at my in-laws for TG. Well, not on my fucking watch, sis.
Instead, I’m roasting the turkey at my house and transporting it there. Timing shouldn’t be an issue because it takes about the same amount of time I’d let a roasted turkey rest before carving it to drive to my sister’s house. So, I think we’re okay there.
Luckily for us, we won’t encounter any of the Trumpenproletariat this Thanksgiving; only the sane half of the family will be in attendance. I’ll deal with the others once I’ve calmed down a bit. So don’t bother looking for “Florida Woman Bludgeons Father with Turkey Carcass, Shoves Uncle’s Face into Molten Sweet Potato Casserole” on your Twitter feeds.
Went to the store for feast preparation supplies yesterday, and goddamn, what a zoo. Unfortunately, I forgot sugar — a critical ingredient in the mister’s homemade cranberry sauce. I think I’ll just hit the convenience store and pay a premium rather than braving the supermarket on T-1.
What are your holiday plans, if any?
Iowa Old Lady
We’re driving to Chicagoland to our son’s house. My DIL is a much better cook than I am, and suggested that we just needed to bring ourselves and our appetites. I can do that!
Thoroughly Pizzled
Thanksgiving is cool. Did y’all know that Squanto had crossed the Atlantic Ocean six times before he ever met the Pilgrims? If they only understood that people like history.
gene108
I really love your artwork Betty. Conveys a lot of the emotion the artist is feeling.
Kay
We’re going to Chicago to son and daughter in law’s. It’s good. My eldest is dark- he’s a pessimist. Even as a child he was like this – I’m in the mood for his “it’s all going to hell in a handbasket” attitude right now :)
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Staying here in San Francisco for a very small (6 people) family dinner at my parents’ place. It’s the first Thanksgiving without my sister, who died last December. It’s gonna be tough. Luckily we’re all on the same page about politics and food, so no stress anticipated there. I’m looking forward to a break from Trumpocity, too. Happy T-day, all. I’m grateful for you.
Peale
Going to watch Manoa and eat at an Asian buffet. I will be done with my dishes in … wait .. what dishes?
Botsplainer
I intend to be nearly comatose with martinis or. Whiskey or both by the time my RWNJ mom and youngest daughter collide.
Chris
Yeah. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that none of the right-wing-asshole side of the family is coming. Well, almost none. There’ll be one relative who I suspect may have voted for Trump, but he’s young enough – college freshman – and with enough liberals in his life that I’m hoping it’s a phase, and he doesn’t talk about it much in public anyway. His dad has his bad moments too, but I believe he was at least on the “both of them suck” bandwagon, not the Trump bandwagon. But yeah, all the loudly argumentatively Republican assholes won’t be there.
Also, Florida Thanksgiving for me. Yay!
Major Major Major Major
My parents are flying out to visit. We’re going to go to Monterey. Should be nice.
chopper
did some grocery shopping earlier and was surprised at the store not being a disaster area.
in laws are here/on way. due to timing we’re doing everything Friday instead of thurs but fuck thanksgiving anyway. we call it “family day”.
dance around in your bones
@gene108:
I agree. It has an Allie Broshian flavor suffused with a Crackian crunch. Always makes me laugh – Thanks Betty Cracker! Hang on to your molten sweet potato thang :)
Svensker
In Canukistan so although we ARE celebrating T-giving, with all the trimmings chez moi, we have to do it on Saturday because all the stupid guests work during the week for some obscure reason. Canadians! Most of the invited guests say they’re not huge fans of turkey and, indeed, they serve ham and prime rib for Canadian Thanksgiving (in October) but, ya know what? I don’t care. Thanksgiving is turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce and gravy and mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole and that is what we are having. With some trimmings. All of our Canadian friends and family are horrified by Trump so no problemo there! Have a good one, you guys!
dmsilev
Visiting my parents. I got in yesterday so that my mom and I could do our regular Day Of Baking today; the cake and pie are now both done and in the fridge, and the prep work for tomorrow is basically set.
PaulWartenberg2016
just me and the parents this year. my brother is going with his wife’s family for Thanksgiving (they alternate years).
watch out for traffic on I-4. I will be driving along it tomorrow bwhahahaha.
I finished 50,000 words on NaNo but the novel itself is unfinished so I am continuing my writing. I should have something manageable by December 1. :)
Pokemon Go is Double XP this weekend, and they unleashed Ditto which means you REALLY gotta catch Pidgeys and Rats just in case one of them is a secret Ditto.
cmorenc
Unfortunately, we’re probably going to have to be patient until around February or March, when the traditional wait-and-see give the new President a chance dynamic starts seriously wearing through, especially among the substantial portion of those who reluctantly voted for him and change as the less bad of two terrible choices. Their support is thin, and lacks the kind of imperturbable inertia and epistemologically closed information loop that the hard-core enthusiastic Trump supporters have – and the difference between a campaign environment and actual governing is that with the latter, shit gets much more real to people in much more concretely personal ways, and Trump Administration fuckups and corruption problems start to visibly accumulate.
Barbara
We go to my husband’s family’s farm. My daughter is a vegan and my role at Thanksgiving is to bring food that fits the holiday spirit that she can eat. A couple of other nieces are now in the vegetarian corner, so they also like that they don’t need to worry about what to eat. On politics, most of us are either in agreement or not strongly political. The few who might have voted for Trump (not sure) never raise political issues and tend to duck out early so they can get up at 3:00 am to make Black Friday sales. Should be okay.
RedDirtGirl
Traveling north from NYC to Maine with my new fella to spend the holiday with my family. Hope he still likes me after this weekend!
piratedan
well… in this time of trouble, I can always recommend the MST3K turkey day marathon, it should be available for streaming on the web on an interwebs near you. In this time of trump, watching bad movies being artfully riffed may bring you solace as I feel we’ll be like Joel (or Mike) and the bots, subject to catcalling from the sidelines just in order to get through it all.
Bobby D
“an asshole-punching rampage through the center of town”
That should only take you, oh, seven or eight hours. I mean, come on, it’s Florida.
Florida man attests, there is no shortages of meth, bath salts, weak beer, overrated college football teams, face eating flacca zombies, or redneck assholes in America’s geographical wang.
BTW, half my extended family live in FL. If I give you a list, can you punch a few of them too?
The Moar You Know
To post that picture on Facebook once an hour. That is epic.
Cacti
When the last of my grandparents passed away 3-years ago, large family Thanksgiving dinners pretty much ended too.
This year it’s just me, the wife, and the kiddos.
cope
We’re sending pie, cranberry jello mold and sweet potato casserole over to my wife’s sister’s house just a few minutes away. I’ll deliver the goods and bring back doggie bags for my wife and self as she is not up to traveling even a short distance.
My wife’s brother is the only problematic relative in terms of the reality based world and he and his wife are coming to our house to stay overnight this Saturday. That means major house cleaning efforts coming up…what fun.
He’s usually well mannered around all the rest of us because we have him totally out-numbered but if he starts in on any topic even distantly related to the election, I will tell him what I have been telling my workmates at school that this is not a conversation that is going to happen, thank you very much.
Emma
We’re having a nice quiet lunch at my sister’s house. She’s a great cook. It’s the first major holiday without my Mom. She loved the Thanksgiving hoopla. There will be talk about her tomorrow.
Major Major Major Major
@cmorenc: I would be surprised if it matters electorally, at least before 2020, which means it won’t matter Congressionally either.
Louise B.
Spending Thanksgiving with my parents and brothers. We run the entire political spectrum from liberal and enthusiastic Clinton supporter (me) to RWNJ Trump voter (dad). We have called a moratorium on discussions of politics and elections for the day. Not sure what we’re going to talk about…
Schlemazel
We love doing the big thing but with almost all the family far away it has been tough. This year we have one kid and a bunch of people with no family nearby. It works out great, we get to put on the feast we want without 6 months of leftovers and a bunch of nice folks get to have a real Thanksgiving & meet new friends (I hope)
greennotGreen
As I mentioned in another thread, my family celebrated an early Thanksgiving last week, and it was lovely. My mother could not bring herself to vote for Hillary or Trump, but the rest of us are all liberals, so we didn’t discuss politics at all at the table. Mostly it was talk of the cousins’ kids, one of whom recently had her fIrst child and her brother who is a lead guitarist touring with a Chinese heavy metal band in Europe! (My cousin is pictured in the middle of their Facebook page.) So, not boring!
frosty
Travelling is done for the day. Picked up the elder spawn at Newark airport on the way to NY. It wasn’t the madhouse and jammed traffic we’ve seen in other years. And no delays or cancelled flights like past years. Although he almost missed the plane – got to the gate 10 minutes after departure and they had a delay so he got to board. So a good day.
Original Lee
We’re driving to a friend’s for our Thanksgiving Day dinner. Although my aunt lives about an hour’s drive away, I just cannot bear to be with her this year, but not because she’s a Trumpkin (I’m pretty sure she voted for Hillary). No, the problem with my aunt is that once she has drunk most of a bottle of wine, she tells the stories of all of the Thanksgiving dinners she remembers. Some of them are funny, some are sad, but mostly they’re boring as hell unless she gets pretty schnockered along the way. I suspect that this year, due to election-related stress, she might very well be four sheets to the wind by the time we would be expected to arrive, and that means we’d get TMI details on a whole host of side issues. I love her dearly, but I’ve already heard the story of how, Thanksgiving Day 1968, her cousin Joe shot a deer in the back yard about an hour before the turkey came out of the oven and insisted on dressing it right outside the sliding glass doors leading to the walk-out basement where the children’s table was, about 12 times with varying amounts of detail and sometimes also with sidebar deathbed confession.
Our friends live one state over, easily accessible by the interstate highway system, and have promised us homemade pecan pie with bourbon sauce for dessert.
Anne Laurie
Good news for me, this year the friends-back-to-our-college-days Hobbit Bloat is in the Boston area, so I get to see some people I love dearly.
Bad news, this means the Spousal Unit will *not* be driving solo to Hoboken, and I won’t get the few precious ALONE days I could badly use right now.
Also, the primary hosts this year, while excellent citizens, are pretty far to the right politically. I’m hoping everybody agrees to a no-politics meal tomorrow, but I know my hopes are liable to be dashed.
eclare
Friends have recommended Westworld to me, anyone seen it? Thinking of watching a few tomorrow. No family plans on Tday, I have family in town but they insist on getting together far away after dark, and I am not up for that. Had a scare a few weeks ago around 8:30 at night with a guy jaywalking a four lane road in dark clothing. Luckily I hit the brakes in time.
frosty
@dance around in your bones: Nice to see you again. Seems like I haven’t seen your nym lately.
Mnemosyne
This year, I am thankful — nay, grateful — that my Reagan-worshipping older brother hates Trump almost as much as I do, so Thanksgiving should be relatively tension-free (no pun intended).
Being West Coast Elitists, we’re going to see a performance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch tonight and then have a takeout turkey dinner with the family tomorrow. For the rest of the weekend, I’m hoping to get more writing done for NaNo since the fucking election knocked me off-track.
Oh, and I may go to a Regency dance group on Friday night to help research my book. I’m waiting to get an email confirmation from the organizer.
Helen
My first Thanksgiving (or should I say NotThanksgiving) in Dublin. I’ll probably go back to Darwins, my new favorite restaurant I told you all about last night.
It’s weird. Clearly there’s no Thanksgiving here, but all the stores are advertising “Black Friday” sales. Yeah, I dunno.
Mnemosyne
@Anne Laurie:
Assuming your hosts are similar to the right-wingers in my family, be prepared to be told that your political opinions are “politics” while their political opinions are “the truth” and therefore don’t count under a “no politics” ban.
LookingForACanadian
@dance around in your bones: So good to see your name!
eclare
@Mnemosyne: Saw Hedwig in Chicago years ago and loved it, I have the soundtrack. Have a great time.
laura
I brined the turkey last night, roasted a leg and wing over a pan of veg and herbs, then to the stock pot, prepped mushrooms and green beans for the casserole and will make a dozen deviled eggs this afternoon.
The turkey goes in the oven at 7am then off to the bakery for rolls/pie.
Then me and Dave are off to the 28th annual appetite enhancement ride. Chock full of DFH’s, burners, messican low rider bicycles and kids. It’s a fat-tire, slow roll through the streets of Sacramento while the elms and sycamore rain leaves down upon us.
We used to stop at the Capital for a group photo, but since 9/11, it’s larder w/LEO’s.
Pre-ride, there’s a par-tay! Two Rivers Cider, local brews, and every year funds are raised for the local homeless children’s school and a few charities determined by need -local and global and always includes Oxfam. A raffle of stuff and pies and general “aren’t we lucky to have each other” loving. The Flower Vato Larry Rodriguez spins the big platters and we get down with our bad, old selves.
If you ever find yourselves in Sactown on this Holiday, you’d find yourself welcome. It’s at front street at the Auto Museum and, well, come on!
After the ride, it’s back home for the meal, with another friend who lost his mother right after mine, and a couple of very dear friends. Then GSM willing, walk the weinie dog and sail the couch to sleepy shores.
Wishing many BJ’rs glad good tidings.
donnah
Westworld is awesome. I remember the original film, and this new series is a modern version with many moral implications and wonderful visual effects. Catch it!
I’m cooking for family at my house, expecting fourteen or more people. No politics will be discussed because a couple of them are Trump fans and I don’t want to kill them.
I started cooking today, preparing things that can be reheated easily, like green beans cooked southern style and a pumpkin swirl cheesecake and peanut butter pie. Tomorrow the turkey, mashed potatoes, baked yams, and home made bread are on the agenda.
I hope everyone has a peaceful, satisfying Thanksgiving.
dance around in your bones
As for turkey day, we very well might end up at Luby’s Cafeteria in El Paso, like last year. My sister is a vegetarian (loads up on the sides), I’m just grateful someone ELSE is cooking for me, and her husband just loves to eat.
Luby’s is kind of a blast from the past for me and my sister since we recall all the fine dining we had at Furr’s Cafeteria in ABQ when we were kids. Especially when gramma and grampa came to visit – they’d give each kid $5 and we could spend it on food as we liked….BUT we got to KEEP the remainder, which made for great deliberations and hasty math applications. It’s cruel how they put all the desserts first in line as you slide along, computing, computing….
(/sarc on the Luby’s and Furr’s; but I DO get a retro-kick out of it!)
Linnaeus
Going to a house of some friends whom I haven’t seen in nearly five months. Rumor has it that they’ve had a child as well, whom I have yet to see.
permafrost
I love that graphic!
RandomMonster
I’m staying home to take care of pets and do some work in preparation for a new job (please congratulate me), while my wife heads back east to spend time with her family. So my T-day will consist of grilling some salmon and fennel and eating it, occasionally slipping some bits to the dog.
bemused
We will have one son, dil, their dog and 4 month old very smiley and vocal grandson and great gramma at our home. Not doing turkey, a pot roast instead and apple bars for dessert. It’ll be fun and stress free, no Republicans. Kids will be staying until Sunday. It will be a zoo with son’s dog trying to chase our two cats and romping with our two dogs.
Hope everyone who is spending T-day with people they’d rather not see manage to have a tension free day.
jeffreyw
I made another pan of dressing because you can never have too much, and made a pot of gravy because dressing needs gravy. Glad I bought two bunches of celery.
gratuitous
Me, wife, stepdaughter and her wife. They’re bringing ribs, my wife providing side dishes. I provide dishwashing services. Stepdaughter is muy big Cowboys fan, so the TV will be on, which is all right. Obviously, any right wing bullshit will be outside the house, where it should be.
Oh, and wine. Lots of wine.
For some reason, we have to go to Costco this afternoon. Pray for us.
eclare
@donnah: Thanks, didn’t know it was based on a film!
R-Jud
@Helen: I’m in the UK, and that started happening here about two years ago. I explained to my friends that it isn’t really Black Friday unless you get into a fistfight over a cut-price DVD player and then go home and eat cold leftover stuffing out of the fridge.
No Thanksgiving this year for me: I’m too broke to afford to feed a crowd, and everybody I invited last year has plans this weekend anyway. I’m going to make myself an apple pie tomorrow, though.
dance around in your bones
@frosty: Thanks!
@LookingForACanadian: Thanks, too!
I was gonna check in on the last thread to mention I ain’t gone, though I do have apres-Drumpf symptoms. I sleep nicely, dreaming of anything pleasant, but upon awakening at some point in the fog realization strikes anew and I’m thrust into the Bizarroworld Zone. What a bringdown!
(I don’t know how to achieve the little whatev over apres, so sue me :)
Mnemosyne
Also, a reminder of Mnemosyne’s Patented Tool for Dealing with Right-Wing Relatives:
Whatever scandal they try and tell you about, feign ignorance. Ask them to explain how the whole “scandal” works from start to finish. I guarantee you that unless you’re dealing with someone who is actively delusional, 9 times out of 10, they will get tied up in knots trying to explain the scandal and shut down as they realize there is no logical way to explain it. And then you can eat your pie in peace.
If the family member is actively delusional, you should probably get them evaluated by a psychiatrist after the holiday.
Tom Levenson
16 folks around the table chez nous tomorrow. Unusual for us — but this Sept. we moved my mother in law into memory care about five minutes from our house, so some of my wife’s family who usually are elsewhere are swelling our ranks. Which is good! No wingnuts, but there’s still all the sibling stuff that doesn’t, even in folks 7th decade, entirely go away…
My wife hates the way giant turkeys cook and taste, so we’ve got two 11 pounders — heritage breed, raised for more dark meat, smaller breasts — sitting in our fridge. I keep trying not to name them, not entirely succeeding. (Tom Turkey — inevitable — for one, and HENrietta.).
Lots of bourbon-and-mulled cider anticipated for tomorrow. Plus martinis. I’ve got some fine gin.
Happy t-day all. Safe travels, for those unlucky enuf to be on the road; satiation, and may all your arguments be over who gets the pope’s nose.
debbie
Though I’m partial to thighs, Betty’s art would be me had I decided to brave my family’s Trumpian Thanksgiving.
NotMax
Gonna whip up the sides sometime today or tonight, as they taste better the next day anyway. Meat will be cooked tomorrow.
Step-brother scheduled for a prostate operation today. No word yet; he had to be at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. for the 8 a.m. procedure.
Tom Levenson
@jeffreyw: Two pans of cornbread have been airdrying since yesterday. Much sage-(turkey) andouille-prune stuffing to come.
Major Major Major Major
Jill Stein has launched an online fundraiser to get money needed to investigate voting irregularities in the upper Midwest.
Unstated is whether these irregularities include more people voting third-party than the difference between Trump and Clinton.
Iowa Old Lady
@RandomMonster: Congratulations on the new job!
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Kay mentioned that the Greens do that in Ohio and they do such a lousy job that real voting rights advocates hate it.
raven
We’re back home after 10 years of me just cooking Thanksgiving for the two of us and eating on the wonderful porch at the beach house. The girl insisted on making muffins today and bruschetta tomorrow. We’ve got several gatherings to join and don’t have to worry about any political shit a any of them. The only thing I don’t like is that we’ll have to leave the pups at home.
I just dashed over to our local grocery and it was jumping.
Baud
@RandomMonster: Congrats!
Baud
@raven:
Truly something to be thankful for.
Too bad about the puppies though.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: shocking.
Baud
@Tom Levenson: You too, Tom.
Baud
@donnah: The original movie is one of my favorites.
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
That’s hilarious. I don’t know if I could stand listening to the gibberish for very long though. It does bring back memories of one old fart who would drop in the place I worked often and sometimes other employees would really counteract his nonsense until he didn’t know what to say anymore and would just hem and haw, then leave. It was pretty amusing.
JMG
Thought I was smart and did all shopping yesterday, turkey, side dishes, wine, beer, etc. Then this morning I realized we were down to our last roll of paper towels. You cannot make Thanksgiving dinner without paper towels. Going to the supermarket for one item today was like going to the airport not to travel but just to have lunch on the other side of the security barriers.
Baud
@cmorenc: I agree.
Baud
@Kay: Have a good holiday, Kay.
trollhattan
On the coast where it’s sunny and warm. Renting a house and various in-laws are dropping in various days. The golfers playing Pebble seem content, not sharing the vibe.
Was hoping for Chinese tomorrow but the we-must-cook faction won, so cook we shall.
gogol's wife
@Kay:
This is why reading Thackeray has been so good for me these days: “Vanity Fair — Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to read — who had the habits and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue.” Sound familiar?
Baud
@Anne Laurie: You’ll represent us well, AL.
mikefromArlington
So, looks like the recount stories are gaining traction.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Just got back from a work trip to Topeka. I come home to the New Kansas now that the Repubs control the entire state and have a serious case of Kansas envy. I’m sure my county, the second reddest in the state (82.6% for Cheetoh Donnie), will host the usual slew of insular, white folk extended family dinners.
It’ll be just me me and the spouse, our little speck of blue in this dark red-ass county. We’re cooking Italian (gnocchi gorgonzola with lemony broccoli as a side) and opening a 98 Chianti. Next door Mom will watch football all day long while I re-caulk her bathtub. She stopped wanting to come over for dinner years ago. Whatever works for her.
Patricia Kayden
Betty, I love that drawing. An angry woman waving a turkey (?) leg screaming at the skies is a perfect metaphor for what happened on November 8th. I am that woman.
Major Major Major Major
DeVos and her husband donated $200,000 to Michigan’s ballot measure banning marriage equality, so she’s obviously pretty economically anxious.
CaseyL
No family anywhere near me, so T-Day has always been a day to hang with friends. The tradition over the past 5 years has been to head out to a friends’ house in Ocean Shores, where assorted and sundry come to spend the long weekend. The town has an annual holiday craft fair – it’s been the tradition to go to that, as well, and buy some Xmas/Saturnalia/Yule presents.
I’ll be contributing cherry oatmeal crisp, to be baked on the premises. Last year it came out very liquid-y even though I used canned cherry pie filling. Today I need to start packing, clean the house a bit, and make sure the catsitter knows where stuff is.
Looking forward to a few days of no news, no internet: nothing but eating, sleeping, reading and maybe going for a walk on the beach if the weather isn’t too awful. (Though we will try to catch the Seahawks game on radio, or at a sports bar.)
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: You know who else was economically anxious?
gogol's wife
We’ll be having dinner at our friend the gourmet cook’s, with just him and one other guest. There won’t be any political clashes. But I must say, based on two data points — the woman who cuts my hair, and relatives of my husband’s who called last night — the likely Trump voters in my circle of acquaintance are saying NOTHING about the election. It’s as if it never happened. I guess they feel relieved that the Clinton monster was defeated, and now everything’s hunky-dory. I suppose it’s better than if they were crowing about it, but their cheerful equanimity and obliviousness to my likely anguish is disturbing.
Redshift
I’ll be driving twenty minutes to have T-Day dinner with my immediate family and my aunt. I’m really hoping to get through the day without finding out whether my father voted for Trump. There a pretty good chance he didn’t – he was a lifelong Republican who somewhat parted ways during the Bush Administration and they drifted back, but is also sane about climate change and stuff. But on the other hand, he’s started doing occasional weird political outbursts during family gatherings. I tend to blame Murdoch’s buying the WSJ, but it may be just that he’s become elderly.
Best case is that it doesn’t come up. The only other difficulty is that the Ms is even more chronically late than I am, which causes tension with the parents. Sigh. I used to really enjoy the holidays.
Keith G
it’s going to be okay. Our society has gotten through much tougher times than this. I just finished reading, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War Nathaniel Philbrick. The first 50 years of English settlement in New England was a clusterfuck of missed opportunities, death, conflict, and destruction. And then things got worse.
gogol's wife
@Redshift:
Hi! People were lamenting your absence earlier today. Good to see you.
geg6
Only seven of us this year and it’s at my older sister’s. Me, John, older sister and BIL and younger sister, BIL and 15yo niece. All liberals, so no problems there.
I’m making a mashed sweet potato with bacon, bourbon and maple syrup as my contribution. Don’t know what little sister is making. But older sister worked all her life in restaurants and country/yacht clubs, usually in management and usually in fine dining, so she always puts on a great meal.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Hirohito?
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Sure. Why not?
RandomMonster
@Baud: Thank you Iowa Old Lady, Baud, and others!
Steeplejack (phone)
@gogol’s wife:
I think it’s redshirt who has been MIA.
Redshift
@gogol’s wife: Thanks! I’ll have to go back and check this morning’s thread; I had to go work a half day (which fortunately consisted of some former co-workers dropping in to visit and have lunch, and then about a half hour of actual work.)
Feebog
Going to the In-laws tomorrow. The Mrs. is baking a lemon meringue pie and her famous pineapple bake. I’m going to bring a nice bottle of wine and my sparkling wit. Most of the in-laws and the family friends they invite don’t talk politics. They are mostly Cowboys fans, so we will get over for the second half and cheer for the other team (someone has to do it). All in all, I expect a nice laid back evening and food, food and more food.
Major Major Major Major
@RandomMonster: Missed that! Congrats also! You’re welcome!
JosieJ (not Josie)
I usually drive down to visit my best friend in MD, but I just got out of the hospital. So she came to me: she and her daughter threw all the food in the car and drove up here last night. She’s in my kitchen cooking away as I type this! I have an awesome best friend!
chris
Happy Thanksgiving, American friends! May peace be upon you. For a few days at least…
delk
It’s just me and Mister Delk. We are going to Oprah’s old personal chef, Art Smith’s BBQ place for smoked turkey and fixings.
Ella in New Mexico
With somewhere between 19 and25 people showing up at my house for Thanksgiving dinner, I have so much to do over the next 24 hours. I want to have a nice holiday, really I do. I love this time of year, and we celebrate it more than we do Christmas anymore.
So I decided I’d take a break from the Trump stuff too. But every 15 fucking minutes the son-of-a-bitch or one of his surrogates says or does yet ANOTHER thing to get me worked up.
Now it’s the very real possibility the election machines in WI, PA and MI were hacked or tampered with, and Hilary’s team was told she had justification to ask for a recount, but is afraid of looking bad. NEXT TO DONALD FUCKING TRUMP.
As much as I expect it’s all just a pipe dream, I just donated $25 bucks to Jill Stein’s effort to raise money to ask for an audit.
I need to stop checking my FB and Twitter feeds. This God-damned election is gonna kill me.
Major Major Major Major
@Ella in New Mexico:
They really probably weren’t. Silver and Cohn are right.
Gelfling 545
Visiting my sister & her family early in the day, then dinner at 6 at my daughter’s. This does not mean I do not have to cook, though. Chestnut & sausage stuffing and cranberry orange relish for 2 households. Wegmans had their lovely white Stilton with cranberries in stock so I’m taking a chunk along to each house. I’m roasting a small turkey breast for home too because the minute I get home tomorrow night I will want turkey again. It always happens.
debit
@eclare: Yes, yes, do it, watch it. yes.
Ahem. I may have feelings.
Major Major Major Major
@debit: How’s the pooch?
low-tech cyclist
We’re having two Thanksgiving dinners, one tomorrow and one Saturday. Just because it’s been >40 years since my parents divorced, and my dad passed away last year and my mom’s 90 and afflicted with dementia, doesn’t mean we can combine things. Maybe after Mom passes, we can have just one Thanksgiving.
The real reason we’ve got to do two of them is logistics: the big T-day (tomorrow) alternates between members of my stepfamily through my father’s remarriage, and members of a family they’ve been close to since before my parents went splitsville. Wherever it is on any given year would be a fair distance from Mom’s, and she wouldn’t feel comfortable staying long, so we’d spend half the time shuttling her back and forth. So me and my sisters and our assorted spousal units will have a second Thanksgiving dinner at Mom’s on Saturday. She used to bitch if she got the lesser time slot for Thanksgiving, but now she’s far enough into her dementia that she doesn’t notice that she’s being slighted. Thank goodness for small favors.
Patricia Kayden
@Major Major Major Major: That’s a lot of money to pay for a lost (and immoral) cause. But nothing is too much to address one’s economic anxiety.
Major Major Major Major
@Patricia Kayden: You can’t put a price on economic anxiety, after all.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (phone): May or may not be true. Doubtful, IMO.
Corner Stone
I canceled Tgiving but am still making a yooge pot of chicken and sausage gumbo, steamed rice and some cheddar garlic biscuits. The ex is making some kind of dessert and we’re calling it at that.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: I thought that if Matt Parker and Trey Stone had taught us nothing else, it was that Freedom cost a buck O five.
rikyrah
Facebook bans retired Navy officer for criticizing ‘actual f*cking Nazis’
23 NOV 2016 AT 14:50 ET
Retired Navy officer Jim Wright of the liberal blog Stonekettle Station said this week that he was banned by Facebook for speaking out against supporters of the Nazi Party.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Wright explained that Facebook had notified him that his account had been suspended for “violation of community standards.”
eclare
@debit: Will do, have a four day weekend.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Well, I’ll leave it at “absent,” then.
Corner Stone
Fuck Arne Betsy Duncan DeVos. Fuck him up his stupid ass.
rikyrah
Only4RM
@Only4RM Only4RM Retweeted Only4RM
Trump meets w/ his Indian BUSINESS PARTNERS. Only candidates openly considered for UN Amb:Tulsi Gabbard & Nikki Haley. @JoyAnnReid @Lawrence
catbirdman
I love you, Betty.
rikyrah
Eric BoehlertVerified account
@EricBoehlert
wanna know how tense and hard-hitting that NYT/Trump meting was? laughter broke out 15 times, per transcript;
Suzanne
We’re doing a small dinner (me and Mr. Suzanne, the Spawns, and my mom) on Friday, because this year, Spawn the Elder is with my deadbeat ex. We are all meh on turkey, so we are doing a standing rib roast, but we are doing all of the classic side dishes, minus the fucking disgusting sweet potato with marshmallow thing.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: Sounds like my elder son, also in Chicago. He tells me he’s reading “non-triggering history” like the fall of the Roman Empire, the Civil War, and the rise of the Third Reich. No idea where he got his snark from. Gallows humor is about all we can manage these days, along with rage, horror, and deep depression. Apart from that, all is well.
Ksmiami
@Patricia Kayden: The DeVos family know one thing- how to scam people using Pyramid schemes aka Amway. Used to live in Michigan and they control the western half of the state. totally worthless human beings btw
JMG
@efgoldman: Oyster stuffing inside the bird and baked in a dish outside the bird. But we have both mashed potatoes and mashed turnip. Green beans with shallots, cranberry sauce, apple pie with slightly heated slice of Emmenthal on top. Sparking wine, white Burgundy, and a Julienas Beaujolais. We’ll do OK.
rikyrah
Raw StoryVerified account
@RawStory
‘Time for a tree and a rope’: Texas judge calls for a lynching after seeing black suspect’s mugshot
rikyrah
rikyrah
Michael Skolnik ✔ @MichaelSkolnik
After shooting #JamesMeans, a 15 yr old unarmed black teenager, the killer, a 62 yr old white man ate dinner, then went to a friend’s house.
Corner Stone
Need to get a few things for dinner tonight, marshmellows, sweet potatoes, etc. Now, where did I leave muh socks?
Mnemosyne
I am literally laying in the dentist’s chair having a crown put on, so almost everyone is better off than me right now.
(We’re waiting for the cement to dry.)
debit
@Major Major Major Major: He is good! Every morning I wake up to his big old Precious Moments face hanging over the side of my bed, waiting for me to wake up and give him his breakfast. He is also now seemingly reconciled to the snow, but we’ll see how he feels when MInnesota winter truly hits us.
Suzanne
@Corner Stone: Next to your sandals.
Be careful, you’re my favorite, and I know you want to keep it that way.
O. Felix Culpa
Almost forgot the point of this post: We’re having having dinner at our married, lesbian priest’s house. We’re bringing wine. Everyone is on the same page politically, but I imagine we’ll talk about other things to keep from sobbing into the stuffing.
rikyrah
Democrats’ Leadership Fight Pits West Wing Against Left Wing
Obama Wants Another Choice for DNC Chairman
November 23, 2016
Struggling to respond to Donald Trump’s victory, a group of shellshocked Democrats moved swiftly to endorse Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, hoping that he would be a fresh face for a party with a depleted bench,” the New York Times reports.
But after steadily adding endorsements from leading Democrats in his bid to take over the party, Mr. Ellison is encountering resistance from a formidable corner: the White House.
In a sign of the discord gripping the party, President Obama’s loyalists, uneasy with the progressive Mr. Ellison, have begun casting about for an alternative.
Kay
@O. Felix Culpa:
That’s funny. This kid was a history major. He has a lo-o-ong view- dark, but with lots of context.
He usually makes fun of me for excessive chirpiness, but I am really down so we’re a good pair this year.
I’m planning on telling him “you were RIGHT ALL ALONG” :)
I;m trying to get my middle son to go with us but he was invited to a vegan dinner. It’s all women- they’re housemates- and him. He went to that last year, too. I asked him what they do and he told me “they’re all kindergarten teachers”. They’re not ALL kindergarten teachers. He’s not listening to a word these women say.
SixStringFanatic
Asshole-punching rampage.
That’s a low blow.
germy
Uh oh…
jeffreyw
@Corner Stone:
Did ya leave ’em stuffed into your sandals?ETA: Dammit, slow as an old fart, I am.
Shell
@JosieJ (not Josie): Aww, thats wonderful.
An don’t forget. Tonight is “Happy Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown.” Now why would Peppermint Pattie think a 9 ear old could fix a whole Thanksgiving dinner,
debit
As for tomorrow, I’m hosting for my folks and kids. On the menu: apple cider brined turkey breast, regular turkey breast, stuffing, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, mashed sweet potatoes, Mom’s green bean casserole, roasted carrots with cinnamon butter, cheesey corn casserole, mac and cheese and pies. Apple, pumpkin and lemon cream. There should be no political talk. If there is, I plan to take my plate into the family room and watch football with the dogs.
Steeplejack
I’ll be spending the day with Bro’ Man, the squire of Sighthound Hall. It will be just the two of us. His husband left for Brazil on Monday with the two-year-old—apparently some confluence of elderly relatives’ birthdays requires attendance—and, since Bro’ Man is on call Friday through Sunday and might have to go to the clinic on short notice, the seven-month-old got farmed out to in-laws tonight. His entourage is all out of town, and I don’t have an entourage anymore.
Bro’ Man is a good cook, and he cooks to relieve stress, so his post-election output has been prodigious. We had a big “friendsgiving” dinner on Sunday night with everyone before they left town, and that was great. Tomorrow will be low-key, with good food, wine, skritches (and surreptitious food scraps) for Kitty, the current sighthound in residence, and, supposedly, the deployment and decoration of the Christmas tree. (WTF on that last bit, but whatevs.) I’m usually good for a side or a dessert, but Bro’ Man was adamant that everything is covered, so I’m coasting on the mixed case of wine I brought over last weekend.
Politics and the Trumpocalypse will be discussed, but since we’re both on the same side it will be mostly commiseration and “How the fuck did this happen?” Bro’ Man is taking it harder than I am, because—oh, yeah!—gay rights, marriage equality, husband with a green card but no citizenship yet, mixed-race daughter, etc., etc. But he’s such a worrier. What could possibly go wrong?
Anyway, there is still much to be thankful for, and I’m looking forward to a good day. Here’s hoping for a happy Thanksgiving for all Juicers!
Kay
@germy:
Were fined more than 5 million dollars in Ohio for violating state campaign finance laws, which they never paid.
You gotta be pretty bad to get fined 5 million. Scofflaws, basically. Not even attempting to play by the rules.
So she’s a good fit for the deadbeat Trump Clan. Special snowflakes who don’t have to follow laws or rules.
MomSense
I’ve got a house full of Trump orphans who refuse to go home to their asshole parents. We are roasting chestnuts, baking pies, drinking lots of alcohol, playing music, and cursing the gods.
God dammit these kids deserve a better world than the one we are handing them.
debbie
@Ksmiami:
All the expertise that’s needed to boost charter schools.
WereBear
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
We are meeting five other “orphans” for a sumptous buffet at a local hotel. They have a wonderful great room with a fireplace and a view of the mountains where we hang out after for drinks.
I am thankful that my village has never been invaded by Mongols.
Best I can do right now.
Baud
@MomSense: Tell them Baud is proud of them.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
I replied (possibly with TMI) to your tablet question this morning.
debbie
@Kay:
Kay, I guess this means ECOT gets off scot free? They certainly seem to have dropped out of sight.
BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: I have no problem with Mr. Ellison as DNC chair, Congressman Elllison on the other hand I have a problem with. It’s a full time job, they need to start treating it that way.
Thanksgiving will be an early dinner(Korean BBQ) since madame has to be at work at 5am Friday morning. Fuck Black Friday!
ThresherK
Long story short: I’ve spent half my life Spousal ThresherK. Half my Thanksgivings. Because of her family and friends, she’s always in high demand. I’ve never made Thanksgiving dinner.
As luck would have it, she’s recovering from knee surgery. I called the best restaurant in town which does “cook your own” for Thanksgiving, and I’m cooking it here, insulating, and bringing it there.
She’ll be the envy of the entire orthopaedic ward!
WaterGirl
I have been taking a break from everything because I am feeling so discouraged personally and feeling nothing but despair when I look ahead to our country’s future under the piece of shit. Van Jones sent an email this afternoon titled: Don’t let Trump ruin your Thanksgiving! #StayHuman
Please accept my apologies if this has already been posted, but I thought it was worth sharing with you guys. I haven’t spoken to my family in the past 2 weeks, though I did send them all a letter that you might have seen in the comments here. I have not responded to the 4 replies I got to my letter to my family because all 4 of them seem stop studiously miss the point that THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
Anyway… I don’t know whether I agree with Van or not, but what he said was of great interest to me.
I am still not sleeping well and I am still having trouble comprehending that no-one and nothing is going to swoop in and correct the election results. I am 62 years old. Lying there awake in the night on Monday, I swore that I am not going to let the piece of shit that is Donald Trump ruin the rest of my life, and I am determined not to let him turn me into a bitter and angry person.
All those bitter and angry people on the right are how we got into this position in the first place. So I know I don’t want to be like them but I don’t know how to do that and stay engaged, because every time i begin to feel like I am coming to terms with this I read another thing that sends me over the edge.
Lastly, I will just say that I miss you guys. I hope at least some of you are doing better with this than I am.
debit
@ThresherK: You are an amazing spouse.
Brachiator
Happy T-Day to all. I’m tentatively scheduled to hang out with some friends, but have come down with a cold which is knocking me out. I may bundle up and try to catch a movie instead.
A question: Anyone catering Thanksgiving or eating at a restaurant? It’s a mini-trend that is spreading among some folks I know.
I got into an unexpected post Trump conversation on the commute yesterday. I intend to avoid more of the same the rest of the weekend.
JMG
@WaterGirl: Every time you’re happy, every time you feel and show love, every time you do something, anything, to advance what you believe in, you are beating them. You are keeping your soul in fine working order.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I’ve started sleeping better (probably because the neighbors with the always-crying baby seem to have moved away), but I’m still angry in the morning. If you figure out how to get past it, please share.
MomSense
@Baud:
Baud is big with this crowd. Bring the dogs and come over!
Baud
@WaterGirl: Happy Turkey Day Eve, WG.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
Love you! Whatever happens, we love you!
Baud
@MomSense: If I still lived in Maine, I’d be tempted to.
WaterGirl
Betty, you are so talented. Your picture above captures my feelings perfectly!
I hope you don’t mind that I just took a screen capture of it. If it’s okay with you, I might just use your picture to help communicate my feelings to clueless family and friends.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
On Monday, call your local Democratic Party office and tell them you want to know how to become a precinct captain. Getting down in the trenches with like-minded people will make you start to feel better.
Mnemosyne
Here’s the essay I found yesterday about why it’s vital for all of us to become precinct captains. It was written in 2015, but it’s even more true now, if possible.
I have to finish my novel and do my writer’s conference in March, but I’m hoping to make the call to my local party and join up in April.
Mike in NC
Sitting in a highrise resort condo in Myrtle Beach tonight with Florida friends, drinking wine and smoking weed.
brendancalling
@cmorenc: “the substantial portion of those who reluctantly voted for him and change as the less bad of two terrible choices. Their support is thin, and lacks the kind of imperturbable inertia and epistemologically closed”.
They used to be called “good Germans”. History isn’t kind to them.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Tomorrow will only be spent with like minded people, so that’s good.
There is certainly reason to be depressed, because Ryan wants vouchers for Medicare and Trump’s selection for the Dept. of Education wants vouchers for schools. Pretty soon we will receive coupons to use starting on January 1st and we can select the ones we want to use.
What I have done to help improve my sleep habits though, is remove the phone and cell phone from my room. The computer is shut down a hour before bed time. That has really helped, but it has only been three days so far.
Now if my sister-in-law mentions that I didn’t do my peas tomorrow, then I’ll blow.
debit
@WaterGirl: I have had angry dreams: people throwing garbage at me and facing no consequences, someone riding my horse without my permission and refusing to get off, things like that. It’s obvious that I’m feeling powerless and furious about it, but I’ve yet to have a revelation as how to get over it. You’re in my thoughts a lot and I hope you find some sort of way to come to terms.
Bobby D
Family all lives 3000+ miles away, and I don’t fly over holidays after one stuck in O’Hare experience some years ago. So I’m on the solo program, and while lots of friends and colleagues extend invitations to join their families every year, last year I decided to just skip all of it. Instead, I did a 24hr fast and meditated on things for which I am thankful. That worked well for me last year, so that’s my plan.
J R in WV
@dance around in your bones:
Good to see you hanging around with this scurrilous bunch again, hope all is well.
We’re staying in the hollow again this year. Eating next door at best friends’ house, but cooking a lot here, as her oven has bit the dirt, and the new stove, promised yesterday, didn’t show. So roasting and baking here, starting mid-morning. Her spouse works all day, should be home by 7ish, so that’s target time for serving.
Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, real whipped cream, (may look into bourbon sauce, any tips or links?) roasted beets and goat cheese salad, champagne to drink… Other best friends nearby should also show up, will be good gathering. No Wing-Nuts at all expected, if any show, will be asked to leave, quietly or otherwise.
Thanks for the togetherness here to all! Wishing for good luck for everyone. We will survive, to quote Jerry Garcia.
JPL
@debit: Well my dreams have to do with saving pets, that have long ago gone to doggy heaven from drowning.
Analyze that..
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
This country is going to be run like a pyramid scheme.
Miss Bianca
trail ride in the morning, turkey in the afternoon, and trying really, really hard not to think about all the Amazon orders that are going to be piling up on Thursday to make my Friday hectic!
Poopyman
Tradition has dwindled, as our family has, to my sister and her husband and my wife and I. But this year ny sister’s down with the flu, so we’re staying home and going to forage tomorrow in the grocery stores for TG dinner.
Schlemazel
@brendancalling:
servicemen stationed in Germany after WWII were amazed that nobody they met had been a Nazi. It was probably true at some level, just like every American is not a Republican. The question will be, “what did you do to try to stop them?” People around Buchenwald had to know what was happening but chose to say and do nothing. These people are like that, they will tel you they were not Republicans
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Hey, we’ve all gotta do SOMETHING other than talk to family after the meal is over. ?
ThresherK
@debit: What? Thanks, but, nahhh.
I think I’m getting off easy: I’m not making the dinner. I’m just heating the sides and cooking the fool-proof turkey. (Actually I did the turkey today. It’s damn good.)
I am bringing my special pumpkin sage soup, and pumpkin bars for dessert. But it’s only for the two of us. Compared to some of the dinners I’ve been to, that’s pretty easy.
I am in awe of the practised expertise I’ve seen first-hand, and which many of you may see tomorrow. The scale! all the cousins, aunts, uncles, grand-parents and -kids, niblings, using up every chair and table in the house. The timing! so things are kept warm, not overcooked, and get to the table hot. The leftovers! so nobody goes home empty-handed.
However, thanks for your thoughts. It makes me miss her a bit less, and she’s only got a week more in there.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: Our local democratic group is completely worthless, and they have been for decades. It would be the time and energy equivalent to flushing money down the toilet. I would be better off banging my head against a wall.
Schlemazel
@Bobby D:
I was snowed in at O’Hare twice & discovered that the Hilton hotel at the airport had a fabulous Italian restaurant. Not red sauce & meatballs, actual Italian food & it was very well done. I was actually pleased the second time I was stuck! But it is no fun when you want to get to family.
Calouste
Stein’s fundraising for a recount in WI, MI, and PA has now hit $672,000. IIRC they only need to file for one state on Friday, and the others next week, so it seems like at least the first state is in the bag, and that might generate enough publicity to get the money for the others.
Of course, I’ll only believe that the money is not used to pad the Green Party coffers when a request is actually filed, and that it is not a ratfcking operation when the request is actually filed competently and successfully, and not gets thrown out on a technicality that Stein’s legal team “forgot”.
Mnemosyne
@WaterGirl:
Not the social group, the actual party reps. They’re supposed to have precinct captains in every precinct, so keep calling until you find out who the right person is. You may have to climb all the way up to the Illinois state party, but there should be an actual party apparatchik assigned to your area who oversees your precinct. If your local club is as useless as you say (and I don’t doubt it at all), that person who is looking for precinct captains will be kissing your feet in gratitude.
And when you’re ready to feel a little hopeful, read the link. It really is inspiring.
ETA: And I would love to see you in particular do this because you are a smart, hard-working, organized, kick-ass person who can get those other local Democrats marching together in the same direction. I know you’re not feeling it right now, but you are a terrific person and you can bend them to your will.
Baud
NCIS has been killing it the last couple of weeks with liberal themes.
When you’ve lost Leroy Jethro Gibbs….
Mary G
I’m going to my substitute mom’s house, the same place I’ve gone for maybe 50 years. She has always been the Energizer Bunny, but in her mid-80s is slowing down. She still won’t take any help. A couple who live in San Francisco, in Nancy Smash’s district always come too, so Trump-bashing will be in order. Her grandkids only come every other year and this is, thank FSM, an off year. I’m not sure I could take looking into those young faces.
Poopyman
@Poopyman: Update: Mrs. P has just returned from the store with foodstuffs for 8, although it’ll just be we two. I assumed we were going to pick up pre-prepared stuff. Why haven’t I learned never to assume?
Schlemazel
@Schlemazel:
Historical note indicating some coincidence.
Not sure if I have mentioned this here before. You have, I assume, heard the stories of the woman who made lamp shades and other accessories out of the tattooed skin of death camp victims. They are true & the womans name was Ilsa. Ilsa KOCH. I am sure it is just a coincidence.
TS
@rikyrah: NY TImes creating dysfunction – as usual
Poopyman
@Mnemosyne: That’s why they invented Thanksgiving football.
BC in Illinois
@O. Felix Culpa:
@Kay:
What to read . . Civil War, Rise of the Third Reich, Fall of the Roman Republic and Fall of the Empire . . .
I’m reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the first to speak out against “the Leadership Principle” (der Fuehrerprinzip). It seems timely.
We will have a three-generational gathering of 16 tomorrow. I am still getting used to being the oldest (not Greatest) generation. I truly enjoy the youngest generation and their political insights. Two true stories:
Pre-election, two cousins, 6 & 7 year-old girls, in their carseats in the back: “Who are you voting for?” “I dunno.” “I hope you’re not voting for Trump. My family doesn’t like Trump.” “Who are you voting for?” “We’re voting for the girl. I dunno her name.” “A girl can be President?” “Yeah . . .”
Post Election, 4 year-old girl: (Listening to voices on the radio) “Is that Donald Trump?” “No, dear.” “Are they talking about Donald Trump?” “Well, yes, yes, they are.” . . . [Pause] . . . [Child figures that some happy news is in order.] “I’m glad that the Cubs won! We should tell everybody that the Cubs won.”
We live in St. Louis.
CaseyL
@WaterGirl: Maybe, maybe not doing better than you are. I’m back on anti-depressants (after having weaned myself from them!) because for me depression is situational, and the election triggered a bad spiral. I wake up with a ball of dread in my stomach and walk around with a feeling of impending doom.
I have good friends, but try to avoid talking too much about it because we just reinforce one another’s rage and despair. It’s like a ghastly game of Can You Top This, predicting the various apocalypses coming our way.
Eventually, I’ll scrape up the energy to get involved in something. I want to do voter registration and voter ID assistance, but not sure my finances are up to spending a lot of time in a red state. I want to get ready for the 2018 election, see if we can turn at least one legislative house. But that’s about all the hopefulness I can think of.
Coming here helps enormously. Life does go on, and it’s good to share one’s holiday plans.
Poopyman
@WaterGirl: Join up with ’em, get your hands on the membership list, then throw a party and invite everyone on it. Once you figure out who the worthy ones are, start your own Democratic group. Everyone will want to come to your events, because (at first) you throw the best parties. Then they’ll come because you’ve got better organization.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Neo Nazis and KKK members who are celebrating Trump’s victory?
jeffreyw
@Steeplejack: Thanks! I jumped all over that, too. I think this means Samsung will come out with the next model pretty soon, maybe day after tomorrow, the bastards.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I had the exact same thought last night, Baud, when I watched NCIS.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne:
With us at the bottom.
WaterGirl
@Poopyman: There are actually 3 different democratic groups in our town because the “official” one totally sucks. I am on the mailing list for the Young Democrats because the other two are awful. It’s been like this forever.
it’s a college town in a blue state and there was nothing going on for Barack Obama in 2007-2008. Pathetic.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Pyramids all the way down.
Steeplejack
@jeffreyw:
Well, that’s always a danger, but I said screw it. When I was looking at the reviews—most of them from a year ago—there was a lot of talk about “Oh, but Samsung is going to come out with the new one real soon,” etc. But then it kept being delayed, and it still hasn’t showed up. Eventually I remembered that with tech stuff you have to step into the river at some point and it’s going to start being “obsolete” from day one.
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne: Yuck! Hope it’s over quickly!
BTW, I figured out why I didn’t recognize Mr. Mnemosyne’s name. There are two sections of the class: one Regular Session and one Special Session. Because I’m in Sacramento, I’m considered “local” to San Jose, so I’m Regular Session.
SiubhanDuinne
@BC in Illinois:
This story cheered me enormously.
Origuy
My housemates and I are going to a restaurant. The older one has a cyst in her jaw and her dentures cause her pain. She’s been on soup diet for weeks while MediCal tries to find an oral surgeon with the right equipment who will take MediCal. However, she is bound and determined to eat Thanksgiving dinner. She was in the hospital last year and the year before that, I think.
Darkrose
Since Telesilla and I both hate turkey, she was planning to make her awesome maple-teriyaki glazed pork tenderloin. Unfortunately, she’s got a cold, so instead, I’m going to make chili and cornbread, with salad and then peach pie (frozen) for dessert. My family’s in Virginia and Louisiana, and hers is in Connecticut, though I can safely say none of our close family members voted for Trump.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack (phone):
Oops, sorry.
MomSense
@Steeplejack (phone):
Yes, it’s Redshirt.
Mnemosyne
@Darkrose:
All done! Plus I have a very nice dentist who’s generous with the Novocain, so once he injected that, I didn’t feel a thing.
G realized you were probably in different sections because he didn’t recognize your name. He’s special session because we live in LA and he’s doing everything online. He’s really enjoying the whole program so far, which is great. He REALLY hated the job he got laid off from, so I’m glad he’s going to be able to have a second career that he actually likes.
Why did I think you lived in the Midwest? Did you used to, or was I confusing you with someone else?
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
Sounds apt. Whatever you do, don’t switch the verbs.
Sunset on the Pacific in about fifteen.
JMG
It’s too late to go back and scroll through, so let me say this, Tom Levenson, I salute you! No way I could drink hard liquor, let alone martinis, and still cook any dinner, let alone Thanksgiving. You are hard core and I say that with the utmost admiration.
FlyingToaster
We pack our contribution into the van and trundle up to Marblehead to my SIL and huge family. So it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 for Thanksgiving (depending on when the 2 older boys leave for their dad’s and which
loserfriends of the bil turn up.We brined the turkey and it’s draining in its cooler out in God’s Freezer, along with another cooler full of stuffing and gravy base (all courtesy of HerrDoktor). The pie shell is “resting” until 10:30 when I’ll roll it out and proceed with the punkin pie making. We need to pack the thermometer and the fucking baster (I keep forgetting one of the nephews used theirs for an “experiment”) along with the roasting pan/rack.
Once I get WarriorGirl to bed, I’ll go clip herbs off the patio and make the herb butter and chop the in-the-bird & pan veggies. Then the pie. Then get the breakfast stuff onto the baking sheets.
We’ll be out the door by 8:30. The Pike eastbound will either be empty or a parking lot, and I won’t know until we check traffic in the am.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Hmmmmmm. That is VE-e-e-ery interesting.
And BTW, what’s all this about Uday (DJT Jr) meeting in Paris last month with pro-Russian activists at some kind of conference about Syria? (Saw a reference to it just in passing, but haven’t checked it out yet.)
JMG
@FlyingToaster: Flying toaster, here’s a tip for pumpkin pie from my late maternal grandmother. When it’s done and mostly cooled, cut a circle about the diameter of a golf ball in the center. Fill hole with bourbon. When bourbon drains into pie, fill it with whipped cream. Serve.
normal liberal
@WaterGirl:
I know they’re split, by Democrats in C-U are so thick on the ground that there has to be room to maneuver. Stake out new ground, perhaps? One of my UIUC profs is semi-retired and pretty damn liberal – a few years back she got herself elected to the County Board.
So seize control. It will do them good.
I’m stuck with Bloomington-Normal; our county went for Obama in 2008, Romney in ’12, and I haven’t even looked at the results this year because our County Board has been dancing through hallways, chortling with glee. And these people hold grudges – I still get nasty looks and remarks from people who are still mad at me for things I said in hearings in 2003.
J R in WV
OK, here’s a recipe for whiskey butter sauce:
Whiskey Butter Sauce
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tsps hot water
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup bourbon whiskey
Whiskey Butter Sauce Preparation
Melt the butter in the top of a double boiler set over gently simmering water.
Beat to blend the sugar and egg in a small bowl.
Stir the sugar/egg mixture into the butter.
Add the hot water and stir about 7 minutes until the mixture thickens.
Remove from the double boiler and let cool to room
temperature. Stir in the cream and whiskey.
How bad is that? On anything!!!
NoraLenderbee
A very quick and easy recipe: my grandmother’s string beans. She used to make it for Passover, but it’s equally good for Thanksgiving. Works with any vegetable in season.
Take 1 lb string beans, or enough to serve all your guests as a side dish. Wash, string, and cut to desired length.
Cover and place in refrigerator.
Prepare the rest of dinner. Serve dinner.
After the meal has been eaten and the dishes cleared, open the refrigerator.
Smack head and say “Ah, shit! I forgot the string beans.”
FlyingToaster
@JMG: Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind for a different audience.
Alas, alcohol is contraindicated because:
a) one adult is a recovering alcoholic
b) the 6 kids (my five nephews and my daughter) are under age. ‘way under age.
c) Bourbon tastes like turpentine to me. If I had any brandy (and if the packies hadn’t already closed for the evening), I’d try that.
d) I’m allergic to milk (well, uncooked or uncultured milk), so I’d have to come up with something else for the whipped cream.
The kids have already demanded ice cream with the pumpkin pie. Three years running, now.
NoraLenderbee
Returning to the election for just a sec–is there any way to contact HRC or her team and encourage them to contest the election? I think they have to file ASAP in Wisconsin.
I know that it wouldn’t be a good way for HRC to actually get the win, and she might not get it even then, but I think it’s her duty. If the election was tampered with, it would be a public service to expose that. And if it was all aboveboard (yeah right), it would be good to confirm that.
Darkrose
@Mnemosyne: I’m originally from Chicago; maybe that’s why?
It’s a really great program. I appreciate the way that it combines the “information science” part with the “library” part. I’m very glad I decided to apply last year. I’m remembering what it’s like to be excited about what I do.
WaterGirl
@normal liberal: I will take that under advisement when I get my fighting energy back.
Mnemosyne
@Darkrose:
Us, too! Chicagoland, anyway — North Shore and Oak Park, respectively.
There were basically two in-state options: SJSU online or UCLA in-person. After much angst and many informational interviews, G opted for SJSU because he was able to start this past January, whereas UCLA would have required him to wait until September. Plus he was told that UCLA is a truly full-time program, so no opportunity to work and go to school unless you’re a TA. I think he made the right decision.
seaboogie
Nice quiet solitary day with my elderly kitty tomorrow, working on wrapping up my project making signage for our local indie bookstore that is celebrating its 25th Anniversary on Saturday. Owner of the bookstore is playing jazz guitar for the event with the owner of the wee emporium 2 doors down who is a professional jazz guitarist. I work PT in the artisan jewelry shop that is between the other 2 shops, just off the Sonoma Square. It’s really nice being a part of the scence in such a great little community.
I’m going to make a big batch of farrow (leftovers!) with three kinds of fresh mushrooms (shiitake, cremini and chanterelles),and roast those pretty multi-color carrots and fennel, drink wine and watch movies.
Doing the graphic design now so that tomorrow I can enjoy the sunny cool day outside sawing, sanding and painting the wood bits for the signs. For all of this, and all of you – I am thankful!
donnah
@Baud:
We just watched it from Amazon so my sons could see where the series came from. It’s surprisingly dark and serious. Yul Brenner scared the crap out of me back then.
We love the new version, too.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major:
I can’t decide…is this a “better late than never” or “better never than late”?
Miss Bianca
@gogol’s wife: that reminds me…haven’t read “Vanity Fair” since high school, and have been thinking it would be a dandy audio book re-read. Might have to go into the queue sooner rather than later!
Liberal
@NoraLenderbee: you’re fuckin’ A right it’s her duty.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: OK, now I get to say, out loud, the way I’ve been wanting to do all day over one matter or another….”OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!”
laura
@CaseyL: drain the cherries and reserve most of the juice-some added back, and use the resered as a drizzle.
Canned sour pie cherries deserve much more respect than they have gotten!
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I read it for the first time fairly recently and it was interesting to see how much Thackeray struggled to keep Becky Sharp the villain of the book. She was by far the most interesting and lively character but she was supposed to be the bad girl, damn it!
Miss Bianca
@debit: you have a horse? *And* Walter? : )
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: She and Scarlett O’Hara keep getting compared to each other a lot…gee, I wonder why…
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t understand. She said Hillary would be worse than Trump and was going to blow up the world. Is she trying to destroy the Earth?
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
And Becky gets a happy ending: she kills off her second husband through neglect, inherits all his money, and becomes a rich, respectable old matron. No pining for lost love there!
Lizzy L
Going to friends’ house. There will be eleven people, nine adults, two kids, and everyone else is doing the food. (I only cook for myself.) I volunteered to bring drinks, which, since this is a no alcohol crowd, will be (by request) plain tap water, fizzy water, lime fizzy water, and various flavors of Izze fruit drinks. I will also bring a huge bag of ripe fuyu persimmons from my tree. For those who don’t know, fuyu persimmons are the hard kind: they can be peeled and eaten raw, or baked with chicken, or eaten in salads. People also make persimmon bread and persimmon cookies. They are delicious and the crop this year was especially abundant: I have about 300 persimmons to give away.
We are all hard core lefty Democrats; the challenge will be to keep the swearing to a minimum, because children.
debit
@Miss Bianca: No, sadly. I used to have horses but when the economy crashed and I lost my job I had to let them go. Every job since then has been a step down in pay. I’d thought about looking for something better this winter, but after the election I’m staying put. I may not like my job much, and the pay could be better, but at least I know that my job is mine for as long as I want it.
jenn
@WaterGirl: What I’m trying to do is, at least 5 days a week, move the ball forward. I will read the news, get on political twitter, etc, just long enough to get a set of topics that I can work on that day/that week, and then I’m off. I *can’t* stay on any longer, otherwise I can get overwhelmed and depressed. So the other day, for example, I wrote down the names and phone numbers of every person on the House Oversight Committee, and made copies – next week I have a big meet-up with like-minded friends, and I’m bringing that stack of numbers (and others) and a set of topics, and I’m handing them out, so they’ll have an easier set of phone calls that they can make. I’m keeping a notebook with the actions I’m taking. Already, I can see the accumulating pages of actions that I’ve done in just a couple of weeks, and just looking at that notebook is calming when I start feeling that tidal surge of Overwhelming Badness.
And I’m better prioritizing taking care of myself. Since the election, I’ve had more meet ups with friends than I’ve had in awhile. Lots of hugging and phone calls, and trying to get out of the house.
Eric Lindholm
My holiday plans are to troll left-wing web sites, where the supremely sanctimonious hang out and bemoan how very stupid the rest of America is for turning over every branch of government to the Republicans.
Then I’ll drink some wine and laugh, laugh, laugh.
Miss Bianca
@debit: alas, I can relate on all too many planes of this scenario. Riding myself these days with the help of *very* kind friends.
dww44
@Eric Lindholm: Golly, you conservatives really do have an inferiority complex, no? Well-deserved, too.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@WaterGirl: I hope that you can find peace as time progresses. Going to spend Thanksgiving with my mom, dad, and niece at dad’s bedside at the rehab center. The ramp and shower will be ready by the time he gets home next week.
First Thanksgiving without Mrs. C, and I’ve had some bad moments here and there, but I won’t have to deal with any of its voters, so there’s that.
Checking in with cousins and watching the Iron Bowl on the way back, going to enjoy that too.
I wish you all a happy (or at least non-violent) T-day.
Sondra
Like many of you I don’t feel much like celebrating. I am happy to be going to dinner with my lovely 95 year old father so… there is that.
I feel sorry for a friend who has no family with which to spend a thanksgiving evening. She mentioned that she and her mate might go to Denney’s. I asked do they even attempt a turkey and all the fixings type meal? She just shrugged. I wanted to invite them to eat with my family but I couldn’t bring myself to do it knowing that, even though she is politically ill-informed and a basically nice person, she allows herself to be swayed by her mate who dominates her entirely and naturally he is a Republican – who no doubt voted for Trump, so… there is that.
I could have made the effort. In any other year I would have made the effort. I feel terrible even writing about this, but I just cannot bring myself to do it.