The weather was horrible driving down to my parent’s house. Horizontal rain, water covering parts of the highway, and constant traffic. It was our fault…we drove down on Thanksgiving day. We stopped in Centralia in the hopes that Josh’s beloved Burgerville might be open. He crossed his fingers super
hard in eager anticipation: thanksgiving1.jpg only to be let down by the very nice concept of allowing Burgerville employees the day off for Thanksgiving. We drove around looking for somewhere acceptable and open; eventually we found ourselves in a Jack in the Box drive-thru: thanksgiving2.jpg Blech! We half-heartedly ordered a burger for Josh and a hopeful eggnog shake to split. The shake was terrible, despite claiming it was made with real ice cream I found it digustingly sweet and unsatisfying. DAMN YOU JACK IN THE BOX! (And how embarressing that we resorted to fast food on Thanksgiving).

This Thanksgiving went down in history as the smallest in attendance we’ve ever had. It really saddened me…Gina did her best to cheer me up by flaunting her Tofurky dinner around festively:

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It just wasn’t the same without my brother openly mocking my sister’s vegan lifestyle. My Dad did his best to hassle her and give her a hard time:

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Gina went on to tell us about a recent stalker she’s inherited since her art show. Appearantly an overzealous fan has been emailing and calling her in attempt to get her to sell some prints of her work to him. Nomally this would be fine except he compares her work to well-known erotica artists, asks her if she’s ever attended a nude beach as a way of empowering her body, and tells her that she reminds him of his wife. He showed up at the art school asking anyone and everyone where she might be…and then, creep of all creeps, he snuck his way past security and into the building that houses all the student’s studios. He actually found her studio and started pulling poloroids of my sister off the wall and asking people nearby if this is what Gina looks like. Needless to say he didn’t last long and was thrown out by security. Not creepy enough for you? The dude brought his baby along…chances are that’s how he got into the building…no one can resist a man with a baby, right? Anyway, after hearing this story I immediately whisked Gina to a nearby computer and together we composed a very nice email telling the guy to bugger off. I have to say she was being far too nice about it and really needed the iron fist of her older sister. The kid has enough to worry about being a senior in college she doesn’t need a freak show stalking her on top of it.

This isn’t the best photo, but it sums up the tininess of our table this year:

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You can see Gina sawing away at her Tofurky log, Josh eyeballing the turkey, my Dad doing the honors, and my Mom supervising the whole thing. We had my father’s traditional wild rice and sausage stuffing (including a rice and squash version for my sister), mashers, beets (put out with my sister in mind but we all indulged), salad, cranberries (we forgot to bring a can of cranberries for Josh who prefers the gelatonous log over the real deal), and turkey which had been soaked in brine. Having no competition with Jonah and Sammy out of town, Josh took a turkey leg as a way of pitching in. Despite our low numbers the four of us ate half of the turkey and Gina polished off half of her Tofurky.

The next day we lounged around, bought medicine balls to replace our office chairs, and bought a home improvement book at a bookstore.  The return to Seattle was immensely more pleasant and yes, Burgerville was open, and yes, their pumpking milkshake was terrific.  Upon returning home, Hobbes voiced her extreme gratitude by meowing all over the house and finally settling on Josh’s lap:
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