our thanksgiving

My pie carrier next to my rosemary tree that cost only ten dollars at Whole Foods. I didn't even think about the poor little eight-year-old who must have grown it in a sweatshop greenhouse. Shame on me.

We had about 75 people at our Thanksgiving dinner this year, so it's true what you suspected, that we are better than you. Your family totally isn't as close as ours. It was in my uncle's shop, because that's the only place big enough to fit our awesome bulk. He and his lovely wife my aunt (who is on track to run one thousand miles this year, I'm not joking) sell Motorola products and such. We saw the famous captive geyser in Soda Springs from afar after returning from our tree harvesting (we knock out the forest, extract the tree we want, then put the forest in a bathtub of ice and write "CALL FOREST SERVICE" on its chest in lipstick--try this at home*), but we didn't go play in it. It's warm, but not that warm. We'll save it for summer.

I went to the Oriental Market in Riverdale on Wednesday and bought two bamboo steamers, and aside from the big stoneware pie dish that my visiting teachers gave me instead of a lesson one time--which worked out great for both of us--all of my pies fit in it and could be transported without endangering their delicate lardy buttery crusts. Something bad happened after dinner, though. My grandma whipped a bunch of cream for her squash pie, which was amazing as always (and did I mention that the squash was the nice big one I grew in MY OWN GARDEN?), but somehow there had been a container of salt emptied into the sugar bin, so it was like a sugar/salt mixture, and when she put it in the cream it made it taste bad. In case you thought otherwise. Not good on pie at all. But then we whipped some more and everything was fine and our family ate at least ten squash pies over the weekend. By contrast I brought peach blueberry, apple pear cranberry, lemon, and three other pie crusts that my cousin filled with banana cream, coconut cream, and blueberry cream, and my aunt brought a couple of pecan pies. None of these pies got eaten all the way. We love us some squash pie. The other conclusion that can be drawn is that Bethie and Sandi and I brought sucky pies, which I refuse to believe. That would require self-examination and contemplation. No fun!

We accidentally left the cat in the house while we were gone. Overnight. He didn't poop anywhere that we can see, but he did sleep on my bed and get hair all over the down comforter. Hmm. Hair/poop. Hair/poop. I guess we lucked out.

*I stole that joke from John.