Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was, as always, an adventure. We did a whole bunch of cooking last night, and more this morning. There was, of course, straightening and the requisite random cleaning project (washing a wall in the foyer- Mom washed, I dried), and I performed what seems to be my annual job of ironing the table cloth; the parents have a new iron that was really and truly incredible. It just works, with no real hassle, and no little white spots that come out when one tries to use the steamer-thing. (This is the disadvantage of my iron, which I got via midnight auto.)

The actual visiting and meal part of the day was quite energetic: I spent a great deal of the time with my little cousins, especially the littler one, who is 3 and very much enjoys being bounced around, and has started directing me as part of her make-believe games. THe big joke of the day (in that 3 or 6 year old variety of humor, which is to say, not precisely Funny by any vaguely conventional definition of the word) was "I know- A [insert noun here] turns into a frog. No!!" There were also a string of knock-knock jokes that weren't funny. THe older little cousin has acquired a passion for saving the rainforest- his parents may only drink shade-grown coffee (a good thing all around), and there was a thematic knock-knock joke (explained as such): "Knock Knock" "Who's there?" "a bird" "a bird who?" "a dead bird". I ended up sitting between said cousins for the meal, and thus ended up spending a good chunk of the time helping them get the food that they wanted and cutting it up for them- I spent a lot of time serving cranberry sauce and cutting it into little tiny pieces. It was surprisingly tiring and isolating in it's own way.

In other Thanksgiving-surprise news, my grandfather was heard to say "Can we get back to that conversation about the Bible now?" This is unheard-of, and pleasantly surprising. We had been having a very nice conversation about how progressive the Bible was as far as laws concerning slavery for it's own time and place earlier.

I had a few very nice conversations with my aunt who is a Unitarian Universalist minister about different sorts of clergical functions and the experience of being pulpit clergy, and about homosexuality and divorce in the Hebrew Bible versus the New Testament.

By the time it was all done, we were all quite exhausted, and so after cleaning up and such, Mom and I sat down to watch an elderly video of "Pride and Prejudice" in black-and-white, except that it kept doing things to the picture that made it almost impossible to watch after a while, and so we watched "The Gods Must Be Crazy" instead. And I read a fabulous book of short stories called Pastoralia. Tomorrow, I'm having lunch with doctor_nine, and at some point this weekend may have a chance to see qianian.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was, as always, an adventure. We did a whole bunch of cooking last night, and more this morning. There was, of course, straightening and the requisite random cleaning project (washing a wall in the foyer- Mom washed, I dried), and I performed what seems to be my annual job of ironing the table cloth; the parents have a new iron that was really and truly incredible. It just works, with no real hassle, and no little white spots that come out when one tries to use the steamer-thing. (This is the disadvantage of my iron, which I got via midnight auto.)

The actual visiting and meal part of the day was quite energetic: I spent a great deal of the time with my little cousins, especially the littler one, who is 3 and very much enjoys being bounced around, and has started directing me as part of her make-believe games. THe big joke of the day (in that 3 or 6 year old variety of humor, which is to say, not precisely Funny by any vaguely conventional definition of the word) was "I know- A [insert noun here] turns into a frog. No!!" There were also a string of knock-knock jokes that weren't funny. THe older little cousin has acquired a passion for saving the rainforest- his parents may only drink shade-grown coffee (a good thing all around), and there was a thematic knock-knock joke (explained as such): "Knock Knock" "Who's there?" "a bird" "a bird who?" "a dead bird". I ended up sitting between said cousins for the meal, and thus ended up spending a good chunk of the time helping them get the food that they wanted and cutting it up for them- I spent a lot of time serving cranberry sauce and cutting it into little tiny pieces. It was surprisingly tiring and isolating in it's own way.

In other Thanksgiving-surprise news, my grandfather was heard to say "Can we get back to that conversation about the Bible now?" This is unheard-of, and pleasantly surprising. We had been having a very nice conversation about how progressive the Bible was as far as laws concerning slavery for it's own time and place earlier.

I had a few very nice conversations with my aunt who is a Unitarian Universalist minister about different sorts of clergical functions and the experience of being pulpit clergy, and about homosexuality and divorce in the Hebrew Bible versus the New Testament.

By the time it was all done, we were all quite exhausted, and so after cleaning up and such, Mom and I sat down to watch an elderly video of "Pride and Prejudice" in black-and-white, except that it kept doing things to the picture that made it almost impossible to watch after a while, and so we watched "The Gods Must Be Crazy" instead. And I read a fabulous book of short stories called Pastoralia. Tomorrow, I'm having lunch with doctor_nine, and at some point this weekend may have a chance to see qianian.