The other clue that the annual day of gluttony has arrived is that my neighborhood is deserted.
Wednesday evening I was in the Museum District and parking was impossible to find. Apparently all the turkey-serving grandmothers live there and all the starving students live here.
And there's really no other day that I begin by frying up a pound of hot breakfast sausage to go with the multiple sticks of butter that go into making stuffing, this year my only contribution to the big meal that defines the day...and leaves my apartment smelling delicious for hours.
Having a glass of wine at a not-so neighborhood bar, I met a couple who stopped for a snack before hitting the road for the Outer Banks to meet up with friends.
The time spent eating their mini-feast - smoked trout, housemade pickles, turkey, crackers- both fortified them and gave us a chance to get acquainted.
Because they lived in Washington and because that's my hometown, we found lots to discuss.
They live in Shaw, so they recommended their favorite Ethiopian restaurant. I told them I'm on my way to D.C. Sunday and they wanted to hear what my plans were.
Eat, art, eat, art, eat, art... they got the idea and we got off on a tangent about the under-appreciated Building Museum, one of their favorites and one of my destinations Monday.
I met a policeman who claimed he didn't like yams but gobbled them up for the first time today, acknowledging that perhaps it was the simple preparation that won him over.
There was a woman who started talking about how bad Virginia wines were until a friend (who, after years of wearing glasses, doesn't anymore and so I'm still getting used to seeing his face naked) with superior Virginia wine knowledge started a small campaign to inform her, leading off with Cardinal Point "Green" as a good entry point.
Since the last time I was at Cardinal Point, after doing the tasting, my date and I chose "Green" as the bottle we bought and took outside to enjoy on that sunny afternoon, I seconded his recommendation.
And of course, I ate a fabulous turkey meal, made all the more so because I didn't have to cook it; making stuffing doesn't count because it's really just an excuse to pick at the sausage and onion cooking in the pan.
As for what I'm thankful for, it's probably the same things we were all appreciating today.
Family and friends. Health. Sunny skies and occasional rainy days. Music and art, theater, poetry and anything else that entertains and/or makes me feel. Random conversations with strangers...and non-strangers. A funny man who can crack up an eccentric woman.
To paraphrase Woody Allen, I am thankful for laughter, except when
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