Reading: Nope.

Learning: more lyrics to the theme from "The Dukes of Hazzard" than I ever wanted to remember in life.

Listening: The theme to "The Dukes of Hazzard" as sung by Dexy, also Dave Matthews, Deadicated, and Sting.

Viewing: My house full of guests, as it should be more often.

25 November 1999: Thanksgiving

Tidying for guests, I tried to make some sense of the books. I stacked Dickens through Duncan and Hemingway through Hesse again, thus making room for the last few months' acquisition. I wanted to make another bookcase for the living room, but I'm better at drawing such things and passing out nails rather than constructing sturdy, level furniture. Cleaning Blake's cage consisted of changing his bedding. I vacuumed. Then I called the house done.

Then I scampered out for beer, cider, aluminum foil, and flowers. I bought a bunch of alstro? for the pitcher on the buffet. Our dining table, which is a squeeze, given its legs, for two, cramped for four, and impossible for more than four, was today going to be a buffet. In the liquor store, another patron broke a bottle of champagne. Oh noooo, I thought, what with the champagne shortage and all. Then I looked at the display: Korbel. That's all right then. This is the second time in my life I've bought alcohol. I can't gauge my appearance by when I stopped getting carded, because I've never been carded. I got Left Hand Sawtooth, Railyard, and Bass. I noticed the bottle caps had a left hand, a W, and a Bass triangle like the Citgo sign on them. This is the sum total of my beer knowledge.

Home again, I called my preparations done except for being RDC's go-fer. I sat on the floor writing out addresses for my solstice cards and watching CNN when, at 1:15, there was a knock. What's 45 minutes between friends, I shrugged, and called "Come in!" I had no idea who was opening the door, but he held a lit cigarette in his hand. "I'm sorry, but we don't have smoking in the house." This was my first, brilliant statement to someone who could, after all, be there to rob or injure. "Ooops, sorry," stubbing the cigarette out on the stoop and offering a coffee cup, "I'm Dave from upstairs and I just wondered if I could borrow some flour?"

"Oh--sure. C'mon in." I took the cup and went into the kitchen to scoop some flour. By this time RDC had come from the back of the apartment, and I introduced us, and RDC, standing by the cage, introduced Blake. Dave said he needed the flour for some turkey-in-a-bag arrangement I didn't follow but that made it seem he was having Thanksgiving alone. I held out the cup filled with flour, and he was all embarrassed--he only needed a couple of tablespoons. I dumped most out. He's in Denver from Glenwood Springs doing a "degree program" from the Denver Institute of Technology (I've heard only of Denver Technical College) in e-commerce.

And that's the story of Dave from upstairs. I thought, to be a Decent Good Person, I should have invited him to spend the day with us instead of alone, but since I'm not the cook I really couldn't, and besides, my initial dubiousness about his fun-value as a neighbor was well founded and I'm glad RDC didn't either. The man reeked of tobacco in the way I'm used to homeless people who chainsmoke and don't bathe their bodies or launder their clothes reek. Dexy, when he showed up at 2:00, took cigarette breaks every half hour on our deck and never emitted such a stench, and even when he's at home and lighting one cigarette from the butt of the last one, he doesn't reek like that. I might be a Puritan, but I'm right.

Erk.

I set out cheeses, salmon, and appetizers around 2:00. Boursin, which is either the brand or the type, a soft crumbly cheese packed with garlic, plus a soft Brie-ish one and a hard, cheddar-ish one. Crackers. Smoked salmon. Tortilla chips with a daub--is that bigger than a dab?--of guacamole and another of crab dip. When I got back from the shops in the morning, RDC had me try the guac. I wanted to shove my snout in and lick the bowl, but he said he hadn't put any oil in. "Don't!" I asked. It was just mushed avocado with lime and whatever else in it; no need for more oil to dilute the yumminess. Those chips were the one element of the southwestern Thanksgiving RDC had considered from Food and Wine that he kept. And they were goooood.

RDC made champagne cocktails, which I obediently tried since Chambourd is one of the few alcoholic drinks I can drink--even if it's just a liqueur, I've got to get points for trying. It sucked. Straight champagne sucked. I sound like The Critic. I stuck to cider, which I hoped to drink in quantities enough to make me pee apple-colored. I love cider.

So. Turkey, roasted with a cheesecloth bundle (to prevent the breast drying) of rosemary and sage (to flavor the meat). Stuffing with turkey sausage and plenty of mushrooms and celery and leeks and garlic and sage and thyme and rosemary. String beans with whole cloves of roasted garlic. Mashed potatoes with plenty of butter and milk and garlic and salt. Cranberry sauce from fresh cranberries and apples (and no garlic).

CGK and Ken brought a pumpkin pie (this meal was BYOPP; neither of us likes pumpkin pie and we don't know how to make it) and I had my two apple pies. N---- mentioned getting a Death by Chocolate dessert at Bennigan's the night before and I realized, aghast, that I had no chocolate in the house. She and Clove were horrified. Then I remembered the five-pound bag of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips I'd bought at CostCo a few days previous, five pounds for Christmas baking and to have plenty to send to DEDBG in her chocolate-chip-less frainch existence. I set out a bowl of chips and what weren't eaten out of hand were put into coffee. Crisis averted.

Blake was a hit as well. He'd been whining all day, not at all used to being confined when we're both home, but he shut up as soon as people began to arrive. They were interesting to watch. When we ate (a carpet picnic), just after four, I hurriedly got some chow defrosting and gave him a big sprig of millet so he could eat with us. Poor tyke; he's a social animal and likes to heat when you eat. Afterward, he came out to meet everyone. I never know how this is going to go--parrot-owners are a notoriously freaky lot, and at least when the bird is confined, or better yet in a back room, your insanity is better masked. Would people understand? Would they accidentally stomp him? Feed him guacamole (avocado is poisonous to parrots)?

Blake wanted his uncle Ken. He wanted to sit on Uncle Ken's hand and not move, or be picked up, or anything. I suspected he was getting fixated on Ken's hand, and I told him if he started masturbating with it I'd lock him away. I performed for everyone's edification, the head-bobbing, tail wagging, foot-spreading wiggle that is Blake in love, and then Blake himself started up and I did put him away. I've got it down, though. I might not have a tail but I can imitate a cockatiel in heat. We took him out later when he was calmer and he sat happily on N----'s knee as she rocked in the rocker, and then placidly on Ken's shoulder, and he sang to CGK and preened up a frenzy on Clove. So all was well, but he still hasn't learned to say "Dom DeLuise," which Dexy has been trying to teach him for two years. Plus Blake acted trained although he's really not--every 15 or so minutes I would put him in his cage until he might become safe and he'd promptly empty himself such that he could be among company again. Such a good little pea-brained boy.

I should have asked CGK to bring Taboo and Balderdash. I should buy Taboo and Balderdash. I have only the original questions to Trivial Pursuit, which everyone knows, and Pictionary, which is great, and Scattergories, which we tried but failed to have fun with. So while the boys played darts (in the living room, almost over our heads), the girls played gin rummy until "ER."

Of course I cried when Carol gave birth to the first twin. I hope when I'm 90 that my only regret that I never had children will be that I never experienced pregnancy and birth. I know the human population is exploding out of control and all that, but I can't get over my chauvinistic love of my species enough not to be moved by every depiction of birth I see. CGK held my hand. Clove laughed at me. I'm a sap. I admit it. Whereas the caesarian delivery of the second twin did not stir me. It's not the arrival of a human but the power of a woman in labor that affects me.

(I was so glad that ABW was able to bear her second son vaginally, as she wanted to. After almost 24 hours of unmedicated labor with NKW, she had an emergency caesarian; and I know that in the past one caesarian delivery meant all caesarian. Not she. AEW arrived the way she wanted him too, funny skull and all.)

At 10:00, after ER, everyone went home to their dogs. Sigh. I want a dog. Everyone had left, but not before CGK did some channel-hopping and found "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" on. This time, he's bringing his dad. (The best tag line ever.) It was nearly the end, when Henry Jones Sr., Sallah, and whoever Denholm Elliot's character was look over the cliff thinking Indy'd gone off it. So naturally I cried again when Sean Connery said, "I thought I'd lost you, boy." RDC fell asleep almost immediately on the couch that he'd ousted me from, and I was perfectly happy and comfortable falling asleep on the floor in front of the fire watching Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, and then at 10:30, some decrepit version of A Tale of Two Cities.

I kind of glossed over "in front of the fire." Another thing to be thankful for was that Thanksgiving was a Blue Day, no woodburning restrictions, so we lit a fire just before people arrived and kept it going until one, after my Dickens-fest, when we staggered into bed. When we moved into this apartment, I wanted to have the tv on the other wall so the couch could face both the tv and the fireplace, but the cable socket was only on one side. It looks so inhospitable for a room to face a television set instead of a fire, but honestly, which do we use more? Something like 80% of winter days in Denver are Red Days, with voluntary driving reduction and mandatory woodburning restrictions. It's not as if it's a source of heat, especially since pine, the wood predominantly available here, doesn't make a good coal.

But it was a very nice holiday touch. I propped a big floor pillow against the corner of the couch by the fire, where I could reach up to pet RDC's head, and pulled the ottoman over to put my lower legs on, and was perfectly, comfily content.

A good Thanksgiving.