The Turkey Report

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, a time for family, a time for overdone turkey and a small dish of mostly ignored canned cranberry glop. It’s also the only time I ever get to have turnip– a side dish so difficult to prepare well that many turn up their noses and don’t bother. But as a good third-generation Scot, to me it’s like crack, so it’s a time for much rejoicing.

Traditionally, after the logistics of getting five adults + one baby (the Donahue’s) together for lunch and six adults + one baby (the Swenson’s) for dinner I don’t have much energy for anything else other than rub my incredibly full stomach and listen to an exhaustive discussion of how awful traffic has gotten in this city, how well/badly the assorted babies have eaten/slept/pooped and what kind of wine goes with turkey. Keeping a low profile is a good strategy in order to avoid discussing with various concerned parents What We Are Doing With Our Lives and Where It All Went So Terribly Wrong. My folks are retired teachers and while they are wonderful, lively and intelligent people, terms like “Facebook”, “blogging” and heck, even “marketing” are pretty foreign to them.

Fortunately this year we had the welcome distraction of so much new media and technological gadgets and foofarrahs, that My Incomprehensible Life Choices went largely unnoticed in a flurry of concerns that included:

• Explaining to my parents about LinkedIn and showing them my blog (which should, but does not, help allay fears about the aforementioned Incomprehnsible Life Choices);

• Checking to see if the kid’s show Peppa the Pig was available for download from piratebay.org (it is);

• Pointed hinting at how much I want an iPhone for Christmas (it’s best to start your campaign early);

• Listening to an interminably long chat (during lunch, with a baby on her lap) between my sister-in-law and brother about how to access the internet wirelessly using her laptop (she’s here in Toronto, he’s in England), during which Doug, the IT guy’s head nearly exploded;

• An impromptu seminar from Doug (to make up for not being allowed to participate in the laptop debacle) on how to hook up your desktop to your TV so you can look at your e-mail spam in all its 42-inch flatscreen glory;

• Chatting with Doug’s brother-in-law about updating his website and are my Photoshop skills up to the challenge? (they might be);

• Viewing some family photos on a digital photo album so tiny and grainy, we may as well have left it on the camera display (sorry Jack!);

• Periodically watching family members check their e-mail because, while it’s a holiday here, those strange Americans insist on having Thanksgiving in November.

Good times, good times. God bless new media.

A note (so I don’t get killed): The turkey at Doug’s parent’s place was NOT overdone, it was moist and delicious! We got a to-go plate that included at least a half-ton of it, along with the remains of the most delicious turnip casserole ever. Is 7:30 am on Wednesday too soon for lunch?