A Thanksgiving Mystery

This is from my giant postcard collection. Click on the label at the end of this post to see some others that have made it onto my blog over the last 3 years.

The postmark on this card is from 1914 and has a One Cent stamp on it. It was addressed to Mrs. W. Goodwin in Columbus, Ohio. It was sent by her husband Walter, who wrote it on November 26:

My Darling Muriel,

Rec'd your card okay. Was more than glad to get it for old times sake.

Truely (sic) your husband Walter Goodwin.

It was postmarked in Columbus and sent to Coumbus. I wonder if this is what they did back then rather than just save the penny and hand the card to the other. Were the Goodwins living apart, on their way to divorce, or did he send it before he left for somewhere else? Did she know he couldn't spell? And if he was her husband, why did he have to add his last name to the card?

The card is so old and from the wear and tear on the right side, the blue border is all but rubbed away, I'm guessing this card was handled a lot by right-handed people. In anger? In joy? With turkey grease?

And one more question for the Goodwins; what's up with the Dutch?

Happy Thanksgiving.

An Indian Thanksgiving. The REAL Indians.

I wrote my surgeon in Mumbai asking if everyone at Jaslok Hospital was okay. They're right in Mumbai. I also wrote one of my newer readers, Braja, who is funny, from Australia and currently living in a small village in India.

She writes about it today on her blog. She explains how the U.S. is seen from abroad. And around the world. We are NOT a popular country but you already knew that, right? I'M still popular, of course, but you already knew that, right?

While I was there in 2006, there was a terrorist attack at a train station. I was in a temple by my hospital and they ran us through metal detectors. At the time I didn't know why but read about it later on. They deliver 2 newspapers a day to your hospital room, kinda like here, only not.

Click on the label at the end of this post to see all the pictures I took of these lovely and kind people.

I still haven't heard from my doctor. Maybe he's helping the wounded. Braja said they killed Indians as well, which I hadn't heard on our news. I woke up at 4 a.m. thinking of him and all the people in that hospital. The news this morning is now announcing they're still under fire today, which I think is tomorrow there. The International Date Line is clearly for people who can count.

I think we all know where that leaves me.

End of chat.

If I Were In Charge Of Food

I hate food shopping. I think I choose boyfriends based on their ability to food shop, and so far I've been lucky. They've all loved to do it except for The Doctor Howard, who had housekeepers do it. When you're born you should automatically be assigned a housekeeper who food shops. I seriously think this was an oversight on God's part and I don't understand why I'm not in charge of things like this. Believe me, no one would take my name in vain.

I should have taken a camera with me this morning so someone could have snapped a photo of me lying in the aisle crying.

The problem is that I get bored eating the same foods over and over. One week I'll want German food and will eat sauerkraut, potatoes and black forest ham. Then I'm on to spicy shrimp sushi without so much as a backwards glance at German Week. I've been around the food track a zillion times and I keep landing back on START, because maybe you didn't know this but they do not invent new food. Ever.

THIS WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED IF I WAS IN CHARGE.

I can lay part of the problem squarely on the shoulders of my mother. (Who else?) Going to Europe every summer since I was 5, my sister and I were dropped into a lot of homes where people cooked food we'd never eaten before. Our mother explained that it's considered the height of rudeness to turn down food, especially since in many countries, they may not have a lot of money or resources and if we were in a village in Africa we were going to eat that gazelle OR ELSE. And when your mother says OR ELSE, well, you know what that means. Although based on our obesity rate, I don't think Americans turn down a lot of food. Anywhere.

As I got older I traveled more and ate fabulous exotic foods and was glad that my mother had opened me up to a level of sophistication I wouldn't have found just swapping Twinkies with classmates in Junior High.

Once my sister and I were in Marrakesh and were guests of a Moroccan emir. We were told in advance to honor the eating customs of the country because the host was part of the King's entourage. As brave as I am, I didn't know if I was up to eating something I didn't recognize that might still be alive and crunchy. We sat on the floor with the others and an enormous couscous in a huge wooden bowl was brought out. My sister and I looked for our silverware while everyone else used their right-hand fingers to eat, as is the custom in many cultures. We did the same.

My sister deviated from this plan one year because she had given up meat. So she brought a huge Chilean sea bass to her then boyfriend's house for dinner. On Thanksgiving. His parents had cooked a huge turkey and were insulted by my sister's gesture and the guy broke up with her two days later. One year I gave up dairy food (not realizing cheese and ice cream were in this category) and some old friends I hadn't seen in a while threw me a cocktail party and served French cheeses in honor of my background. I ate the cheese. They didn't break up with me. I went back to eating dairy food.

So this morning I was standing in aisle One million D wondering what I hadn't eaten in a long time and waiting for my eyebrows to fall off my face. One hair at a time.

And then it came to me. Scungilli.

End of chat.

THANKS For GIVING Me My Own Room

I was invited to spend the holiday with McLoserstene's family, who live about 100 miles south of Los Angeles. I left late Thursday morning thinking there would be less traffic.
I was wrong.

Her family is not normal. But I guess you already knew that based on the fact that McLoserstene never allows her face to be seen on the internet.

This is their dog, Dali. This is their backyard, where they asked me to sleep.


This was the tablescape for Thanksgiving dinner. Mrs. McLoserstene has an obsession with fake food: coffee, pastries, pizza, olives, etc. It is always strategically placed in areas that would not invite suspicion so I spent 15 minutes waiting for others to eat first just to make sure that I wouldn't be the only one to die of Styrofoam poisoning.

The following day they drove me against my will to the Wayside Cafe for lunch. Patrons are encouraged to donate items to the restaurant as the Cafe is apparently too cheap to decorate. Thankfully there was so much to look at that I didn't have to listen to the McLoserstenes discuss the merits of chocolate Dr. Pepper over regular Dr. Pepper and why the egg salad was spilling out the sides of the whole wheat bread.Don't get me wrong, under other circumstances and in a different setting, I would have found those topics still boring fascinating. There are people in their town who have nothing to do so they bring their coffee cups to the Cafe and use them each time they visit. Little do they know that people like me will touch all the rims of those cups with leftover grease from my onion rings because I have nothing to do.

McLoserstene and I redid the family's living room. Mr. McLoserstene scowled a lot and Mrs. McLoserstene had to be surgically removed from her votive candle collection and fake ivy. Even though we told them we do this for a living and were doing it for free, they started drinking heavily.

Because after all, isn't that what the holidays are all about?

End of chat.

Thanksgiving, What A Dumb Holiday

All that cooking. All that cleanup. Stultifying hours with the family. Small talk that would kill a coma patient. Casseroles that dead people wouldn't eat. And not enough alcohol in the world to make you want to live another day.

And no gifts?

Dumb.

You have 9 more days to get your Christmas Pets jpgs to me.

FIRST PLACE PRIZE:

Kidding.