4th Thursday

Yesterday didn't feel a whole lot like Thanksgiving. In the early afternoon I took off for Tulsa to see my grandfather. I drove to the varied tunes of Indelible Grace, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. I pulled up at the toll booth on I-44 and handed the guy the money. He gave me my receipt and I offered a cheerful "Happy Thanksgiving" to a poor man in the middle of nowhere, freezing in a toll booth at lunchtime on Thanksgiving Day. I got a scowl in return. Hmm. Somebody is not very thankful this year. Goodness.

So my grandfather and I went over to some family friends' for dinner. And it was fine. Very low-key and grown up, for me who is used to having at least a dozen people in the house, and at least half of them being crazy children who are related to me.

But I did get to talk to those crazy children on the phone in the morning. And I heard from more than one person about the sad fact that they were not eating sweet potatoes this year (unavailable in Russia. They were unavailable in Central Asia also but we would bring some back with us whenever we went across into China), and that they ate chickens instead of the turkey which was a quite unaffordable $53 per bird. So my mom wistfully told me to eat some sweet potatoes for her, which I promised to do. EXCEPT then my dinner didn't have them either. But don't worry, Mom, I'm buying some this week and cooking them myself. Don't worry.