Fat and Satisfied.

I was a lucky enough person to have two thanksgiving dinners this weekend, and both of them in the presence of great company.

After the longest greyhound ride of my life (7 hours to Ottawa thanks to the lineup and the long weekend traffic rush) the husband and I arrived back home. We chilled a while with my cousins while my aunt and her husband stuffed the turkey. Andrew made a show of the poor naked thing, which was quite vulgar but did get a laugh. There's something about raw turkey that's a little to similar to human flesh. (ick!)

It was nice to wake up that morning to the smell of a cooked turkey, beautiful, brown and basted. A preview of the dinner that night, which, after a long day of semi-fasting, was quite good. The dinner party included: my sister and her boyfriend, my husband and I, my Aunt Valerie and her husband (and their daughters), my Aunt Carolyn and her Ed (and her daughter). The food was lavish, a huge turkey stuffed nicely with fresh garden carrots (thanks Olivia!), vegetables, salt beef... everything needed for a good newfie meal. As always, the food was accompanied with good conversation, and plenty of laughter. Cake was brought as dessert to celebrate the two birthdays in the house. (Happy Birthday Valerie Anne!)

I love these get-togethers for their great family vibes. I'm constantly reminded that I'm one very lucky duck to have them all there for me. Steven is always telling people that he married well because he married into our bunch. Conclusion: I win!

The next day I had the luck of a second dinner, although Steven and I had been fattened up thoroughly and needed the whole afternoon to deflate enough to stuff ourselves again. We visited my uncle at his girlfriends house. I give her the thumbs up, she's a gentle woman with good interior decorating and cheery kids. Plus, she makes a mean apple pie. So, we sat in the solarium all day drinking Smirnoff Ice and White Russians (ala Big Lebowski) and were quite rosy-cheeked by the time some old friends of the family arrived. Having not seen them for years, It was a very nice experience for me to catch up. The kids are (like me) now huge and no longer really kids. Paul and Marie still glow with youth and banter with eachother like newlyweds. The night was filled with great, sprawling conversation about the nature of art and music with the advent of technology, about people, about life. I discovered that Paul has a video of one of my most fond childhood memories (putting on a dance show at a cottage in Gaspe). The food was good and very filling, followed by three types of pie (explode!). The evening ended with a strong game of scrabble using the french board (a disproportionate amount of "u"'s when composing in English). Then to bed with us!

After a long morning the next day, Steven and I were dropped off in the market. We had a milkshake at Zak's, spent a long time browsing the bookstore, took a nice autumn walk, and bussed back to the outskirts of town. A dinner at Peter and Helene's would stuff us some more, and inspire Steven to begin woodworking. (Peter has the most amazing collection of hand-made furniture and is currently working on a dining hutch... quite spectacular).

We're back home at last, equipped with many containers of generously donated turkey and some tasty salt beef. All I can say is, I am FAT and SATISFIED.