I should be going to sleep. Or taking a shower. Or maybe writing a post about all of the crazy things that have been happening in my life in the past I don’t know how long. But instead I will tell you about my day. Because it made me so happy.
Today is Thanksgiving. Two years ago, I missed Thanksgiving to take an amazing road trip on the Great Ocean Road in Australia. It was my uncle’s last Thanksgiving and even though I had a great time on that road trip, it was very very hard not to be there that day. Today I missed my second Thanksgiving, but an amazing set of friends who I’ve adopted as my own little crazy family made the day absolutely perfect anyway.
I’m not sure when I decided that I wanted to have Thanksgiving. I didn’t even think about all of the work that might go in to such a venture. I vaguely remember a conversation with Livy and Oscar about having Thanksgiving and then suddenly I was making a Facebook event. At first I was nervous that too many people would show up, then I was nervous that too few would, after that I was nervous about finding a turkey, later I was nervous about cooking said turkey in time. I was nervous that a million things would go wrong but in the end I decided that it would be okay. If I messed up all of the food, Pizza Hut is just down stairs. So when I messed up the crust and then the filling on my pumpkin pie I didn’t even stress (that much) because it was still pretty good. I even got a few compliments on it, but that comes later.
I couldn’t focus on work all day today, I think it’s because today should be a holiday if you’re an American. My body was ready for turkey and not for Matlab coding and meetings. I grabbed Marshal and we left at 4:30 to be home and have the turkey in by 5. I was determined to get it done in time! Then we went downstairs and bought drinks and a few other things we needed and cleaned up the house a bit while dancing around to random music. Okay, maybe I was doing most of the dancing. But I definitely saw Marshal swing his feet in time to the beat at least a time or two.
The day still felt pretty quite until Livy stormed in and absolutely tore up the kitchen. Suddenly my house was all hustle and bustle and it felt like a million pots were on the stove and the dishes started to pile up in the sink. I’m pretty sure she had Marshal peeling potatoes before she knew his name (not that she’ll admit that). And man did it start to smell good.
Then Adji showed up and started doing crazy things with bread and cheese and trying to sneak things into the oven with my turkey. I had to kick him out of the kitchen a few times. Eventually Livy and I assigned him to dish duty to keep him out of trouble. It worked shockingly well. Jia Yi showed up and helped Adji with the bread and later was watching Japanese game shows with Marshal. We worked as a great time and within no time at all we had a dinner coming together.
That Livy cooking storm I mentioned.
Marshal peeling potatoes for the aforementioned cooking storm.
CHEEEEEEEEEEESE! and bread. Heavenly.
Pumpkin ears!
Tiger oven mitt and Adji.
We really weren’t sure what was going on with the turkey. It didn’t seem to be cooking fast enough. Then Adji pointed out that the oven wasn’t on! The little oven that I have only has a timer that runs for an hour and after that it turns off. I think it was probably off for at least half an hour. But we pressed on! And eventually fried slices of turkey to finish cooking them. We were worried about all of the other dishes getting cold while the turkey finished cooking since I don’t have a microwave so we just made do. But the bird was actually pretty done by the time we resorted to that! We were pretty surprised when we cut it open to see that it was hardly pink at all but we fried (sauteed?) it anyway just to be on the safe side.
Then we set the table and dug in. I must say, the food was excellent. Everything was perfect and I ate until I couldn’t any more.
Noms!
Noms with me!
Livy taking the first piece from the pull apart bread. She got cheese stuck on her finger.
Enjoying the food!
Trying to get the cheese off.
Still trying… Dinner and a show. This was hilarious. It was still stuck on during dessert.
Then, just as we finished, Jo Lynn and Cory arrived! Even though the food was a little cold they still dug right in. After that, we sat down and watched the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown which I forgot was a Halloween Peanuts special but I really like that one and didn’t watch it around Halloween so we watched it anyway. I think that might be the start of a glorious new tradition. Everyone was laughing. Then we spent the rest of the time watching funny youtube videos and generally just being happy and having a good time. At one point Livy was just looking up tons of national anthems and listening to them. She made up alternative words to England’s national anthem, which she says is terrible, on the spot. She made the new song about our turkey. It was fabulous. And we ate my pumpkin pie. It wasn’t half bad. Livy made her “I really like this food” noises while eating it and went back to get her own slice after devouring the end bits of my piece. So I’d say that worked out pretty well.
When everyone was good and tired and ready to go home, they all stayed and helped clean until my apartment was spotless again. It totally blew me away.
Throughout the night we asked everyone what they were thankful for. Livy said that she was happy to have met us. Marshal said that he was happy to have been invited. For most of the people who came, I think it was their first Thanksgiving. Personally, I said that I was thankful for these amazing friends. Because I still feel like I’m new here and I very easily could have spent this evening alone and sad in my apartment. Instead, my house was really happy and full of life for the first time and I had an amazing day. So thank you friends, for being my family.
Happy Thanksgiving! 