CSotD: A Heapin’ Helpin’ of Holiday Humor
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I got a laugh out of this, though my current dog is quite neat and would only have rumpled blankets, since she buries herself in them. But the timing is nice because it made me think about coming home from college for Thanksgiving, which I only did once.
I came home completely changed and it was like stepping into a time capsule because, of course, it had only been 10 weeks and everything back in the real world was the same. Also it was expensive and you spent two of the four days on the road, so I never did it again.
Turned out staying on campus was memorable because there were only so many holiday orphans to hang out with. Sophomore year I had dinner with a quiet girl from the periphery of our group who turned out to be brilliant — she later became an attorney — and really good company.
Junior year, I ate with a beautiful heiress (no joke) who was a friend but not someone I’d ever expect to date and certainly nobody I’d expect to kiss goodnight on the steps of her dorm with snowflakes on her eyelashes.
That same year, I found myself in a dorm room Sunday with most of the basketball team, watching Glen Campbell’s Goodtime Hour. The Black guys were asking what in the hell this sh*t was, while the white guy from Muncie — whose dad was Jim Davis’s phys-ed professor at Ball State, but that’s a different story — was assuring them that the folks back home were eating this up. Kissing pretty girls was more fun, but baffled consternation was pretty amusing.
And it was all better than dealing with O’Hare on a holiday, twice. (It would have to be.)
Still on the topic of consternation, I’m assuming Leroy is talking about permission, not technology, since most people know about Zoom and Facetime and such.
Once I had graduated, married and replicated, we spent a lot of holidays with her folks, to the point where some dishes I wouldn’t touch 364 days of the year mysteriously became genuine comfort food.
Thing is, green bean casserole isn’t supposed to be good. It’s supposed to be familiar. If that strikes you as an apt metaphor for the holiday, maybe you should celebrate on Zoom instead.
While baffled consternation may be amusing, it’s completely unnecessary in this case. I do not know a single enrolled tribal member of any nation who is offended by “Indian” and most of them consider “native American” kind of silly. No, they’re not from India, but if you want to be accurate, find out who you’re talking about and use that term. Choctaw aren’t Blackfeet aren’t Zuni aren’t Mi’kmaq just as Italians aren’t Swedes aren’t Turks aren’t Spaniards.
I was editing some folklore for kids and asked a Saginaw friend if I should use “Chippewa” or “Ojibway,” because they look very different but sound nearly the same when pronounced correctly. His response was “It doesn’t matter. The only time anybody writes it down is when they’re taking something else away from us.”
Anyway, it’s Anishinaabe.
Juxtaposition of the Day
We’re about to encounter a flood of cartoons about how much people dislike Thanksgiving leftovers, but count me out. A loaf of bread, a slice of turkey, a spoonful of cranberry sauce, a swash of mayonnaise and thou beside me singing in the wilderness and wilderness were paradise enow.
Then, in the end, throw the remains in a large kettle with some onions, carrots and celery, along with short-grained brown rice and a handful of good Anishinaabe wild rice.
That latter being a reminder that the difference between “wilderness” and “paradise” largely depends on the observer.
Praise to Wiley for reminding us of the hospitality of the day, but then I’ll take it away for his reminder that we’re about to get a double-dose of Hallmark movies. The candied yams and punkin pie with whipped cream are better for your A1C readings than watching another heart-warming 90 minutes of drek.
There. Adrian Raeside has just spoilered all those Hallmark movies by revealing the part they don’t show you, which takes place just after the closing credits.
Better you should dig up Bernard and the Genie from YouTube and see how Lenny Henry, Alan Cumming and Rowan Atkinson mark the holidays.
Though if you decide to go the Classics route, fine, but at least avoid colorized glurge.
And if you think you’ll find some worthwhile updated version of A Christmas Carol, be assured that you only really need to watch this short clip and then you can go back to Alastair Sim and the real thing.
Juxtaposition of What Else Is Current
Granted, Christmas is a religious holiday, or at least it started as one, but gratitude is not a matter of religious attachments, so you can still be grateful this Thursday, and, if nothing else, you can be grateful that the Open Enrollment sign-up season is more than half over and perhaps we’ll be allowed to hear about something else for 10 months.
My FB feed seems balanced between telling me nobody is offering Advantage plans in New Hampshire and emails from insurance companies asking me to sign up for one. This fits well with Brewster Rockit.
However, I’m immune from the stress Davies speaks of because I’m on Medicare, so, by law, my premium can only go up far enough to wipe out the Cost of Living increase in my Social Security benefits.
I’m not suggesting that this doesn’t suck, but after a few years it stops being a shock.
To close on a positive note, it occurs to me that, while the legend of the First Thanksgiving is a load of hooey, there isn’t much on the traditional menu that isn’t, well, “native American,” though it would have been impossible to assemble it all in Plymouth back then.
The Three Sisters of corn, beans and squash are well-represented, cranberries were definitely local fare, and potatoes aren’t local but they aren’t European, either.
Cab threw a wider net, but Hannah’s banana and Plato’s tomato are both of American origin.
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