Thanksgiving #1, 2005
Nov. 24th, 2005 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday I had pumpkin pie for breakfast.
Then drove four hours to hang with Robin's family. We passed the site of a new housing development that will be green (environmentally) and affordable and fantasized about moving in. Robin's friend is taking him to look at some models this weekend.
Later, we fell off the road twice, by which I mean we went straight when we should have turned (in order to stay on the same highway). The first time I caught the mistake in less than a mile. The second time Robin caught the mistake twenty miles later, while I was reminiscing about the town we were in because I had lived there a total of forty weeks while working at a summer camp.
There was way too much food. Seriously, I'd say we ate about 20% of the food or less. One half-slice of my pie was eaten, which would have made me feel bad, except that it was eaten by a vegetarian who didn't have many choices, so I guess it was good I brought it after all.
Mmm, pie for breakfast for a long time to come!
For another illustration, there were three different kinds of fluff--pink fluff (definitely dark cherries), orange fluff (some kind of orange/tangerine type thing, possibly including cottage cheese), and green fluff (I don't remember). I don't know what the fluff is called (mousse?), but it's some kind of fruity sugary thing.
I did a survey (okay, I looked at the dishes) to see what the most popular dishes were: turkey, dressing, gravy, cheesy rice casserole, green bean and onion ring casserole, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Of the desserts, the most popular was the blueberry pie. One-third to one-half of each of these things were eaten. There was also quite a run on the delicate ginger snaps with pumpkin dip.
I also learned about how Hurricane Katrina sent the ocean over the house of someone in the Florida Keys. The house escaped structural damage, but several wheel barrows of sand had to be removed from the second-story balcony.
A guy was visiting from the Netherlands partly to see why Americans do things that Europeans call stupid and why we think we need to police the world. He got various explanations such as that we're ignorant and that we have a Superman complex.
I learned that one guy's face was very long in pictures taken when he was a teenager that year when he grew six inches.
I remembered how with the right east Texas accent, you can turn one syllable into two. My favorite example of that is when I was flying back from school in Boston and was in a Dallas airport, and someone dropped her slushy drink all over the floor and exclaimed, "Shee-it!" I knew I was back in Texas. (If only I hay-ad remimbered thay-at for the ray-edneck ray-ound-up party.)
Then another four-hour drive back during which we never fell off the road. I learned some more words to songs on a CD that Robin was singing along with.
Then turkey, dressing, and gravy for supper.
No novel writing. Sleepy now.
But first, an explanation. I realize that I have been claiming to have no ideas and yet I am also claiming to have somehow gotten down over 40,000 words. And here is the explanation. Virtually every time I am writing something, I feel like I'm copping out. I can't think of a good novel thing, so I write something else instead. Virtually everything has felt like nonfiction. I don't have any actual people I know in the story, but it seems like all of their traits are traits of people I know (mixed and matched) and everything they do is something I or my friends have done.
Then drove four hours to hang with Robin's family. We passed the site of a new housing development that will be green (environmentally) and affordable and fantasized about moving in. Robin's friend is taking him to look at some models this weekend.
Later, we fell off the road twice, by which I mean we went straight when we should have turned (in order to stay on the same highway). The first time I caught the mistake in less than a mile. The second time Robin caught the mistake twenty miles later, while I was reminiscing about the town we were in because I had lived there a total of forty weeks while working at a summer camp.
There was way too much food. Seriously, I'd say we ate about 20% of the food or less. One half-slice of my pie was eaten, which would have made me feel bad, except that it was eaten by a vegetarian who didn't have many choices, so I guess it was good I brought it after all.
Mmm, pie for breakfast for a long time to come!
For another illustration, there were three different kinds of fluff--pink fluff (definitely dark cherries), orange fluff (some kind of orange/tangerine type thing, possibly including cottage cheese), and green fluff (I don't remember). I don't know what the fluff is called (mousse?), but it's some kind of fruity sugary thing.
I did a survey (okay, I looked at the dishes) to see what the most popular dishes were: turkey, dressing, gravy, cheesy rice casserole, green bean and onion ring casserole, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Of the desserts, the most popular was the blueberry pie. One-third to one-half of each of these things were eaten. There was also quite a run on the delicate ginger snaps with pumpkin dip.
I also learned about how Hurricane Katrina sent the ocean over the house of someone in the Florida Keys. The house escaped structural damage, but several wheel barrows of sand had to be removed from the second-story balcony.
A guy was visiting from the Netherlands partly to see why Americans do things that Europeans call stupid and why we think we need to police the world. He got various explanations such as that we're ignorant and that we have a Superman complex.
I learned that one guy's face was very long in pictures taken when he was a teenager that year when he grew six inches.
I remembered how with the right east Texas accent, you can turn one syllable into two. My favorite example of that is when I was flying back from school in Boston and was in a Dallas airport, and someone dropped her slushy drink all over the floor and exclaimed, "Shee-it!" I knew I was back in Texas. (If only I hay-ad remimbered thay-at for the ray-edneck ray-ound-up party.)
Then another four-hour drive back during which we never fell off the road. I learned some more words to songs on a CD that Robin was singing along with.
Then turkey, dressing, and gravy for supper.
No novel writing. Sleepy now.
But first, an explanation. I realize that I have been claiming to have no ideas and yet I am also claiming to have somehow gotten down over 40,000 words. And here is the explanation. Virtually every time I am writing something, I feel like I'm copping out. I can't think of a good novel thing, so I write something else instead. Virtually everything has felt like nonfiction. I don't have any actual people I know in the story, but it seems like all of their traits are traits of people I know (mixed and matched) and everything they do is something I or my friends have done.