a charlie brown thanksgiving, year number two

not only a time to give thanks, thanksgiving is also a time to let our sense of nostalgia for a part-fictional past momentarily take over. in most minds, there is an image of a perfectly happy family sitting around a table smiling and eating.

i'll take my somewhat messy past over the american holiday dream anyday. my family is anything but boring, although i told my mother that we were sometime in elementary school, when i was too consumed in my own little world to realize anything going on around me. my favorite thanksgivings are the ones that have been completely chaotic...

1. thanksgiving 2008. i was in bangkok during all of the protests, so my planned trip to chiang mai to have thanksgiving with friends there was not a possibility. instead, i had thanksgiving on my street corner with a boy named matt, the other american teacher in my town, and nan, my fruit lady/thai mommy. matt never talked much, so nan and i carelessly chatted away. we had pad thai and tons of papaya and pineapple. she wanted me to feel at home there and did everything to help make my stay there a good time, even showing my mom around when she came to visit. we had drinks on the street that night too. while i was there, i didn't quite understand why it was called "soi dee" ("the good road" in thai), but now i know it's because of the sweet people who live there. i spent a lot of great nights sitting on the street corner, especially when one of the local college kids would haul out a guitar and pick away at attempted english songs.

2. thanksgiving 2007. my mom and i signed up to run the tallahassee turkey trot and trained for it, but when we woke up to rain, nothing could be further from our minds than running. instead, we made a light breakfast and watched a bunch of "friends." then we went to chez pierre, just the two of us, for our own perfect thanksgiving.

3. thanksgivings growing up. they were always a zoo of family members, friends, and food...


oh, time leave school. happy thanksgiving, charlie brown.