Happy Thanksgiving!

Now that I'm done with "Inktober" and engaged with "NaNoWriMo," I have been kind of hush-hush around here. Believe it or not, I made even more drawings (illustrations for my NaNo story) than I made last month. I might post all those sketches, or most of them, at a later time.

But I just wanted to make a little Thanksgiving post, and extend my best wishes to all my American mates out there. I hope your holiday was a good one; mine certainly was.

It was quiet and low-key, but I rather like it that way. Sometimes the best holidays are the simplest ones. All you really need are your loved ones, some rest and relaxation, and a bit of tasty food on the side. To quote Perry Como: "For the holidays, you can't beat home sweet home."

We had a little sleepover with my niece and two of my nephews last night, because my first nephew (Josh) had a fever (and a seizure, too, I think) and had to go to the ER. He's okay but they still need to run a few tests, and we decided to make it easy on my sister by taking the rest of the kids for a while. Lizzie was excited because she had been wanting a sleepover for some time, though she also cried this morning due to homesickness.

Both Mom and I had a very demanding night. I had a closing shift (I took the place of somebody who quit, after being with us for only two or three weeks; that must be a new record), and the guy I was closing with had to leave exactly at 10:00 or he would get in trouble. Unfortunately, we still had to take out the garbage, pull some rotisserie chickens (we are not allowed to stick whole chickens in the cooler), and hose down the floor. I can't hold it against my partner for not wanting to get in trouble (he did seem genuinely regretful as he walked away), but I just hope they won't hold it against me for staying overtime. They have really cracked down on overtime lately, because too many people were taking advantage of it. So I hope they'll make an exception in my case, since I was there out of necessity, and I wasn't there for too long. I managed to get everything done within a half-hour, and someone else was nice enough to take out the garbage for me. But it sure was a relief to go home at last, and especially to know I was off the next day. Mom even included me in the McDonald's dinner for the family.

Today, we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with a few snacks on the side. After taking Lizzie and her brothers home, that's when we cracked down on dinner.

The aroma of roasted turkey always tempts me. It's all I can do to save my appetite. The funny thing is, our customers at WinCo are big perfectionists, borderline fanatics, when it comes to meals for major holidays. We receive endless orders for salads, fried chicken, and sandwich trays, and we get snowed under with questions, like we're somehow supposed to know every single detail of our products, right down to the little numbers on the barcode.

Just the other day, I heard a story about a customer who spent more than 20 minutes on the phone, asking question after question about our turkeys. How big is it? How fresh is it? How much does it weigh? Will it be cooked for me? Will I have to cook it myself? Will it be stuffed for me? Will I have to be the one to stuff it? How long will it take to cook it? How can I cook it faster? Is it made with hormones? How many people will it serve? How long will it keep in the freezer?

It got to the point where the people at the customer service desk dreaded picking up the phone. We half-joked with each other, "When this is over, we'll all be turkey experts."

I bet we'll do this all over again with our Christmas hams. I can almost hear a customer asking, "Is it hot pink or baby pink? Which shade of pink is better?"

I can perfectly understand health concerns and not wanting to waste food. But I also find it remarkable how some people are so particular for the sake of being so particular. For them, everything about their holiday has to be "just so."

As for me, all I really care about is having a drumstick and a little dark meat. Sure enough, I called dibs on both those things at my family's dinner. Interestingly, we still have the other leg, and I felt like a dog gnawing at the bone. I couldn't resist saying, "I've got a bone to pick with you!"

Besides the turkey, we cooked up some stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and canned corn. Of course, our family's cranberry and grape salad is a sacred tradition. I used to avoid that cranberry salad like the plague but now I find it rather tasty. We even saved some for my sister and my grandma, at their request. Then there were dinner rolls, carrots and cucumbers that I sliced myself (and arranged rather artistically), and soda that we drank in our special occasion glasses. My drink was Cherry Dr. Pepper.

The food was excellent. I reached that perfect level of fullness, too: enough to not be hungry anymore, but not enough to feel like my belly would burst. In fact, my tummy was feeling very thankful.

Afterwards, we popped in to visit Grandma and Grandpa for a while. They served us some vanilla ice cream with graham crackers (I prefer that kind of dessert to pumpkin pie anyway), and I relaxed by their cozy fireplace.

Now I am home again, still feeling well-fed and at peace with the world. For now, life is good.

Now, back to that NaNoWriMo project! For the record, I'm almost there, at 41,700 words.