the sport of eating

Thanksgiving should be a time of reflection and graciousness, but every Thanksgiving I've experienced is laced with indigestion and stress. Today I woke up at 5:30 AM to make the 5 hour drive to my grandparents house. Ding! Ding! Round one. The relatives flow in and the interviews begin. You'd think California is a foreign land and I a brave pioneer for taking the Oregon Trail with Sacagawea to get there. Yes, all my westward movement references are jumbled, but so is my brain after a long day of turkey. Instead of a covered wagon though, my mode of transportation was a Boeing 757. After answering the tenth vague question about how school is going, and after my uncle's rendition of "California Girls", I reach for a large glass of wine. The food is placed as a buffet and instantly everyone in the house gains a sixth sense and migrates to the kitchen. My grandma, a true Lutheran, instructs my youngest cousin to say the "short grace", and the word "amen" may as well be the starting gunshot at a derby. With my plate in one hand and rapidly diminishing glass of white wine in the other, I'm faced with my second difficult decision of the day after white meat or dark. Where do I sit? At the kid's table or with the adults? Now that every kid is in 8th grade or older, what's the cutoff? I rationalize taht since I'm carrying alcohol, I belong with the sophisticates.

I'm normally a painfully slow eater, but when i sit down to my plate at Thanksgiving, I eat like an out of control bulimic. Conversation? What's that? I grunt half hearted yes's and no's to questions thrown my way, afraid that if I stop shoveling, it might all disappear. Eventually after second helpings I slow down and am immediatly hit with an overwhelming sensation of returning from the Matrix. Crap, I really ate all that food?! Oh, pie! And I'm back into darkness until I regain consciousness holding a plate smeared with the remains of 2 types of pie. Looks like pumpkin and raspberry...wait, I HATE pumpkin pie!? Are those ginger snaps? Of course, I'll have 3 please. My once loose jeans are now skin tight and I wonder if my friends will still love me...or recognize me when they roll me off the plane in LA. The frightening image of me at 300 lbs calls for comfort in the form of extra stuffing. But don't worry, the beer I'm currently enjoying is light.

But really, I'm thankful for so much this year, but mostly for the opportunity to be with my family for the holiday. I used to really take for granted the time I got to spend with my parents, my sister, and my relatives. I realize now how much I value them and miss them...and home. This was my first Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh without my grandfather, and I regret not taking in and cherishing every moment and holiday I had with him. Even though he wasn't there tonight at our SECOND thanksgiving of the day with the Skelly's, I felt him urging me to live for the moment I'm in and love the one's I'm with.