28: twice

There need to be more days like this in my life. 

Thanksgiving dinner out on the west side of the United States seems to start much later than it does in the midwest, and so I slept in, and I drank hot chocolate, and I went for a walk in the sunshine, and I made a corn pudding.

I had to fight the urge to make more food, but there were a great many people going to the Thanksgiving dinner, and it really wasn't necessary for each of us to bring 20 times the amount of food we could eat. I reminded myself of this every time the urge to make more hit me. I had two pans of corn pudding and some sparkling juice and a box of salted caramels. That is enough, I told myself.

It was enough. The table in my friend's little house veritably groaned under the weight of the incredible amounts of food. In addition to all the middle America staples, there were other amazing things: Puerto Rican rice and beans, stir fry with heritage rice, latkes. Best of all, there was a fresh cranberry granita. It was intended to be mixed with vodka, but I drank it barely diluted with club soda. I think I drank more than I ate, honestly.

There was talking, too: talking with new people and old people, with little kids and older adults, with lawyers and bakers. 

At one point, when the only bathroom was occupied and my friend and I were experiencing serious results of the delicious beverage, we went to opposite corners of the frosting-over yard and peed in the yard (we cleared it with the hostess first). 

That makes twice that I have peed in a yard in Gone West out of sheer necessity. The other time, I didn't exactly have permission. I just sort of ducked behind a hedge off a main street. Oh, well. It's biodegradable.