Hi all-

I just got back from my show in Winston Salem, just unpacked my van and have lots of last minute things to do before I can post a recap. None of these to-do items have anything to do with Thanksgiving, unless you count catching people on the phone before they go out of town.

In reality, I hate Thanksgiving and only reluctantly celebrate it.  The post below went up last year so I'm reposting it (only taking out the hosanna for Obama - I'm not that thankful for him this year) -  it says so clearly what Thanksgiving means to me. 

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I am getting ready to go to some friends' house for Thanksgiving. Normally, I would miss it gladly and stay home alone. Even when I was married we would rarely cook or even observe the event. Usually my husband and I would search for a restaurant somewhere that serviced Thanksgiving heathens like us, which is hard in some parts of the South. It's like Rome at Easter - everything closes up. 

So I'm doing this family-style celebration this year on a whim, basically taking advantage of my friends' concern for me. Free food, and all that. But also, they're great folks, so why not. 

I asked what I should bring tonight, and the answer is, no drinkers in the family, so whatever I want to drink.  Hmm, trip to the liquor store first, need some bottles of wine, maybe a cream liqueur for dessert, maybe I should have a bourbon now before I go. Oh, yea. That's the ghost of Thanksgiving past resurfacing. 

In our house when I was growing up, my mom threw hereslf into making the big feast, but she usually didn't start til late afternoon, being up late the previous night shopping before the stores closed. (in those days, nothing was open on The Day). Therefore, we all sat around til 9 or 10pm, waiting on dinner, slowly getting wasted drinking wine and rich liqueurs. Actually, even when my sisters and I cooked dinner, we did the same thing. Thanksgiving was like a train out of control, careening off the tracks into the night, with 5 addled girls and a harried mother at the wheel.

Mom usually invited guests every year whom we didn't know, the 5 of us, drunk, often stoned, and definitely disorderly, would tease, attack and act out for these poor orphans, who never came back for a second year with us. But it was the game that counted, and we tried to run them off earlier and earlier every year. 

By one or two in the morning, we were nearly comatose with food, drink and drugs and we lay around the family room feeling smug that we had buried the spirit of loving-family  sappiness that was never living in our house anyway. My mom always joined us - with her problems with our dad, she was the head cynic. This was even before Thanksgiving was exposed as the historical sham it was; we were already reading between the lines.  

So repeating that wonderful family memory never appeals to me. And, old habits die hard. I won't exactly know what to do with myself without a layer of numb, but I guess it's worth a try. Well, maybe just one bottle of wine. Make that bourbon or maybe some expensive brandy. Now, off to find some smoke to go with it.