T H A N K S G I V I N G

1 9 9 8

For the second year in a row I went to my brother's house for Thanksgiving dinner with his family. It was a last minute decision-- as a matter of fact I called him near midnight the day BEFORE to suggest that I would probably be there-- even though he had sent me an invite some two weeks earlier!!

 

The big surprise was that we would have to hunt our own turkey!! With paint ball guns!! WOW, what a variation!!

They provided me with one of those masks used in such hunts, complete with label. We might not kill the poor turkey, but we should be able to scare it to death!!

And since it was a paint ball gun, I naturally assumed that....

I gave Mandy a Russian jacket, Matthew got one from Planet Hollywood in Dallas, and Peter got the one from the Hard Rock Cafe in Copenhagen (cada jaqueta con una sorpresa en el bolsillo!!)

 

Unfortunately we soon discovered that turkey season via paint ball had already closed and was now limited to bow and arrows. Oh, well, I did not bring my archery set and we did not find any turkeys anyway, BUT we did stumble across a strange pumpkin bear

who did NOT have his absolutely necessary hang tag which would have made him an illegal critter to hunt. So Peter and I captured him and said either you find your red paper tag or we would "try" to shoot that pumpkin off of its head!! The poor bear was so amazed that that little piece of paper could possibly mean so much that he volunteered to find a turkey for us and even prepare it according to his own secret recipe. There are no rules about bears hunting turkeys, in or out of the legal hunting season.He found a really great 22 pounder (actually he just bellowed, "Here, Gobbles, Gobbles", and he was almost immediately surrounded by dozens of turkeys ready to be plucked!! They came from all directions!!) and we were ready!! A couple hours later we all settled down to a really delicious dinner, with the happy little bear on the sidelines, dancing around and singing Christmas carols.

Mandy was enjoying the goodies, Peter was still smarting from the tight paint ball mask, and Matthew was sort of sad that they did not actually catch the turkey.

[left to right] Chris (my wonderful sister-in-law), Bill (my brother), Brian (my nephew-in-law?? What do you call the husband of your niece??) and MaryFrances dug in to the already carved turkey morsels. The wine glass in the foreground is mine-- the only one at the table-- and the remains of the bottle I brought last year for Thanksgiving dinner.

After dinner Peter told Lady all about the hunt-- she was all ears!!

Matthew and Bill tried to get Lady to sit up and get in the picture, but she had so much turkey left-overs that she could not move too easily!!

 

Then came the coffee, ice cream and home made pumpkin, apple and mince pies.

 

I was introduced to several Nintendo 64 games by Peter and Matthew-- but they always managed to kill me and kept shooting until I was in shreds!! One of the games was me on water skis, and I kept running into things-- sort of reminded me of the only time I tried skiing in the snow many years ago!! GAWD, they must play these games for hours on end-- they are so good at it!! I was just getting the hang of it when Lady finally started coming over to me, so I spent some quality time with her. I doubt she remembered me from last year.

 

Bill and Chris showed me photos taken since last Christmas and I saw Peter's room, which he was in the process of painting. It should be kewl when he is done.

 

Brian said he wanted to go to K-Mart for something before it closed, BUT I would not fit into their truck, so I loaded the kids in my Festiva, hoping to hunt some of those elusive Furbys-- no luck again!!

 

Bill packed me some turkey leftovers for the cats and Tracey, and Chris gave me some pumpkin and mince pie for a snack at home, and another Thanksgiving get-together came to a much-too-fast close.

 

They are supposed to go to the woods for a paint ball battle tomorrow-- wish I could be there to see (and join in) the kewl fun!! There is nothing like reverting to a primitive hunter stage of human development to get back in touch with our real Nature-- the one without schools and homework as we know it, TV, computers, shopping carts, billboards, Wall Street, credit card balances, "weapons of mass destruction" (<gag!!>) and all the other marvels of our "modern" age!! What primordial simplicity!! SPLAT!!

 

THIS JUST IN : Peter thinks he won the paint ball contest, but I am not certain that is accurate. I have parts of it on video.They have small welts/black & blue marks where some of the paint balls hit them. Bill [guess it is time to get that "body armour" for the next battle!! At least they are all still alive!! Do they make flavoured paint balls, just in case you get one in the mouth?? Sonny]