Thanksgiving
Last Thanksgiving sort of surprised us. It’s not the kind of holiday that we find easy to keep track of, when living so far away from family and friends. This year would be different though. We noted the day’s approach nearly a week in advance, and discussed plans to attempt preparing and eating some semblance of an actual, bona-fide cooked meal. Turkey would perhaps be biting off more than we could chew (hah!), so we opted instead for a chicken. And being only the two of us, the number and quantity of vegetables would have to be limited - say potatoes, carrots, turnip and sweet-potatoes. Now we’re talking! It sounded delicious.
With these tentative plans in mind then, we decided it would make the most sense to have the dinner on Monday instead of Sunday. We considered doing the necessary shopping on the Saturday before, but after checking the Provigo website and confirming they were indeed open all day on both holidays, we decided to put it off until Sunday. Yes, I know - naive. But we’re new at this, remember?
We arrived at the Provigo late Sunday afternoon and picked up a few things we needed anyway. Then on to the Thanksgiving list! First up was turnip, hiding deceptively under a sign marked rutabaga, then potatoes and carrots. The sweet-potatoes, we discovered, were all gone. On top of it being the day of Thanksgiving, Provigo had put them on sale, and all that remained in the bin was half of a rotten potato, whose sweetness was somewhat suspect. Still, with three of our four chosen vegetables in hand, we went to procure our poultry. We walked up one aisle and down the other, then back over both again. We couldn’t spot a single whole turkey or chicken anywhere. Finally we went over to the butcher’s counter and asked where we could find a whole chicken. And it turns out, you see, that on the day of Thanksgiving when the grocery stores run out of turkeys, the customers tend to buy chickens as a substitute. So they were completely out of stock of both birds.
We had to give up at this point - with no chicken and only three-quarters of our vegetables, it seemed that Thanksgiving dinner just wasn’t on the menu. We agreed on taking a rain-check on the idea, and decided that we would celebrate next Monday instead. So today for Thanksgiving we went out for what has now become our traditional meal: pad thai with spring rolls. To keep things festive, after stuffing ourselves silly we walked to Second Cup so I could get a pumpkin-spice latte. On the whole, I felt pretty satisfied by the end of the day.
