I'm All About Ritual

Well. Maybe not all about ritual, but I am quite attached to certain traditions. It's not like I'll go postal or even a tad postal if circumstances dictate a particular tradition cannot be observed. A pout, however, albeit momentary, is always possible. I remain civilized, flexible even, not unyielding to the winds of change. Yet I am a hell of a lot happier when things are as things are supposed to be. As things historically have been. Traditionally.

Take, for example, Thanksgiving dinner. I want turkey. I want cornbread dressing made from my grandmother's recipe. I want plenty of creamy rich gravy to pour over them. I want the cheesy asparagus casserole my mother has made for as long as I can remember. I want smooth cranberry sauce from a can, not that horrible stuff with orange peel and cranberry chunks in it.

I adore my mother. She humors me while pleasing herself. She likes the same things I do on our Thanksgiving table. She adds a menu item or so to those mentioned above but she never substitutes. Me, I usually don't eat those interloping visiting dishes. There's just not room on my plate.

My friend Tina and her family host a Thanksgiving After Thanksgiving gathering. While attendance is becoming traditional, I have no food rituals guiding what I consume at the event. This year, they served a turducken. As you can see from the photo, it resembles a deflated mass of boneless bird. Tucked inside is another boneless bird inside yet a third boneless bird. Who thinks of these things? It was tasty.

All hail the mad MS Paint skills employed to carefully mask the woman in the Vanna White pose. Her beauty is such as to blind you. Blind you, I say. You'll have to take my word for it. Word.

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