"Thanks?" — A Thanksgiving Carol

Hello all. Now that we’ve awoken from our tryptophan comas it’s time to once again enter the dark, mysterious world of corruption, sex, and explosions that I like to call my life. Except this blog is about Thanksgiving so there will be none of that at all.

Let’s go back a few days to the preparation. As my job was the mashed potatoes and yams I thought, “That is going to be no problem whatsoever.” Now, what I didn’t take into consideration was that in Glasgow, it takes at least twenty minutes to walk anywhere and potatoes/yams for 10 people = 5 million pounds. Maybe billion. But I digress.

As I was shopping for ingredients with my recipes in hand, I looked from the American measurements on my paper (cups, ounces, what have you) to the UK ones on the containers (grams, kilograms, what the fuck do these mean). As I stood there for the next twenty minutes trying to crawl back into the dark/angsty corner of my mind that stores high school memories, I attempted to recall just what exactly the conversion was from grams to ounces.

I never figured it out so I just bought ten of everything. On an unrelated note, if anyways needs 9 ¾ bottles of lemon juice I might know where you can get some. Oh and by the way, the best thing about grocery shopping the day before Thanksgiving in Scotland is that it’s not the day before Thanksgiving in Scotland. If that makes sense.

Finally the day arrived and my friend Gina and I were off to Alex’s, a friend who so graciously let us cook at his house. With our turkey wrapped in a garbage bag and my potato and yam mountain shoved into a suitcase, we successfully made the trip and started cooking that bitch. Oh and we named him (the turkey) Keith because it is the ugliest name in the English language and it made us feel better about ripping out his insides and carving into his body. 

All in all the cooking process went well. I was left in charge of Keith when Gina had to leave to go to class and he didn’t explode. The mashed potatoes turned out great except for the moment that the cream boiled over the pot in a fiery inferno of whiteness. I had to make a store run about halfway through and got in line behind a woman who had cut out every coupon in the world ever made. And I learned that yams turn into bullets when you cut them in half … just try cutting one and see what happens. Yam bullets. That’s what’s going to happen.

Overall, my friends (American and nae American <-- that means not) made this first Thanksgiving without family awesome. Keith was successfully destroyed as were our waistlines, and after the meal we revisited the meaning of Thanksgiving and listed what we were thankful for. I told the non-Americans that Thanksgiving was a celebration of the day we came together as brethren, as pilgrims and Indians together as one. And then afterwards we slaughtered them and took all their land.

I will now end the storytelling portion of this blog with a list … a list of what I am thankful for. Get ready, cuz it’s a SHIT TON:

1. Family (except Stephanie)
2. Friends (except for the ones that ask for money. Except no one asks me for money because I live in a consistently impoverished state)
3. My new home in Glasgow (except for the fact that the sun comes up at 9 and is gone by 3. The North man, the North)
4. Ice cream
5. More ice cream
6. Coffee
7. Coffee ice cream
8. Our new blog friends Bryan and Brandon. It’s blogs like yours that make my day go from a 6 to a 6 ½
9. My books/my writings
10. Ron Fucking Swanson

NOW LET THE PHOTOS BEGIN:

Meet Keith  

Meet one half of the 10 billion potatoes I had to carry 500 miles 

AWWWW YEAHHH 

MEET GINA

MEET KATIE

Now watch carefully ...

Because this my friends 

Is how children are conceived 

Fuzzy picture of me part 1

Fuzz part 2

Thank you for your service Keith 

Helen and the Gines

Alex and Gina showing everyone how her belt cannot be broken

Alex and Gina after her belt broke

My people

Oliver stabbing Keith in the back. Sorry buddy but if the Lord our God didn't want this 

to happen to you he shouldn't have named you Keith 

On that note … goodbye Thanksgiving. Hello Kwanza. Oh and Stephanie and I will be reunited in two weeks. Get ready for more mystery and explosions THAN YOU HAVE EVER SEEN.

Love,

Ash-uh-lee