Late Thanxgiving

Hubris extended an invitation to celebrate the American Thanksgiving at his place this year. His mum, dad and sister made the long trek from the USA, and a gang of local friends made an appearance too. It was an opportunity not to be missed. As I was away from Canada during our own thanksgiving celebrations this year, I'm glad Hubris put out the effort, because there's nothing better than a top-notch roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

While Hubris put the finishing touches on the dumb flightless bird, we spent a few minutes enjoying the view from the beehive balcony. Thirty stories of elevation gives quite a perspective on our fair city. You can see all the way from St. James Town all the way to the Humber Bay to the west. Looking south, the entirety of the Toronto Island and the downtown are framed by Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment on the horizon. If you're intrepid enough to lean a small bit over the railing, you can see the end of the Leslie St. spit. If you're blessed with clear weather, it's likely that you can see the lights of Rochester NY far off to the south east.

Once we got over the marvelous view, we sat down to a delicious, and voluminous meal. We started out with Sassinak's veggie and fruit salad. We quickly followed with Mighty Doll's pumpkin bread, and Hubris' potato soup. Finally we had the roasted dumb flightless bird, complete with stuffing. Hubris turns out to be a regular Martha Stewart, without the wealth and the attitude of course. Ultimately, we had PJ and Lily's pumpkin pies festooned with whipped cream for dessert. Of course there were many beers and whiskey sours to slake our thirst.

MC and B, the Mighty Doll's kids treated the rest of us to an amusing and unscripted shadow puppet show before they were hustled off to bed. There was much general hilarity, and even the Dingo got into the act. There's nothing like a little dinner theatre to liven things up.

After a massive pig out like this, it's not unusual to hear exclamations of discomfort and feigned regret about eating too much. As we sat down to a strange card game called Shanghai rummy, Hubris' dad turned out to be a well fed jamtart. Mr. D. promptly found a comfortable spot on the futon couch, and nodded off, while the rest of us hurled barbs and insults at him to no avail. The cards flew around the table amidst the laughter, while the Dingo, and Mr. D happily snored side by side.

It was grand. As much as we Canadians love to whimper about our brash American neighbours, I am glad to know some of them, because I got a Thanksgiving dinner after all this year. As dinners go, this one was worth every excess calorie.