Holiday friction keeping us warm
Have I been sleeping? Did the nocuous emissions get through my aseptic mask?
The weeks seem to be passing with the blink of an eye here. We have dubbed Thursday "Friday" on account of not having work on the real Friday, but tomorrow we will slow down and fully embrace my favorite Thursday of the year.
Sixty foriegners, maybe 1/4 of which are true Yankees, will celebrate the turkeylicious day in the hotel on campus. Due to some kind of a flu bug, it seems a bird is going to be hard to come by. No pumpkin pie, no cranberries, no stuffing, no green bean supreme or 24 hour salad. But there will be sweet potatoes--which just happens to be my favorite dish anyway.
There may also be some perturbed guests. An argument by vehicle of email has ensued amongst many of the foriegn teachers and some feelings have been hurt. I may have mentioned that many of the teachers here are religious, mostly Evangelical Christian. One of these teachers wrote a mass email asking if anyone would be offended if a prayer was said at dinner. Because we may have more than 10 nationalities and who-knows-how-many religions present at the dinner, another teacher suggested a moment of silence may be more appropriate. Then yet another teacher was very upset because...well let me just say that the e-spat is heating up and some of us are singing the old "C'mon guys, its Thanksgiving!" song.
I am sure it will be lovely, I'll take my camera.
The weeks seem to be passing with the blink of an eye here. We have dubbed Thursday "Friday" on account of not having work on the real Friday, but tomorrow we will slow down and fully embrace my favorite Thursday of the year.
Sixty foriegners, maybe 1/4 of which are true Yankees, will celebrate the turkeylicious day in the hotel on campus. Due to some kind of a flu bug, it seems a bird is going to be hard to come by. No pumpkin pie, no cranberries, no stuffing, no green bean supreme or 24 hour salad. But there will be sweet potatoes--which just happens to be my favorite dish anyway.
There may also be some perturbed guests. An argument by vehicle of email has ensued amongst many of the foriegn teachers and some feelings have been hurt. I may have mentioned that many of the teachers here are religious, mostly Evangelical Christian. One of these teachers wrote a mass email asking if anyone would be offended if a prayer was said at dinner. Because we may have more than 10 nationalities and who-knows-how-many religions present at the dinner, another teacher suggested a moment of silence may be more appropriate. Then yet another teacher was very upset because...well let me just say that the e-spat is heating up and some of us are singing the old "C'mon guys, its Thanksgiving!" song.
I am sure it will be lovely, I'll take my camera.
posted by B | 6:17 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Betsy,
I wrote about cooking dinner tomorrow and the prayer thing too:
http://www.recoveryvehicle.us/blog/2005/11/i_am_cooking_thanksgiving_dinn.html
I'd say go with the moment of silence - the fundamentalists get their feelings hurt no matter what you do. It is a bit like smoking - the ones who do it think it is their "right" to impose what they do on the rest of us. Unlike smoking, prayer, fortunately, is something one can do internally, silently, without involving anyone else. The only thing lost is the piety performance and the religious histrionics which I doubt affects the sincerity of the prayer.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Your post reminded me of one of my most favourite, happy-holiday songs:
Ray Charles and James Taylor, Sweet Potato Pie:
"Happiness is finally mine today, I guess I'm just a lucky guy and here I'm about to tell you why, it's strictly on account of my..........sweet potato pie. Softer than a lullaby, deeper than the midnight sky, soulful as a baby's cry (that's my) sweet potato pie.....She let the whole damn world go by, cos I just want to testify, from now on it's me and my.....sweet potato pie"
If you haven't heard it BQ you will LOVE it!
I imagine one day you and I will listen to it and dance around the kitchen as we cook turkey or perhaps a delicious bass.
Happy Thanksgiving Day beautiful!
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