Thankful

So while you Americans celebrate Columbus Day we celebrate our Thanksgiving. And while family can get pretty crazy at times, at least we have quite a lot of relatives living in the city so getting together is pretty easy.

Saturday was a surprise baby shower for one of my cousins, and while I didn't really feel like going I tagged along with the familia since I respect this cousin a lot. I think our family is a really tough one to "break into" and I don't think she gets enough credit for putting up with us. :) But hopefully the shower was a way of showing her that she's very welcome in our family. She must have got that impression, or maybe it was baby-brain making her kind of mushy since she was overwhelmed to tears.

And as much as I love turkey I did not have any that night. I needed to pace myself and I didn't want to overdo it before the weekend was over.

Which was a smart idea since my godmother held turkey dinner over at her house the next night. It was kind of a Filipino-ized thanksgiving dinner which made us first-gens a little choked. Instead of mashed potatoes there was pancit. Instead of pumpkin pie there was ensamada. Instead of cranberry sauce there was buko salad. Thankfully my family brought the turkey. And someone must have had mercy on my brother and Spydermonkey since there was a big bowl of stuffing to be had, too. I'm not a big stuffing fan.

Then today we had turkey dinner at our house. Yes, we had turkey (I insisted we get our own turkey 'cuz there's no way I'm going without leftovers) and no we didn't have mashed potatoes but we had a potato casserole which is pretty dang good, too. And I went out and snagged a couple pumpkin pies at the last minute because I needed pumpkin pie. So in the end I had my conventional thanksgiving dinner and thus this girl is satisfied. :)

Backtracking a bit: On Friday Civic swung by to pick me up after work and we met up with Daisy to try out the tea at Oolong Tea House. I like Steeps better, to be honest, but Oolong's selection seems a little more exotic. I ordered some Mate Chai. Last time I had Mate it was the traditional way of sucking sludge through a filtering straw...and in a mediterranean restaurant of all places. This time they crossed the South American culture with East Indian and I got to enjoy it a little easier via a regular tea press pot. I was hoping the Chai would make the taste a little more pleasant. It didn't. But again I persevered and even got more water after I finished my first pot. It's all about the health benefits, you know?