Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! It's been so long since I spent Thanksgiving with my family. Last year I cooked for myself and my roomie, Todd. The year before, I was with Tom's family. The year before that, I was with Mr. B's family. The preceding year, I went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year, Ted and Rosa were here to keep me company. Yay! I still can barely believe that she came all the way from California, or that he trekked all the way down here when he barely knows me. They are wonderful people. Rose calls her trip down here her vacation-within-a-vacation.


Wednesday, I was running around like a crazy woman, making up beds and cleaning to prepare for my guests. I hadn't seen Rose in almost two years, and even then it was only for a few hours in the JFK airport while Rose was on a layover.


When she arrived late that night, we hugged each other so hard! Thursday, I woke up early and exercised. When everyone was up, we started the dressing, prepped the Turkey and popped it in the oven.


Then we went on a walk around the ODU campus. Rose lead us in lunges across the entire quad. Yowza! We walked around my neighborhood a little more, then drove to the market for fresh salad supplies.


Then it was time to get started on the side dishes. Ted started the candied yams. Rose made a marinade for her salmon and prepped a head of garlic for roasting. I started boiling macaroni and chopping potatoes. Then Ted took over the macaroni and cheese and Rose mashed the potatoes while I showered and prepped for supper. Ted was great. He did the hardest part of the turkey (flipping the bird over half way through baking) and held down the fort while Rose showered and dressed for dinner, too.


We all pitched in for the finishing touches: setting the table, lighting candles and opening wine. I said grace, and we all sat down to a scrumptious meal. Later that evening, we finished our feast with Pushing Daisies and pumpkin pie.


The next day, we decided to go to Virginia Beach. We ended up parked in front of a cafe/psychic. Hee. We decided it was fate, because Rose had been wanting to have her cards read. We made an appointment, had some soup, then went for a long walk on the beach.


The weather was gorgeous: sunny and mild. The sky was so blue. At one point, we took off our sweaters. It was amazing to be outside in a tank top in November!

(Well, it wasn't as nice for for Rose. It's in the '80s where she's from.)Some watersports enthusuasts were crazy enough to be surfing and riding waverunners. It was warm, but it wasn't that warm.

We decided to write a little Thanksgiving card in the sand. Then we posed for pictures with the King Neptune statue and returned to the psychic for our readings. She guessed that I had been a reporter. Impressive, right?

We returned to my apartment for a dinner of leftovers, or "Thankgiving Dinner, part 2," as Rose called it. We even had port and Lindor truffles for dessert. MMMMmmm...port. If you haven't experienced it, it's like the wine version of candy. Or the candy version of wine? Whichever. Rose got it in Napa valley, and it was SO good.

Then Ted serenaded us for hours while we listened adoringly. He's been taking guitar lessons since he was a small child. His singing voice has a really nice tone, Rose has great rhythm, and I have teh ear for pitch. Put the three of us together and you'd have one fine musician! Heh. All that matters is we had fun. It turned from a serenade to a sing-along. Whenever we thought of a song Ted didn't know, we only had to go online and print out tabs and he could instantly play it for us. Awesome!

Saturday I was up early again, so I exercised, took a shower, and made some mixed CDs for Rose and Ted's car trip. We made french toast (using sourdough bread brought from SanFrancisco) and fruit salad for brunch. We watched a movie, and before we knew it, it was time for supper. Then my guests had to hit the road. Sigh! We rushed around finding packing up their belongings and said our good-byes.

Good-bye, Mariposa. Who knows when we'll be together again? Well, whenever it is, it will be too long from now...but also as if no time has passed. That's the best part of our friendship. It never feels like catching up. It's like we've been together all along.