Thanksgiving smells like my Mom. When the turkey’s in the oven, I swear my Mom’s still around. Her marinade of ketchup, cooking sherry and water makes the turkey crispy and the entire house delicious – all day, all night and even a little the next morning.

Keeping up with the Traditions —

My job is picking up the Turkey from Harvey’s Guss Meat Company (I order it in October). Harvey supplies meat to restaurants, so his hours are early — 7:00 AM to 12:00 noon. The day before Thanksgiving there’s not much traffic in the early hours (thankfully) and it’s especially wonderful when like today, the air’s a little chilly (by L.A. standards) and the sky’s blue-blue.

After I pick up the Turkey, I’m especially THANKFUL that I don’t have to clean out the guts and gizzards and God knows what else is still in there! It makes me kinda queasy. Yeah, I know — I’m able to work in the ER, but that’s different. For some reason the fowl-visual yukky-yuckness really ruins the big meal for me. My Dad doesn’t mind turkey-duty once a year, so he does it for me — and I fight the crowds at the market, which he hates — and I do it for him.

fall is my fave

I’m THANKFUL that my Dad has deciduous trees, so we get to experience Autumn, even in L.A. and there are lots of changing leaves to decorate the holiday table. And I’m THANKFUL that tomorrow I get to catch up with family and friends – especially my bff Rachel who’s here from Portland for the long holiday weekend with her kids and husband (they spent today at Disneyland).

I’m not gonna think about Auditions or Callbacks or Not-Getting-Callbacks. None of it matters —

Tomorrow morning Rachel’s coming over for some much-needed GIRL TIME. We’re gonna make  Mom’s Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes and then we’re gonna go to Thanksgiving Yoga and then we’re gonna give each other mani/pedis and we’re gonna have FUN!

Call me Ever-Thankful about that!

for all of the little things…

What are you gonna do for Thanksgiving? Hope it’s a great one! And a safe one! Enjoy!