gobble gobble

so everyone i know (which is like a bajillion people cause i'm so popular) is blogging about thanksgiving and since i'm not one to follow the crowd, i thought i'd blog about something else.

yeah right.

thanksgiving has always been sort of an weird time for me. most people spend thanksgiving with their families. gathering around the table giving thanks, or perhaps sharing with the family how your younger brother lost his job, is getting a divorce and is robbing liquor stores to feed his drug habit just to see what mom and dad will say. Ah..the american tradition. Never one to let sleeping dogs lie...

i've had a tradition too. it's been either one of three things. first, going home with a friend to be with his family (sometimes awkward, sometimes glorious). second, staying by myself, reflecting on the past year and giving thanks for all the wonderful people in my life (aw!!!). or third, my brother andy would somehow make it to where i was and we would eat McDonald's and smoke cigars.

i remember one thanksgiving in particular. i was living in boston (i think, it all seems to run together now) and i was coming to new york to have thanksgiving with casson and anna.

casson and anna were living in student housing together at the Pratt Art Institute in Brooklyn. This was a little unusual since casson and anna were married but were living with a roommate that i'll just call "Larry". casson got accepted to Pratt before they got married, then when they moved to Brooklyn he was already signed up for student housing.

with Larry.

imagine being newlyweds, moving cross country, then having to share your bathroom with a complete stranger. who smokes. and eats kimchi like i eat macaroni and cheese with ketchup.

there were times that anna couldn't get into her "apartment" without casson because their building had a security guard and only students were allowed in. so she would get off of work and have to wait for casson to finish up whatever it was he was doing, then meet up with him and finally go home.

everyday.

not only that, she would have to sneak out in the morning since no one was allowed to have sleepovers. crazy. this went on until they could finally afford to get a place of their own.

anyway, this was their situation and i was going to make it even more cramped by coming down for thanksgiving. i couldn't wait. i met casson in Brooklyn and he took me over to their "apartment" and i remember how excited we all were over seeing each other. friends get that way i guess.

while anna was cooking, casson and i decided to go and check out the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. we were excited because new york was still new to both of us and this seemed like a real new york thing to do. in actuality, the exact opposite was true.

unfazed by the rain and the cold fall air, we took the subway down to the parade. unfortunately we came down in the middle of it and we weren't able to get closer than 2 blocks away.

but you could still see the balloons.

Blues Clues

Sponge Bob

Gizmo

Pam Anderson

i made the last two up because i wished the balloons we saw were as cool as those would have been. after seeing enough of the parade, casson and i were famished. we found ourselves in a real pickle. Brooklyn was at least 45 minutes away, anna was probably not finished cooking(which means we'd have to wait longer to eat) and staring us in the face was the one and only white castle in manhattan.

fate had been calling our names should we listen?

we each got a sack of 10 cheese burgers with fries and a drink. as we sat and ate our delicious mini treats of goodness, we guiltily thought of anna, back in Brooklyn, making mash potatoes, turkey, grave, cranberry goo. we made a pact that this meal would never be mentioned. it would be as if it had never existed. poof. gone. white castle? never heard of it.

we trekked back to Brooklyn to the apartment and to a wonderful thanksgiving dinner prepared by anna, a good friend and a loving wife. we even had seconds to lay to rest any suspicions she might have had. we spent the rest of the night watching movies that i can't recall.

three years later i was living in new york, across the way from casson and anna. thanksgiving rolled around and i was invited once more for turkey dinner. as we sat around the table giving thanks, i asked anna if casson ever told her about how we ate white castle before coming back to Brooklyn for thanksgiving dinner.

anna looked at casson

casson looked at me

i looked at the floor...

ah...the american tradition..