Wasted

I’m the eunuch in a harem, the hausfrau with an ankle-length mink coat in the tropics, the Baptist minister with a 1958 Fender Telecaster (the one used in Jimmy Page’s guitar solo for “Stairway to Heaven”), the dog in a field of catnip. I’m a vegetarian from Texas.

Worse, I’m from Houston, where the kosher meat sections take up 4 aisles in grocery stores. What a waste.

Sure I love hanging with the extended family of about 75 on Thanksgiving. Love football. Love arguing with my uncles about politics and oil. But as far as food goes, it’s like listening to couples talk about sex after being stood up at your own wedding.

A typical Thanksgiving meal by us includes: turkey and dressing (with meat in the dressing), chicken, brisket, venison sausage (homemade), It includes meat-based gravy for the mashed potatoes, brisket chips in the green beans.

I was so, so happy when my uncle married a French woman. That felicitous union added salad Nicoise to the Thanksgiving menu.

Vegetarianism is considered a psychosomatic illness in my family--no one would encourage it by making vegetarian alternatives. On the other hand, it's been a carte blanche for me to indulge in small acts of rebellion--of course she's styding literature instead of accounting, what do you expect from a vegetarian?

This year, I’m not flying to my family in Texas, since the only plane ticket under a zillion dollars returns to Baltimore or changes in Orlando, and I’m NOT doing that by myself with a very squirmy infant and luggage. She’s 10 months—she wouldn’t remember anyway. Next year I'll rejoin the carnivores I so love.

Tomorrow I’m hanging with a girl friend, cooking up unimaginable delights (that do NOT include fake turkey--possibly the vilest concoction ever evented), then watching football, like any other American.

Y’all enjoy yours, too.