Gooble Gobble.

After watching the parade on television, and then some of the American Kennel Club--the toy poodle, Vicki, won Best in Show I later learned--Kip and I moseyed on up to Queens, amid the rain and the wind and the other New Yorkers carrying covered dishes balanced on their laps. Thanksgiving would be at John & Edith's house in Jackson Heights, in their apartment that I have made them promise to turn over to me should they ever leave.

There was no turkey, but even better, there was fried chicken. There was a truffle Mac-N-Cheese, collard greens, tomato pie, Edith's homemade cheese rolls, and a sweet potato casserole which sort of exploded in the oven--but which still tasted glorious. Then there was pumpkin pie, pecan pie and an apple bundt. We started with dark-n-stormies, which is rum and ginger beer, then moved on to wine and more wine and more wine. Pictures from the evening can be seen here, and the even drunker ones here. It's not a very good picture of Kip, for the record. He's much more adorable in person. And somehow three of us ended up in plaid.

We went around the table, everyone saying what they were thankful for. I wasn't able to fully articulate the subtlety of what I was (am) thankful for. I tried to talk about how this entire year has been an experiment for me--new work, new writing, new boyfriend--all of it in ways I've never had before. I said that I was thankful for all the shit that you have to go through to learn life lessons. Not thankful for the shit, but the knowledge of yourself that--if you're fortunate--you can come away with when you're given the opportunity to learn stuff like that. I don't think over dinner I made myself very clear. (Have I here?) I should have just said, "this food, my family, etc."

On Friday we saw the new Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration. It was, and I'm being kind here, rather bad. Dead on the screen, even awkward. As if the actors weren't exactly sure what they were doing, or how they fit into the bigger picture, or even if what they were doing was funny. Everyone's confidence was missing. Jane Lynch got the biggest laughs, as the Mary Hart-esque evening entertainment show host with the bizarrely calculated body language.

My brother and his wife are pregnant again, due in May. My nephew, the amazing, inimitable, inestimable, unfathomable Pryce Houck, has--I learned today--just been upgraded to a "big boy bed." I talked to him for a bit on the phone Thursday. He didn't say much, but he was really listening. He's a good listener.