Thankfully: Churn Grand Opening
Churn was slated to go on Thanksgiving Day. Actually, it was previously slated to go on the 13th of November, but it is finally going up today, Black Friday, which is perhaps more fitting. One of the reasons it was delayed was both churnmonkeys were busy with family and guests on Thanksgiving, and it is hard to be creative on a belly full of tryptophan and pie.
Yesterday a houseful of rowdy Brazilians celebrated Thanksgiving in my living room. It was quaint, in a way- their sense of this thoroughly American holiday was slightly off, so we had a big turkey crammed with rice and a bean-custard type dish, and some flan afterwards. I provided the pumpkin pie, and though there was no cranberry sauce or proper stuffing, the food was good and made with love and I feasted as was appropriate. The pie went over as well as pie usually goes over, which I took pride in as this was my first foray into the wide world of gourd-based desserts.
Afterwards, as Brazilians are want to do, they hit the sauce, and hard; and eventually there was a truth-or-dare type game that involved a spinning bottle and a lot of singing and banging on our hard wood floors, which woke me up from my turkey-induced nap. When I stepped out dowsily for a glass of water I noticed that in fact only the men were left, except my female roommate, who seemed to take some delight in seeing a gang of drunken men make fools of themselves in front of her. I quickly hid back in my room, and tried to think of things I was thankful for.
Not much was coming. Not that I wasn’t terribly grateful for all the things I have, but it was the typical struggle between overarching general themes and particular instances that express those themes. I wasn’t lacking in particulars, however, and had two specific instances of gratefulness that I felt needed sharing: gratefulness to Bruce and to Duane.
Bruce is an older ‘student’ in my department, who has been abd for the better part of my conscious life, and makes his living as an editor for the UI Press. He is amazingly smart and I have nothing but respect for him- but he is also usually well equipped with drugs of various stripes and flavors. I am usually quite shy around him, as he is far more worldly and interesting than me and I find I have very little to say around him; and though I accept the drugs when he offers, I never thought of exploiting him as a connection. At least until this week, when all my other chances had dried up and I had no one else to turn to, and I felt the need creep up my spine and scream loudly at my brain. I made some comment to him during our last Happy Hour, and he said to call him on Monday. “I get off of work at 5.” At exactly 6:30pm on Monday (taking into consideration a proper amount of after-work ‘relaxing’) I run into his answering machine, which was a recording of a soft-spoken Frenchman saying something soft and French. I proceed to call back a good dozen times, listening again and again to see if in fact that was Bruce, and finally breaking down and asking my roommate for her opinion on the mysterious answering machine message. Finally deciding to leave a message no matter who’s machine it was, I get a call back later in the evening complaining about all the messages and saying that in fact, his ‘friend’ couldn’t come through for him on such short notice, but might be able to after the vacation.
Of course this defeats the whole point of the vacation, so I say ‘nevermind’ and dejectedly contemplate a sober Thanksgiving. On Tuesday, however, as we all meet for some karaoke, I hear a voice behind me: “Put out your hand”. It is Bruce, and he is holding an envelope, and he says “its not much, but its something.” I try to hold back the tears- pure tears of shameless thankfulness.
Duane is the other person I am thankful for, but perhaps on the full opposite side of the thankfulness spectrum (continuum?). On Wednesday evening the doorbell rangs and a guy with a shovel asked if I wanted the drive shoveled. I say I can’t give more than 5 bucks, and he hops to right away, shoveling like he is laying down train tracks with large rhythmic sweeps of his big red shovel. It was pointless, I knew: thanksgiving snow never lasts the weekend. But I gave him the money, and told him to keep warm; and I felt generous myself for participating in this strange exchange. We both knew his work was pointless, and that he was essentially just begging for money, but we both felt that it was somehow right that he had to at least show he is putting in some effort, that he has in fact earned the money I gave him. And of course he did, but the pomp and circumstance of the whole affair was strange. Not wrong, but somehow exactly right in line with the spirit of this holiday, where we feel obligated to make our thanks explicit.
These two points of thankfulness didn’t seem to share a coherent theme, however, and I didn’t quite know how to tie them together. I stepped back out of my room, looking for the remainder of my pie, and snaked around the remnants of whatever game they were playing on the floor on my way to the kitchen. There is ½ a pie left, cut down the middle. I got out my knife to make the four proper slices, to take one back to my room, and suddenly realize that this was MY pie, and no one else was going to eat it (as most everyone else had either left or was too drunk to feed themselves), and you know what? Fuck slices. So I took the whole pie tin into my room, along with a freshly open tub of cool whip, and went to town on the pie.
And it was good. Thankfully.
Yesterday a houseful of rowdy Brazilians celebrated Thanksgiving in my living room. It was quaint, in a way- their sense of this thoroughly American holiday was slightly off, so we had a big turkey crammed with rice and a bean-custard type dish, and some flan afterwards. I provided the pumpkin pie, and though there was no cranberry sauce or proper stuffing, the food was good and made with love and I feasted as was appropriate. The pie went over as well as pie usually goes over, which I took pride in as this was my first foray into the wide world of gourd-based desserts.
Afterwards, as Brazilians are want to do, they hit the sauce, and hard; and eventually there was a truth-or-dare type game that involved a spinning bottle and a lot of singing and banging on our hard wood floors, which woke me up from my turkey-induced nap. When I stepped out dowsily for a glass of water I noticed that in fact only the men were left, except my female roommate, who seemed to take some delight in seeing a gang of drunken men make fools of themselves in front of her. I quickly hid back in my room, and tried to think of things I was thankful for.
Not much was coming. Not that I wasn’t terribly grateful for all the things I have, but it was the typical struggle between overarching general themes and particular instances that express those themes. I wasn’t lacking in particulars, however, and had two specific instances of gratefulness that I felt needed sharing: gratefulness to Bruce and to Duane.
Bruce is an older ‘student’ in my department, who has been abd for the better part of my conscious life, and makes his living as an editor for the UI Press. He is amazingly smart and I have nothing but respect for him- but he is also usually well equipped with drugs of various stripes and flavors. I am usually quite shy around him, as he is far more worldly and interesting than me and I find I have very little to say around him; and though I accept the drugs when he offers, I never thought of exploiting him as a connection. At least until this week, when all my other chances had dried up and I had no one else to turn to, and I felt the need creep up my spine and scream loudly at my brain. I made some comment to him during our last Happy Hour, and he said to call him on Monday. “I get off of work at 5.” At exactly 6:30pm on Monday (taking into consideration a proper amount of after-work ‘relaxing’) I run into his answering machine, which was a recording of a soft-spoken Frenchman saying something soft and French. I proceed to call back a good dozen times, listening again and again to see if in fact that was Bruce, and finally breaking down and asking my roommate for her opinion on the mysterious answering machine message. Finally deciding to leave a message no matter who’s machine it was, I get a call back later in the evening complaining about all the messages and saying that in fact, his ‘friend’ couldn’t come through for him on such short notice, but might be able to after the vacation.
Of course this defeats the whole point of the vacation, so I say ‘nevermind’ and dejectedly contemplate a sober Thanksgiving. On Tuesday, however, as we all meet for some karaoke, I hear a voice behind me: “Put out your hand”. It is Bruce, and he is holding an envelope, and he says “its not much, but its something.” I try to hold back the tears- pure tears of shameless thankfulness.
Duane is the other person I am thankful for, but perhaps on the full opposite side of the thankfulness spectrum (continuum?). On Wednesday evening the doorbell rangs and a guy with a shovel asked if I wanted the drive shoveled. I say I can’t give more than 5 bucks, and he hops to right away, shoveling like he is laying down train tracks with large rhythmic sweeps of his big red shovel. It was pointless, I knew: thanksgiving snow never lasts the weekend. But I gave him the money, and told him to keep warm; and I felt generous myself for participating in this strange exchange. We both knew his work was pointless, and that he was essentially just begging for money, but we both felt that it was somehow right that he had to at least show he is putting in some effort, that he has in fact earned the money I gave him. And of course he did, but the pomp and circumstance of the whole affair was strange. Not wrong, but somehow exactly right in line with the spirit of this holiday, where we feel obligated to make our thanks explicit.
These two points of thankfulness didn’t seem to share a coherent theme, however, and I didn’t quite know how to tie them together. I stepped back out of my room, looking for the remainder of my pie, and snaked around the remnants of whatever game they were playing on the floor on my way to the kitchen. There is ½ a pie left, cut down the middle. I got out my knife to make the four proper slices, to take one back to my room, and suddenly realize that this was MY pie, and no one else was going to eat it (as most everyone else had either left or was too drunk to feed themselves), and you know what? Fuck slices. So I took the whole pie tin into my room, along with a freshly open tub of cool whip, and went to town on the pie.
And it was good. Thankfully.
posted by eripsa at 4:34 PM
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