My last week in the US this trip found me at my Mother’s house for Thanksgiving. My sister Lisa flew out from Chicago to join us, and as we all had colds we were quite contented to have a mellow celebration with just the three of us. My mom and I cooked the meal (turkey, stuffing, cranberry relish, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade bread, fresh pumpkin pie) while Lisa worked on a school report, and we shared our gratitude for being able to be with family, for the bounty of good food, for our health, and for all the other blessings we have. I was personally especially grateful for the creamed spinach.
The day after Thanksgiving, Lisa and I went to our 10-year high school reunion. The women were much the same as the girls they had been, same personalities and cliques, but with better haircuts. The men were remarkable improvements upon their younger selves: they were taller, more handsome, more friendly and articulate, better dressed, better dancers, and more worldly. There were of course exceptions to these pleasantries, but it was on the whole a much more enjoyable evening than I would have expected, chatting with guys most of whom I had never really spoken to before in my life. Remarkable from a school as small as mine (graduating class of 150, of whom about 100 were at the reunion). Almost all are still locals. One guy is a professional boxer, another is shockingly getting his PhD in environmental studies, lots of them have or soon will marry some of the prettier girls in our class. I got the prize (a glass jar engraved with the names of everyone in our class) for coming the furthest, though few people believed I actually live in Thailand.
The rest of the weekend was spent with my mom, sister, and I further catching up with other high school friends (hi Josh!), playing Cranium with our mom (she creamed us), helping cousins of ours choose and cart away things from our grandfather’s estate, taking naps, running errands, and generally being a normal family. I can’t tell you how nice that was.
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