Thanksgiving

I know, how original...writing about Thanksgiving as the calendar switches over to the fourth Thursday of the month of November. But hey -- I've never claimed to be original. (Unique, yes...original, no...)

Thanksgiving in my house (as with any meal) is always an adventure. There are the two kids under 3, the grandparents who just sit in a corner, the rest of us -- of whom I'm really the most sane -- and always some sort of guests.

The conversation is very quick paced and usually not for the faint of heart. Trying to keep up with us is like trying to stop a train...literally...standing in the tracks...with only the gear of a baseball catcher to protect you. It's a near impossible task. (I say near-impossible because the train can be stopped...if it's made of cardboard and 3 feet big.)

People tend to enjoy it at times because my brother and I are like a comedy team. He has humor in the traditional stand-up sense going for him and I have quick wit with which to respond to his humor. This turns into a snowball effect of humorous comments that usually lead my mother to burst out laughing and proclaim, "You guys are nuts!"

Or course, it's not all fun and games. We do, after all, live in a mobius strip of conversation. Inevitably, we always have the talk about tryptophan. The meal is done and we sit, tired, and someone always says, "Wow I'm tired." "Yeah -- there's something in the turkey." "It's the tryptophan. Does it every time."

We always end up discussing the Jello molds our perennial guest used to bring that, well, nobody ever ate. "Gee, Len; I sure wish we had one of your famous Jello molds right now..."

And, in classic Yellen tradition, there's always a fight of some sorts.

I hope our fight this year got out of the way when my father argued about money with me and I could pull out documents that backed up my side of the story, but that wasn't with the whole family, pitting brother against brother against sister against sister against mother against father...but I'm hopeful!

Fight aside, and predictability aside, I'm looking forward to waking up to the smell of turkey in the oven.

With this being Thanksgiving and all, I guess I can say what I'm thankful for -- even though we aren't a TV family and have never, y'know, gone around the table and said it. (Does anyone NOT on 1980s family sit-coms actually do that?)

Today, I'm thankful that I'm not a vegetarian and that my mother is a good cook.

Let's eat!