A Rather Peculiar Thanksgiving...

Food, folks and Freudian Slips

I had no illusions that my Thanksgiving would be of the normal sort. After all, the good people of Sri Lanka haven't even heard about the joyous American holiday of Thanksgiving, so I expected little in the way of my regular schedule of appetizers, football, beer, football, dinner, football, dinner round two, football, dessert and some more dinner, sleeping while listening to football. After some furious message board posting though, I was able to discover a location for an American-style Thanksgiving throw down - the five-star Mount Lavinia Hotel.

After a quick google double-check to make sure I wasn't getting my hopes up for nothing, I confirmed that the menu was loaded down with turkey, turducken, ham, three kinds of stuffing, potatoes and a corn succotash of sorts, very few of which contained a large amount of curry. "I'd like to make a reservation for the Thanksgiving dinner, please," I told the nice desk clerk over the phone. "Of course sir, and how many will be in your party?"

"Just one. What time should I show up?"

"Any time you want (loser), we should be able to seat you easily (cause you're a loser)."

Ok, to be fair, they didn't say those things in brackets, but I heard it in their inflection. Unable to rustle up anyone to go with me, even after I explained to my co-workers that Thanksgiving is a pointless holiday founded on a lie based around over eating and watching a sport they've never seen, so I braved the driving rain and flooded highways to get to my succulent holiday feast.

Arriving slightly on the earlier side, I was able to assure myself the best slices of bird. I also assured myself of sitting in the corner of a rather empty restaurant, perched on the edge of sketch-fest as I ordered an apertif and a bottle of wine before even getting my first look at the buffet. I'm a man with priorities - and that priority was "when forced to dine alone, one might as well drink alone to smooth the process." Worked like a charm - I enjoyed some stuffing and turducken, and then still ready to rock moved on for some green bean curry and egg hoppers. What can I say, I love the food here.

Four rounds of dinner and one of dessert later, I moved on to the bar portion of my evening. I dropped cash for the bill and took the post-turkey-haze stroll across the hall to a large open bar area. The outdoors was of course blanketed with sheets of driving rain, so I stayed inside and enjoyed a glass of overpriced cognac, because damn it, it's a holiday.  Off behind me echoes a booming sound of an American making a loud point...my ears perked. A moment later, an emphatic Boston accent yelps in terror as the lady at the table clumsily knocks over three bottles all in one fell swoop. These seem like my kinda people, I said to myself.

I stopped by their table, emboldened by the turducken and sauvignon blanc coursing through my veins, and after a brief moment of sizing each other up I was invited to join them, effectively ruining their date and making my night all in one smooth chair grab. We polished off the vino - he bought another bottle. I killed my cognac - he ordered another from the barkeep. This continued for some time, until eventually he stood up and just like that, took off, having covered the bill and promising to call me the next day to go hang out again.

Sparing you the details of whether or not he called me (he didn't), it was a great help in saving an otherwise run of the mill Thanksgiving. Sure, much like non-conventional families on sitcoms, non-conventional Thanksgivings seem wacky and fun, but I'm still glad I was able to American-up my dinner plans and get rowdy with some dude from Boston as we prattled on about baseball and gambling debts.

Now that's something to be thankful for.