Gobble Gobble

Sunday the 21st, after book club, John and I had dinner with our friends Lance and Chris and their good friends Steve and Jen. You never really know what to expect when new people enter the equation - you generally end up liking one or the other, and rarely both. This must have been a rare instance because we all got on splendidly. During dinner we found out that Jen had been the personal assistant to Hunter S. Thompson in Colorado for many years. Yes - there were stories...

Jen turned out to be intelligent, charming and incredibly witty. There are moments which tend to stand out and there was one in particular that night. As Lance was telling the sad tale of a friend of ours who had spiraled out of control with drugs and mental illness, the line of the night came from Jen. The story, albeit brief goes like this:
Sandy (not his real name) moved back home to Sonora (not really, but a Sonora-like place) with his wife and kid so that they could purchase a big home and raise the kid in a rural setting. Things went awry after he was caught having an affair with one of his students (college) and post-divorce, drug use ensued. He was teaching a young, teen student music lessons and noticed some valuable instruments in the home. The student's family went out of town and during that period, the instruments disappeared. Sandy was pulled over for driving erratically and caught with - this is the line per Jen, "guitar residue under his nose" (Insert uproarious laughter here - okay, well, maybe you had to be there). Actually, Sandy was caught with an instrument and a crack pipe, and other paraphernalia, and the rest of the instruments were found, and eventually returned. Sadly, Sandy was found guilty and now his life is in ruins. That- is not so funny.

We left our merry band of friends and headed home in order to get ready for the upcoming short week. Much to do to prepare for the feast - shopping and cooking. My role for this Turkey Day was to make an appetizer and veggie. I settled on my favorite, the Brussel sprout with brown butter, Parmesan and capers. Only one problem - limited Parmesan and no capers... oh well, brown butter makes everything taste good. Luckily I had my trusty hubby to do the shopping on Wednesday a.m. My appetizer was a hacked together recipe for warm crab and artichoke dip. We got king crab legs, for some reason, the dungeness were out at Safeway. Those king crabs are prickly little buggers and I jabbed my thumb with one of the spikes on their shell - Ugh! But the dip was a tasty success and I even had enough left over for our dinner party on Friday night!. After cooking for an hour or two, John and I walked down the street to see Megamind, a new animated movie. John paid $10 for a good nap, but I enjoyed it - cute little movie and not a big crowd. I love the holidays, where you get out of work a little early, people are off doing so many other things that you're either deep in the crowd or nearly alone. This was the latter and it definitely improved the movie-going experience.