[su_heading]Taken Down by Thanksgiving[/su_heading]
Last year Thanksgiving dinner was at our house and I fretted over how I was going to successfully turn the incredibly enormous beast of a bird sitting headless before me into a delectable feast. My in-laws took over the helm and saved the day, once again, tenderly basting and rotating the turkey as if it were another grandchild.
This year we were going to my sister Michele’s house for Thanksgiving and it felt good to cook all day without the dreaded turkey looming over my shoulder.
On the drive over to Michele’s I tossed in a speech to the boys reminding them of how thankful we should all be that we lived in the beautiful West with their beloved cousins living a mere fifteen minutes away.
Before I finished my speech of “blah, blah, blah cousins, blah blah blah friends, must be thankful blah, blah, blah”, the fighting began and as the boys reached for each others jugulars Baddy shouted out threats of beating somebody/anybody if the fighting and crying did not stop. I was most thankful for the short car ride to Michele’s house where we would be greeted by my competent older sister who would no doubt find the humor in our dysfunctional ways.
We arrived and Michele was flitting about her house effortlessly with the delicious scents wafting from the oven. The magnificent turkey was almost finished and the table was dressed beautifully with the most gorgeous orange tulips displayed perfectly in the light of the sun bursting through the window.
After an intense game of soccer with snow capped mountains providing the perfect back drop, Michele and I went upstairs to dress for our guests. We laughed at our opposing styles, she dressed in a colorful long cowboy skirt and cashmere sweater and I dressed in a short skirt and camisole with clunky high black boots.
As soon as dinner began I felt the onslaught of muscle spasms from my intense goalie moves on the soccer field and I began to chug the wine to numb the pain. At 7:30pm I slipped upstairs to crawl into the bed that Michele and I had slept in when we were little girls and I fell into a deep alcohol laden sleep.
In the days to follow I was taken down with a food and alcohol hangover, muscle spasms, a tweaked knee, a deep congestive cough and an agonizing inability to find solace in my writing.
I am now suffering severe writer’s block and so if you do not hear from me for a while it is because Thanksgiving took me down!
photo taken by Michele
Jillian's Real Life 
I think it was the turkey. Laden with trytophan. Go vegetarian next year and you will feel like a million bucks!
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Remember my post The Battle of Resistance? Misery blah blah blah and all that. I find the holidays to be the toughest battle of them all because, as women, more is expected of us this time of year: more cooking, more cleaning, more shopping, more entertaining, more gift wrapping. So it’s no wonder you’ve taken to your bed. But now, more than ever, you need to drag yourself to the computer and type. Battle back. I know you can do it.
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At least you went down fighting, and wearing a cute skirt and boots!
Turkeys are tough birds – no one thinks so until they find themselves in your (presumably) fetal position. (smile) Sending good, loving thoughts your way, and thanking you for the big smile!
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Hi Jillian! Ok, enough of you having a sympathy attack over a damn dead turkey! It was his destiny. Write him an unsent letter – write about the life (albeit short) of a turkey – write 100 reasons to be vegetarian – write about the perfect holiday (ok to do fantasy) – point is, WRITE!
Hugs,
suZen
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Oh I hate being so severely punished for these little indulgences you allow yourself once in a blue moon.
That is always such a mean trick of the body.
You can go either way, train yourself up for it, or don’t and sit it out and ask for sympathy. You have mine.
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This is funny and reminds me of when my kids were little and fighting in the car and the holidays and the blah blah blah speech. Except I had my wine after we got home and all the kiddies were in bed! Hope you feel better soon!
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Hope you feel better soon! That photo of the tulips is GORGEOUS! Exactly how my mind’s eye imagined it.
Just found your blog and love it – I’ll be back!
Cheers
Holli in Ghana
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Hi – very great website you have made. I enjoyed reading this posting. I did want to issue a comment to tell you that the design of this site is very aesthetically delightful. I used to be a graphic designer, now I am a copy editor for a merchandising firm. I have always enjoyed playing with computers and am attempting to learn code in my free time (which there is never enough of lol).
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