Thanksgiving - redneck style

One of the wonderful things about living in Paris that you make friends with other expats.  In my case, the vast majority of my friends here are American.  I've never had American friends before (well, a long time ago there was that gorgeous American boyfriend who looked like a young Elvis Presley...sigh... Ahhh, back in the day Miss K had some game, let me tell you.  Ahem.  Moving on...), which you might think odd, since I'm Canadian and we're national neighbours, but Americans don't really seem to like crossing our border all that much.  I don't know if it's because they think they'll be eaten by moose, or seduced by socialized medical care, or freeze to death in July (because, hey, everyone knows it snows in Canada all year long, right?), but I just never met all that many when I lived in Toronto.  Also not when I lived in London, but in Paris?  The place is swarming with Americans, and may I just say, I am delighted to have made such wonderful, fun, generous, kind-hearted friends. 

So the point of this is to say that the awesome Mr and Mrs Redneck have invited me to my very first American Thanksgiving dinner tonight and I am in a state of excitement akin to a small, hyperactive child on a sugar high on Christmas morning.  Now, if you recall my post about Canadian Thanksgiving last month (thanksgiving), being in a foreign country poses certain challenges for such a celebration, so I can't wait to see what the Rednecks have come up with.  One thing I know they will come up with is a ton of alcohol, so I may not report until my sure-to-be-monumental hangover subsides tomorrow, but there will be a report and I'm betting it's going to be worth reading, because a Redneck Thanksgiving?  This is going to be FUN!

Thanksgiving

It's Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, which is a big holiday in my native land.  And, what with my lumberjack shoulders and my fondness for maple syrup, I am a good old Canadian gal and I like to celebrate Thanksgiving.  But there are a couple of problems with this:

1) I live in Europe where they don't celebrate it at all, so trying to get the ingredients you need?  Not easy.   I can actually tell so many stories about trying to buy turkeys that I am going to do a whole separate post on that subject.

2) See above -  you can occasionally get those ingredients because some stores here stock them when Thanksgiving rolls around.  However, that's for American Thanksgiving, which is about six weeks later than the Canadian version.  Try to buy fresh cranberries in Paris in early October?  Ha!

3) I am insane to even attempt to do it here at all - it's so stressful that I only make Thanksgiving dinner every other year because it takes me that long to get motivated to do it again.  Which actually makes it a hot ticket and the parties just keep getting bigger - my last one in London was for 24 people.  A full-on turkey dinner for 24 - you see the insanity, yes?  Thank god I don't know that many people in Paris yet, but there are still 11 people coming for dinner tonight - eek!!!

And this year there is the added stress that I didn't know precisely when I would be moving (which still hasn't happened, btw, and don't even ask me when it will because I don't know - grrr!), so I am not even hosting the dinner in my own home, I had to ask friends to let me do it at their apartment.  So here's the rundown: I am about to go and cook a gigantic turkey, and let me tell you, this is not a nice tidy turkey you buy at the supermarket, this is one that was ordered from the butcher and it's got legs and wings sticking out all over the place, so I actually have to wrestle and tie it into a nice turkey-shaped bundle before I can even attempt to cram it into the tiny Parisian oven I have never used before.  Yep, this should be fun...  I will update you tomorrow on how it went, assuming I don't die of food poisoning before then.

Miss K goes to Hookerville (Part 2)

Yesterday I went to my friend Miss A's place for dinner.  The meal was seriously fabulous, as was the conversation (well, we drank two bottles of lovely red wine between the two of us - we thought the conversation was great, although there's a possibility that a sober person might not have found it quite as sparkling and witty as we did), and we had beautiful weather, so were able to dine on the adorable little balcony, four stories up with a view of the Parisian rooftops.  Looks like something out of a movie, doesn't it?  Ahh, I love my flat, but I am bitterly envious of that balcony...

 

Miss A doesn't live too far from me, about 30 minutes walk, but it's a bit of a different world from my terribly chic and genteel (and somewhat dull) neighbourhood.  She lives near the rue St Denis, which, as I have previously posted about (Miss K goes to Hookerville), is the street you want to go to if you are in the market for a certain type of female company.  There are lots of these ladies around that area, but I had to get a photo of this one, because I have nothing but respect for her commitment to her outfit.  I mean, really, all-white?  That's impressive, particularly considering her, erm, profession - seriously, her dry-cleaning bills must be huge.  Ooooh, it's just occurred to me that perhaps she has an "arrangement" with her dry-cleaner; and frankly, considering how expensive it is here, that's not a bad idea...

Things you find behind the wardrobe

Well, I'm back.  Not that I went anywhere, but I have been somewhat offline due to the fact that I was sick last week.  Nothing serious, just a really miserable cold - I was so congested and zonked out on cold medicine that I could hardly string three words together, so there was no point in posting anything.  Having said that, I did have two pieces of very good luck last week -  my lovely friend Miss L invited me to be the first dinner guest in her new apartment on the Wednesday night, and then my equally lovely friend Miss KP invited me to a dinner party with a great group of people on the Saturday night.  And since since it's horrible to be sick and have no one to look after you, it was soooooo nice to go to other people's houses and enjoy someone else's cooking! 

I am feeling better now, and plan to be off exploring and writing about it again soon, but I have learned that sometimes you discover interesting things even when you stay home...

I spent most of last week in bed (snoozing because of the aforementioned cold, nothing to get excited about but I like how you think, you saucy monkeys) and at one point I caught sight of something shiny behind my wardrobe, which is located right next to my bed.  So I reached over to grab this mysterious object and what do you think it was? 

A riding crop.  Really.  An honest-to-goodness proper riding crop.  Which means one of two things about whoever who lived in this room prior to me: a) they were really into horseback riding or b) they were having a muuuuuuuuuch more "interesting" time in this room than I am!  I leave it to your vivid imaginations to work out which explanation amuses me more...