Writer's Workshop - Thanksgiving Memories

Memories of my Thanksgiving growing up were of driving to my grandmother's apartment to have dinner. She always cooked the turkey and everyone else brought the sides. The turkey was always dry. I grew up thinking that's how turkey was supposed to taste! After the meal, my dad and aunt would take a nap.

After I married, we split holidays with each of our families because everyone lived within an hour of each other. My mom started cooking the turkey for my family and I realized that turkey was really good when it was moist. We always ate at 2:00pm. Once all the leftovers were divided up between the three of us adult children, we hugged, kissed and said our goodbyes. Off we went to the other parent's house, where we partook in a second turkey dinner at 5:00pm. Not wanting to hurt anyone family feelings, we always ate twice... and put on a few pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Since our family has moved to "middle earth" we no longer have to rush around, scarfing down the first meal and then the second. We can stay in our jammies all day if we want, and we can take our time preparing the mass quantities of food that seems so difficult to reduce... Everyone makes a side, the turkey cooks in a rotisserie, and the pies cook while we eat!

But that's not the prompt I wanted to write about. Since I don't feel any of my Thanksgiving holidays were interesting or filled with wonderful smells, I chose to write about that time I fell down...



My H and I were in San Francisco a year after we were married. We were crossing a street close to Fisherman's Wharf. Of course, he was walking ten paces ahead of me, and I was trying to double my steps to catch up with him. I didn't see that there were little pockets in the crosswalk and managed to step into one of them. I can clearly remember falling into the pavement. As I hit the street, first with my arms, then with the rest of me, I let out a loud and anguished grunting-type noise. You know, the kind of grunt that one makes when they have been hit in the stomach with a very strong fist or baseball bat... My H was oblivious to the fall and continued to walk to the curb. He then turned to make sure that I was still ten paces behind him and saw that I was face down in the middle of the street! He stood still and watched...and laughed... I slowly brought myself to my feet and finished crossing the street. I was bright red with embarrassment, but could only laugh along with him.

From that day on, I walked and still do today, with my eyes on the ground in front of me! I still find myself finding unlevel places to trip over, but I manage to catch myself before going down for the count!



One such walk occurred in an outdoor mall in Los Angeles. As I looked for holes to avoid, a shiny object on the ground caught my eye. I picked it up and examined it. It looked like a very pretty broken broach with rhinestones. I looked around to see if someone was looking for it, but there were only shoppers coming and going. I brought it home and showed it to my mom. She could tell the difference between a rhinestone and something a little more valuable. She took it to a jeweler and then called me that night.

"Are you sitting down, honey?" she asked in a tone that made me feel like good news was coming.

"Okay, I'm sitting" I replied.

"This rhinestone broach is a one and one-half carat diamond surrounded by 18 smaller diamond chips!" My heart skipped a beat and it was difficult to breathe.

"Oh my gosh!" I screamed. "I don't believe it!"

"Well, dear" she replied, "believe it!"

I sat there and laughed. Because of my humiliating experience in San Francisco, I changed a behavior that led me to find a treasure! I felt like the luckiest girl in the world that night!

To be continued....

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