Rocking out on Thanksgiving !m!

(In case you couldn't tell, the above m surrounded by exclamation marks is supposed to be a 'KISS'-style rock and/or roll sign.)

Thanksgiving in New York should mean a good opportunity to see the Macy*s Day parade, but we had other plans. Wendy invited us to have thanksgiving with her family over in Ronkonkoma, which is about halfway down Long Island. We always enjoy going out there as an excuse to escape the city. (To give you an idea of the tranquility of their neighborhood, it's about 45 minutes PAST a place called "Hicksville". )

We did, however, go out the night before to 79th street and Columbus to see the parade balloons being blown up. "It's nice, usually no one is around, and you can see the baloons up close. We had the whole place to ourselves!" one internet site stated. "If you get there later, most of the people will have gone home". Said another.

The internet is a liar.

Takeshi, Phil (visiting from California) and I braved the 30 block hike, had terrible and expensive food for dinner, and waded through the crowd for the privelege of seeing 1 (one) Energizer Bunny(tm) balloon's *ear*, the body of which was blocked behind an enormous bus. That was when we saw the line to enter the balloon inflating area.
It was about the size of all Disneyland rides put together, extending four city blocks. We took one look, shook our heads, and went off to a pub.

The next day we did catch a glimpse of the parade on our way to Penn Station to catch a train to the suburbs. Unfortunately we were in a rush, and were running all the way from where the cab driver was forced to drop us off on 5th and 35th... dodging in between people, strollers, and the odd bicycle. We caught the train with about a minute to spare.Needless to say, it was also packed.

Once we got there, Wendy and I got busy. I made our family's traditional yams and green apples dish, and she worked magic with her brand new futuristic dual oven (with meat temperature probe!) and roasted an 18 pound turkey in under 3 hours, a feat accompished by few. There were about twenty people, and everyone brought something delicious, be it an amazing salad with candied pecans, about eight kinds of wines, or the homemade pumpkin pies and lindt truffles that no one had room for but somehow managed to dissapear.

WHile in many households the boys wander off to watch football, in Wendy's house, we all wandered over to the XBox and plugged in various musical accoutrements for some serious music making with Rock Band. Unlike Guitar Hero (which they also have), this game allows input from not only fake guitars, but a fake drumset and microphone for some hardcore synthesized sound. (jury's out on the realism of the mic.) While some might poo-poo use of these cheating tools, it is quite clear to all involved that the quality of music produced is approximately 100x more pleasant than if we were holding real guitars in our hands and attempting to reproduce, say, "Keep on Rocking in the Free World". And, in a bonus move, we looked almost authentically rock-band cool, with our loved ones able to watch the performances with a minimum of cringing....(I'm not saying there wan't any cringing, as we were only able to unlock about 8 songs and played them approximately eighteen times each... but it was kept to a respectful minimum.)

Rock 'n Rollllllll!

... Hope you all had a similarly rockin' turkey day. ^_~