“Orange Peanut? For me? I accept you.”

I’m watching the Steelers vs. Baltimore game, and some of the officials and coaches who were in this Bad Lip Reading video are on TV right now. Every time the ref throws a flag and makes an announcement, I imagine him saying, “I went on a date with this girl, and her floor was covered in bean bags…” or the Steelers’ head coach clapping and declaring, “Stink.”

 

Bad Lip Reading is genius, by the way.

 

So, about Thanksgiving.

 

Seven hours after I put the fork down, I’m finally able to move again.

 

I’m not sure what happened because in the grand scheme of All Things Jenny Has Eaten, I don’t think I outdid myself. I had a normal-sized plate of food, and without fourteen servings of my mom’s cranberry sauce, the only thing I had in a disproportional amount was a lentil dish (not the most obvious choice for a Thanksgiving dinner, but I’m not complaining).

 

I didn’t OD on cheese and crackers before the meal, so maybe it was the wine? I have no idea why I became so full, but I noticed it during the third piece of pie.

 

To the common man, perhaps three pieces of pie sounds excessive, but to me, that’s like a Wednesday afternoon. I eat a bowl of ice cream every day. I used to eat an entire plateful of dessert once a month from a fine-dining buffet that featured gourmet desserts, and I would take a piece of everything on the table: flourless chocolate cakes, key lime torts, fruit pies, cookies, cheesecakes, you name it. ONE OF EVERYTHING. And here I am, three pieces in, and I literally could not stand up straight afterwards.

 

Not to mention, since this was not my household, I did not take my traditional 1/6^th of the pie size slice I typically go for.

 

 

 

A word about the pictured pecan pie: it is dubbed “Nanna’s Pecan Pie,” and it is the best pecan pie in the country. Nanna, originally from South Carolina, must have the loving, southern touch (or a lot of butter and brown sugar) because I’ve never tasted a pie that good. Her son-in-law wants to market the pies, and I offered to be the spokesperson for them. I jokingly suggested her secret ingredient was crack because they were immediately addicting, and she looked at me quite seriously and said, “That is not allowed to go in your blog.”

 

A quick word about blogging: everyone kept saying to me, “Oh, this must be great writing material!” in reference to the conversations they were having, particularly from my perspective as an outsider.* I got an inside look at my hosts’ family and friends, and there was no censoring going on, so I think they were overly conscious of how they must have appeared.

 

However, they have no idea the upbringing I’ve had with the Leshnovs. A single gathering on my mom’s side of the family would have provided enough writing material to inspire the entire ten seasons of Seinfeld. There would be yelling and twelve conversations going at once, half of which include name-calling and un-politically-correct speech, all of which are being shouted over one another. There would be judgments cast on everyone from politicians to our neighbors, and my uncle crafting stories about my aunt, narrated in a falsetto voice, that involve her giving away all her possessions to live in a refrigerator box, and childhood recollections of being hit in the head with a frying pan or learning the hard way that: “If you didn’t eat your food, you wore it.”  We are that crazy. So I was not phased at all tonight.

 

Anyway, after my third sliver of pie, I was so uncomfortable I couldn’t even endure sitting. I felt like I might burst and die. I tried to take deep breaths and focus on the conversation, but even Nanna’s discussion of the John Holmes documentary she watched (“Fourteen inches?”) was not enough to ease my troubled self.

 

(That was, however, my favorite conversation of the night.)

 

I finally had to excuse myself (it was more like an Irish goodbye at a time when everyone was preoccupied) and went up to my room, where I laid down and proceeded to nap for the next two hours.

 

Now, seven hours later, I can almost move around without looking like Quasimodo.

 

Victory is mine!

 

 

Warning! Sappy note below.

 

*I would like to thank everyone who was kind enough to consider me this Thanksgiving, as one who was far away from home, and inviting me to spend Thanksgiving with you. It means so much to me. And to all of my new friends, my old friends, my friends nearby and friends far away—thank you for making my life richer just by being in it.

 

I’d also like to thank YOU–blog reader–for reading my blog (yay!)

 

And of course I’m thankful for Mom and Dad, who, among everything else, let me wander off and spend Thanksgiving with strangers.

 

And to the One who has blessed me with all these—thank you. 🙂