Plotnik is a Lucky Man

Mummy Plotnik was looking beautiful on Thanksgiving. As at every meal, she filled up her plate, emptied it and went back for dessert. The Great Plotnik is a lucky man to have her still, as is whoever makes Carlton cigarettes.

Of course, Thanksgiving is about family, and family is about gossip, and everybody's favorite family gossip concerns everybody else's love life, especially those people who have been deemed to be needing a man or a woman in their lives, not because they want one, because if they wanted one they'd have one, but because we, the family, have so decreed. So shut up and go talk to ______.

There is a natural order to family feasts. This year Auntie Little Bear invited 42 people. The living room was filled, like it's supposed to be, and there were 10 children. The more the merrier -- well, up to the tipping point. We came close, but stopped short of the Screech Line.

The age range was 2-98. This is also part of the plan, as is food that is very good but cannot be spectacular, because there are just too many people waiting to eat it, and the food has to sit and dry out a long time before anyone can get to it.

But that may just be Plotnik's opinion after being so recently in Spain, eating small portions many times a day instead of one meal which could last you three days. He is thinking he may be over the Thanksgiving Gorge.

Also, the stuff he remembers from the past, now long gone, is still his favorite: Little Bear's mom's Pumpkin Chiffon Pie, for example. All those retro jello molds. The turkey from his step-uncle's farm, simply roasted and basted.

On the other hand, this year we got Emilio's sister Judy's fantastic flan for dessert, to go with all the pies. We also got Eric's girl friend Diana's Kenyan black beans with coconut milk. For The Great Plotnik, a plate with some turkey dark meat, those beans, a piece of Ducknik's pecan pie and a slice of flan would be sufficiently gastronomic. Top it all with a splursh of Cousin Seattle's garlic mashed potatoes and another glass of that tequila Little Bear poured for him as he was carving the turkey.

But of course he doesn't stop there.

At least nobody made green beans with chicken soup and slivered almonds.

On the drive home Mummy P. was in an opining mood. "I'm sure glad I'm not driving," she kept saying, "especially at night." Each successive time she said that one more person in the car would stifle a chuckle. By the fifth or sixth time it was like she was Groucho Marx and she kept pulling down that duck.

Mummy Plotnik is Amazing Grace. She is blind but she can see. We passed the lines of cars waiting to get into the Citadel Mall which opened at 9pm Thanksgiving Night. "Those people are crazy," she said, looking into the darkness.

When we got downtown, she said: "I have no idea where I am. Turn right."