So, I’m that girl.  The one that makes her friends go around the table and say what they are thankful for (and then I verbally critique their answer – it’s once a year, come up with something good and it should include something about my cooking obvi) but my friends are used to it.  I have hosted Thanksgiving for the last 10 or so years, we sometimes call it Orphan Thanksgiving, because it’s usually full of people whose families live in other parts of the country.  It’s one of my favorite days of the year and even though I live in a tiny townhouse, I’ve had up to 12 people over some years.

This year is going to be a little different.  My friend Susan has asked a few of us to come to her mom’s house for the day.  Susan’s father passed away a few years ago, and her mom – an unbelievable energetic lawyer who is probably 4’9” with her big hair on – is finally selling the large beautiful house she grew up in and moving to a smaller place nearby.  This has been very emotional for my friend, despite the logic of it all, and she really wants to spend one last holiday there.

Susan’s mom Ginny is hysterical, there is no topic on earth that she doesn’t have an opinion on, and she’s happy to share that opinion anytime to anyone, just ask her.  Or don’t ask, she’ll tell you anyway.  She has been known, over the years, to call me out of the blue to ask what I think about Susan’s boyfriends or anything else she’s curious about, and then throw in her two cents about my life as long as she has me on the line.  I pretty much love her – and even though she often makes Susan want to pull her hair out of her head crazy, she loves her too.

So it will be fun, I’m sure, and lively and I’m really looking forward to it.  Last Thanksgiving was great, he brought his son to our dinner and I can still picture him sitting at my table eating Oreos and charming the pants off my friends.  But this will be nice, a fresh start and it will probably not end in drama, unless Ginny decides to start drilling Christine about why she hasn’t gotten pregnant yet, or something else I can’t even imagine yet, there might be some drama after all.