Turkey Day

Aviva and I went to Akron to visit her family for Thanksgiving. Though we were only there for a few days, we did manage to fit in plenty of shopping and lots of eating. Aviva's aunt, Rhonda, fed us like kings. Until I ate Thanksgiving dinner at the Harrison's last year, I'd never actually tasted sweet potato casserole; I'd just seen it referenced in many movies and television commercials. Well, it's worth all the hype.


In addition to making a fabulous Thanksgiving day feast, Rhonda also cooked something different for breakfast each day: biscuits with pumpkin butter, muffin tops, a spinach-tomato-egg casserole. All delicious, of course. It was quite an indulgent departure from the usual cold cereal or oatmeal! In fact, the entire weekend involved a lot of eating, including a trip to Aviva's favorite Akron restaurant, Swenson's--a drive-up hamburger joint that makes killer milkshakes.

The weekend also involved a lot of laughing over bird antics. We introduced Jezebel, Aviva's parakeet, to Peepers, Rhonda's cockatiel, and their first encounters went remarkably smoothly. There were some interesting moments, however, with both birds attempting to dive bomb the other like fighter pilots. In a particularly spectacular attack on Peepers, Jezebel ran smack into Rhonda's cheek and almost fell into my cup of coffee.


Though we avoided the stores that are really popular with post-Thanksgiving shoppers (Wal-mart, Best Buy, etc) we did visit the outlet mall where I found a few Christmas gifts. Before we knew it, the weekend was over and it was time to return to Rochester. Sigh. Now we are both feverishly marking students' papers and preparing for the end of the semester.