Not to abruptly shift gears from the poor kitty, but I wanted to post the next segment:
Thanksgiving Day, with turkey muffins
Day 2
I woke up at 9 AM on Thursday, which doesn’t sound too early until you remember I had gone to bed at 2:30 AM after staying up for 24 hours the day before. I was pretty tired, but I figured I could always sleep back in Albany.
First I had some delicious *pronti *(Indian flatbread) with potatoes and spices, yum! Then we spent the next six hours opening every suitcase and every closet in the house to get me some nice Indian clothes. I ended up getting three lenghas, which are floor-length skirt & blouse combinations, and a whole bunch of salwar kameez (google it).
Then I learned stuff. I learned how to make cheese properly. How to mike rice-pulao on the stovetop. (YES – I can finally make rice on the stovetop!) I learned how to make Indian-style butter. I learned how to make ras gulla, and ras malai. I also started to learn how to use a sewing machine, as I am going to be getting one for my birthday.
If I had been raised in India I would have learned all this by age 13. But better late than never.
Throughout all of this I would periodically stop to call United and ask them where my luggage was. They found it in Washington, DC, and shipped it to Denver, but I couldn’t get a straight answer on when. First they said it was on a 1:30 flight, then on a 3:30 flight, then they told me it was in Colorado Springs but no one was answering the phone in Colorado Springs. Uh…right. Well, I continued calling every couple of hours until around 8, when I gave it up, figuring it was the holiday and I wasn’t about to get any further.
This took a good long time, as you can imagine. Finally in the late evening Anil came home – he had to work until 7 PM.
We immediately went back out, because I needed solution and a case for my contacts. I had stupidly put it into my suitcase. Anil also wanted me to make some sort of alcoholic drink – when I asked him what he’d been drinking, it was generally along the lines of whiskey and coke. Yuck. So, I bought some creme de menthe, and some creme de cacao, and some cream, and made up some delicious grasshoppers which they loved. We made turkey muffins, which sounds weird but actually was quite good - some turkey, mixed with stuffing, baked into sort of muffin shapes in a muffin pan. I expected to only eat vegetarian, I was pleased that we had a little turkey. Dinner was delicious, and after dinner we watched a movie for a bit and then danced.
Dancing is a part of my blood, as it is of this part of my family. It’s what we do when we get together. I danced since I was 12, and still dance regularly for exercise.
I was surprised and pleased to find that my new brother Anil was actually a very good dancer – I wish he’d been around back when I was performing! We really had a good time, and ended up staying up until 1:30 AM again. I felt really bad for Anil, since he had to go to work the next day, but we only had four days to get to know one another!
I make a killer cheesecake.