this thanksgiving, my parents deserted me. they took off on a plane last sunday to go and visit mickey, and my older brother michael.

every year that i can remember, i've had thanksgiving dinner with my parents. in some form or another, i've had dinner with them. we've shared the disaster of a honey baked hurkey (a ham-turkey, a turkey that is roasted with all of the other honey baked hams, that looks like a turkey, smells like a turkey, but tastes like ham), dinner with all the relatives (well, not all of them, that would be crazy. but when you have thanksgiving dinner at your uncle's ranch in the middle of nowhere vermont, and there's more than a dozen kids running around screaming, you think that it's "all the relatives"), and the thanksgiving snowstorm that almost meant that we were eating a huge bird, and food for 12 without anyone there.

but this year, my dad tells me that they aren't going to be around for thanksgiving, and that i'm going to have to fend for myself. i'm cool with that. but the question remained: where to eat thanksgiving dinner?

i got invited over by friends. i got invited over by relatives. i considered the tv dinner thanksgiving. but it wasn't the same. i ended up going to jackie's mom's sister's house, where we were the only guests because of some stubborn family members. it was fun. as usual, i ate too much.

then to my stepmother's mother's house for the ritual thanksgiving evening get together. but there was something different about going there without my family. i'm not sure what it was, it might have been the fact that i made the ice cream pies instead of my stepmother.

you see, some years back my stepmother make two ice-cream pies to compliment the usual pecan pie that she brought to he parent's house every year. the pies were the simple-ext thing in the world, but they were more of a hit than expected. every year since then, we can't even get in the door at her parent's house without the ice cream pies. it's a bit amusing, really.

so this year, to make up for the fact that my parents were living it up in the florida sunshine, i attempted to make the traditional pies. but it was a disaster. one of the pie crusts disintegrated right as i started to fill it with ice cream. so i ran to the store to get another, but sure enough, the supermarkets that are open 24-7 are not open on thanksgiving. so i ended up making two small pans of "thin" brownies. and then proceeding to use the brownies as the "crust" of the ice cream pies. but that didn't really work because i didn't have enough time to cool the brownies first, so the warm brownies melted all the ice cream that tried to put on them, creating a sticky mess all over the counter. then i ran out of ice cream, and had to go buy more.

eventually i finished, and put the pie and brownie-"pies" in the freezer to refreeze the ice cream. and they actually turned out really good. everyone was amazed that i took the time to make the pies in the absence of my stepmother.

so we're at my stepmother's mother's house where, usually, i know most everyone. but this year, i only recognize the adults. the kids are all foreign to me. every one of them had grown. most to a point that i wasn't sure which was which. but that happens, you know? then my cousins eric and jessica show up. i knew eric was in college, so that wasn't weird. but jessica. woah. i hadn't seen her in years, only to find out that she was a very grown up senior, already hearing back from colleges.

it's all fcuked up. you never realize when the people close to you grow up. my younger sister is now a sophomore in high school. i still remember when she was born. it's messed up.

then, yesterday, i went to visit my older sister, and have dinner with her family. it was a really good time. i also got to look at some very old photo albums of my parents, and my older sister and brother from over 30 years ago. it was a bit weird to actually see pictures of my real mother, but the more of them i saw the easier it was.

it's always weird to see pictures of a family that's yours, but to see events that took place 20-30 years before you were even born. it makes you think of how different it is now that it was then. maybe i'm just bitter that i never really met my mother. maybe.