Out of touch or avoiding turkey in Turkey

My co-workers and I were debating over whether Thanksgiving is next week or this week. Three of us were sure it was next week whereas one was sure it was this week. It went back and forth till J. finally googled it and found out he was right. Damn. Well, he's also the most recent addition to the editing group and has lived in the states a lot more recently than the rest of us.

I've never been a big fan of the holiday anyways. My family wasn't big on traditions. We would celebrate but never with the typical foods. For instance we might have sweet potatoes (yeah, kind of traditional) but then also have eggrolls, tamales, panset (a Filipino noodle dish) and a pineapple upside down cake for dessert. I used to hate pumpkin pie. I have a very vague memory of having thrown up after eating it when I was a kid, probably at someone else's house because I don't think it ever graced my family's Thanksgiving table.

In my freshmen year of college I wasn't able to head home for Thanksgiving. Luckily, my friend Jessica had decided to stay on campus too. We went to the store and bought a stack of pumpkin pies. Then we drove to the local penitentiary in Walla Walla and tried to give them away. The guards asked who we were there to visit and we told them we just wanted to give away some pies. They said the pies could be tainted or have weapons in them. We offered them to the guards and they of course turned them down. After that we decided to head to the mental institution and then farms with migrant workers to distribute the pies. Later we ended up going to a house where a woman we had never met showed us some belly dancing moves.

I don't know if we'll be celebrating this year. If we do, it will be sure to be another non-traditional event, complete with dolma biber (stuffed peppers), baklava and boza.