Thanksgiving Roll Call!
1. Gina
2. Beth
3. Angel
4. Brandi
5. Nick
6. Jaycee
7. Gianni
8. Enzo
9. Ricky
10. Britni
11. Wendy
12. Jennifer (Gina's friend)
13. Shobhit
14. Matthew
Very briefly, via phone only:
15. Sherri
16. Dad
I'm pretty sure that covers everyone. For me, this Thanksgiving was notable in that it was the first one I spent in Olympia since
2018, which was the second of two years in a row we went to Gina and Beth's house for the holiday—just as we did this year. But, 2017 and 2018 were otherwise small-scale Thanksgivings with Gina and Beth and friends of theirs, to which Shobhit and I were invited; for a while there, Dad and Sherri were going on trips or to the casino for Thanksgiving and so it still wasn't this big family holiday gathering like most other major holidays.
It was this year, though. And although we did go to Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with Dad and Sherri, and Brandi and Nick's family, in 2014, that was in 2014. I haven't been a part of a regular-scale,
family Thanksgiving that took place
in Olympia since 1996! We did have a McQuilkin Family thanksgiving in Centralia in 1999 though, and that's pretty damned close. Either way it's been 25 years or more, since I spent Thanksgiving with more than seven family members on Dad's side of the family, regardless of location.
The Roll Call would have been a solid 16 people this year, but Dad and Sherri avoided attending in the end—because they were both recently very sick. Dad is convinced it was norovirus, which he says has been going around Thurston County, but it should be noted he self-diagnosed online. It doesn't sound like it was covid, at least. I guess he got sick first, and when I spoke to him on the phone Tuesday, he said he felt great and was pretty much over it. But, Sherri was still sick. When Gina had her on speakerphone for a few minutes yesterday, she sounded okay, but since they figured either one or both of them might still be contagious, they did not come. It was a bummer that they couldn't make it, but we all still very much appreciated that.
In terms of where I am and who I'm with, Thanksgiving has by far the most diverse history of all the major holidays. More often than not, I am just at home with Shobhit, and we might invite a friend or two over for dinner. Often we have Indian food for dinner, which was what we did 2005-2009, usually along with both Barbara and Sachin, and sometimes going out to eat. In 2010 Shobhit and I spent Thanksgiving in New York City as he was living there then; that was the one time I saw the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person. The next five years, Shobhit lived in Los Angeles, and four of those years we visited Palm Springs (including the year we went to Phoenix, just using Faith's place as a pit stop both on the way there and on the way back). 2016 was back to diinner at home; then, as already mentioned, 2017 and 2018 we went to Gina and Beth's. 2019 was back at home again, and again with Sachin; 2020 was the pandemic year and we had no choice but to spend that at home, just the two of us. In both 2021 and 2023 we flew down to L.A. to then drive to Palm Springs and spend those Thanksgivings again with Faith, the last time with Shobhit's niece Shivy joining us. In 2022 we just had Danielle over for dinner.
There's no telling what we'll do next year. Since we took trips in both 2021 and 2023, I wouldn't mind making that a pattern for 2025, but we'll see; Faith is now working on selling her house. Plus, Thanksgiving at Gina and Beth's seems to have become the default tradition for the rest of the family of late, so perhaps we'll be down there again, who knows? The biggest reason I made the plan to go down there this year was because Shobhit had hoped to get a work shift Thanksgiving Day so he could earn time and a half, and I would just go down to Olympia on my own. I posted to the family group post about Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago that this was the plan.
In the end, though, Shobhit did not get a shift yesterday. And even though he'd have been happy to just stay home, I was now kind of married to the plan to go to Olympia. So, both of us did. We brought
cucumber sandwiches, and
a seasoned potatoes with vegetables dish. Gina had also posted a promise of cinnamon rolls for people who arrived earlier, so Shobhit and I actually headed out of town by 9:30 and arrived at Gina and Beth's house by 10:40.
They did have one friend join for dinner, albeit a different one who was usually part of previous holidays: Jennifer, the friend Gina and I have been going with to the Washington State Fair every three years since 2015. Just as Shobhit and I were leaving, I had Brandi take a photo of me with her, Gina, and Angel.
Brandi immediately quipped, "You don't want me in it?" I said I'd happily have her in it if we could find someone else to take the photo, but she took the photo, and it turned out quite nicely, I thought.
I actually got
a good number of photos I was quite happy with, more than usual for Thanksgiving in particular I would say. I love the portrait shot I got of the dachshund figurine holding a photo of Gina and Beth hanging from its mouth, which they have on the floor facing their front door. Then, once I got home and was actually processing the day's photos, I was rather surprised to discover the 40 shots in the album—37 of them from yesterday specifically—was actually the biggest number I've gotten for my Thanksgiving album
since 2010, that year being when we went to the parade in New York. It's otherwise the most photos I have taken for Thanksgiving in 20 years, specifically since 2005 (and that year was spent in Seattle; we went for a walk to the waterfront that year and I got a lot of photos—including one of
Shobhit on Pier 61 that was my desktop wallpaper for many years).
It was about 4:30 when I had Brandi take the above shot of Angel and Gina and Jennifer and me, and Shobhit was actually surprised I was ready to go as early as that—we left Dad and Sherri's house last Christmas just before 5:00, so it's not far outside the norm. (We left Easter earlier this year closer to 7:00, but we had Barbara with us so it was a little different.) Also, we had arrived well before most other guests; only Jaycee was already there, and considering Gina and Beth took her up to Seattle to see the UW campus on Wednesday, she may very well have spent the night.
I got the cinnamon roll I wanted, though! Beth took half of one and I took the other half. I guess they got them from a nearby bakery, I forget the name of it, but damn it was delicious. I could have eaten
the whole pan. I didn't, though, because I knew there was a lot of other food in my immediate future.
In any case, by the time we were leaving, we had already been there a solid six hours, unlike most of the others who didn't even arrive until after noon. It was a lovely time, though, with minimal moments of tension—and I will freely admit being the one who arguably caused the most tension, when Wendy, who might be the most generally clueless person in the entire family, brought up the college team with "a transgender" on their volleyball team. I'm inclined to be more fair to Jaycee, who is only 15, but she was the one who said, "It's unfair" to have a trans woman on a women's team. I was immediately like, "No—
no." I didn't quite know where to start, but the first thing I mentioned was the wide range of testosterone levels already naturally occurring in cisgender women, and if we don't ban any of them from playing against other women, there's no good argument for banning trans women.
None of this would have happened at all had Wendy not brought it up to begin with. But then Gina shot down the conversation: "This is too close to politics or religion, so maybe we just shouldn't talk about it." That shut everyone up, and I saw no good reason to press the matter in the moment.
I didn't think it right to let it go completely, though, so this morning I
posted to my socials—specifically, on Facebook and Threads—about it, complete with a couple of links to sources regarding, crucially, the voices of trans people themselves; and actual research. I knew this was potentially playing with fire, but so far, somewhat surprisingly, the engagement on Facebook has been very positive, and although on Threads it has also been mostly positive, I have gotten a few bigoted responses from people I have responded to once before blocking them. In some cases, they might seem on the surface to have a reasoned argument—except that the language they use, when referring to trans women specifically ("men pretending to be women," as just one example), completely invalidates their position, and reveals they have no interest in engaging in good faith.
It's all messy and complicated, and this apparent UN study of trans athletes winning a large number of medals that's been thrown at me is particularly something I am finding a challenge to dispute, mostly because only far-right outlets have run with it so they are the only hits I can find in Google searches. I'd just like to find less partisan sources that have a reasoned response to it that I can cite. I can perhaps ask Gabriel, but this is the kind of stuff that hits a raw nerve with him as the father of a trans daughter.
Anyway. As I said, I couldn't let it go, so I got it off my chest this morning. But in reference to yesterday, this was a matter of minutes, and the rest of the day went swimmingly. I'm glad I went. I did get confirmation that, apparently, this year Dad and Sherri will host both Christmas
and a gathering on New Year's Day that they will bring back—they skipped it last year
because they had already hosted Christmas. But this year maybe Dad feels a little more compelled after having to sit out Thanksgiving.
Shobhit hates driving in the dark, so as usual I offered to drive us home. It got pretty thick with fog between Tacoma and Seattle, but that cleared up by the time we got home. We did a bit of food prep for the dinner we're hosting tomorrow night with Shobhit's friend Ellen and her husband, and after that we sat down to watch the truly stupid, yet undeniably entertaining, Netflix movie
Hot Frosty. I wasn't going to bother at all, until I heard it discussed on a podcast. I don't regret watching it!
[posted 12:26 pm]
