Happy Thanksgiving!

It couldn't feel less like my favorite holiday around here. The weather is wrong, there are no familiar late fall smells, no turkey and stuffing, but mostly no family (except for Lee, of course. I'd be lost without him!).

I'll be skyping later this morning to "help" with the pie making and tomorrow morning I'll be joining the Amherst folks for their post-turkey are-we-really-going-to-eat-dessert part of the meal. Since there are none of the trappings that go with the holiday around here it's easy to forget it's happening, so I miss it less than I expected. Seeing family without me later today may change that. Expect some tears.

This is only the second time in my entire life that I haven't been home with family for Thanksgiving. The other time was in 1980 when I spent the fall backpacking with NOLS and Thanksgiving day I was in the middle of a two-week skiing expedition at Yellowstone. Now that was a lifetime ago!

I can't really say that there are no signs of Thanksgiving here. Yesterday the PTA put on a feast for the KAS community at lunchtime. There were turkey, cooked just like at home, and all the sides, every one of which had a Taiwanese twist - shrimp in the rice, five spice with the corn, unidentifiable (yet delicious) mushrooms in the mashed potatoes. Tasty and heartfelt, yet a little bit off.

And now we have two extra days off. It's a far cry from the ten days Lee is used to but fabulous nonetheless. We can really use some time off. The woman who cleans my room speaks only two words of English - hello and sorry - and yet we both understood her suggestion that we all spend the long weekend catching up on sleep.

At noon today we fly to Taroko Gorge for a few days so I'll be posting lots of photos soon. In the meantime, happy Thanksgiving-prep!