Thanksgiving in Florida

For many of the past 40 Thanksgivings, I've celebrated with my sister and brother-in-law, Barbara & Ken. We've shared the holiday at our camp in Weld during snowstorms, at my home in Rumford, and in their various homes in Boston, Bar Harbor, Los Angeles, and Florida. Once, we went to the Concord Inn in Massachusetts and sat in a narrow hallway of the venerable old inn. I think we've been to Copley Plaza and the Ritz Carlton in Boston, too. But then again, perhaps those celebrations were at Christmas.

This year, Ken and I celebrated in Florida. We power walked, played tennis, and hit our favorite haunt, Shrimpers. BKT would have been proud of most of our activities. Ken got me to try a Manhattan; we watched football; and on Thanksgiving we got all dressed up and headed over the Miles Grant Country Club for dinner.

That we were ignored for the first 15 minutes after being seated irked us. It was, after all, 4pm and we knew that our bottle of chardonnay stood in a refrigerator off in the bar. We also had a young server who hadn't been trained well. She smiled as she poured Ken a full glass of wine to sample and pushed the salad into the main course and the main course into dessert. It felt a bit like a diner at lunch time.

But none of that mattered. We two sat at our small table with an empty seat. We talked about what we would have talked about had Barbie been there. But she wasn't, and that was the plain sad fact of Thanksgiving 2013.

4000th Manhattan

1st and last Manhattan

My favorite sister.