What was Thanksgiving?

I just realized I don't recall what my parents regularly cooked for Thanksgiving, if anything.

That's not as much a warning of grave memory loss as it might seem. After going to college 2000 miles away, I was never back for Thanksgiving, just Christmas and summer, so it's been almost 30 years. And there wasn't any family to have over, so it wasn't a big social occasion or party, just me and my parents having maybe a nicer meal than usual. And, well, our usual dinners were already pretty nice, food stamps and poverty notwithstanding, so there's not that much contrast.

The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that there wasn't a turkey. Our oven was broken for basically my entire conscious life. My father was adept at doing pot roasts in a Dutch over, but I don't think a turkey would fit. Quite possibly roast beef *was* the special meal, though that's vying with vague memories of Christmas.

I know we had cranberry sauce, but not when. I'm not sure it was only a Thanksgiving thing for us, if it was Thanksgiving as well.

Just musing.

Though all this probably explains why I don't have the same attachment to Thanksgiving food or parties as most other Americans. I came to the standard array of dishes only in college. And coming as an unbiased outsider, a lot of it isn't all that great. :)

anger management

Going for a walk really can help. Helped in January, when there was a catastrophic blowup in my life. And tonight, for pettier causes. After losing my last Airbnb to house sale, I reserved this place for 5 weeks. But the old place had a 30 day minimum, so turnover wasn't that high. This place has 5 rooms and high turnover, which is *really fun* in a pandemic. But tonight's thing was that I'd anticipated a quiet Thanksgiving -- fewer people traveling, I'd been told last week no one had booked it, and so I figured it was just me and the other long term guest, a very quiet girl.

But last minute bookings happen. Two nights ago, a couple and a baby, in the room that shares a very thin wall with mine. Okay. Today they left, yay... and then *four* people move into the same room, lots of stomping, cooking too.

It's not like I can blame anyone. They're renting a room just like I do (though why are they traveling, and for only five days?) and the landlady is of course making money, it's not like she promised no one would check in over the holiday.

But having my expectations, shattered, LOUDLY, really got to me. I was already on edge from the host puttering around cleaning for two hours -- she's diligent, probably natural for her to do so as soon as someone checks out, but it's the day before Thanksgiving, take a break! And now I know why she had to: more guests -- and then, bam.

I feel calmer after the walk. Also after meeting some of them and telling them about the THIN WALLS AND CREAKY FLOOR.

I'd also been mad about them not wearing masks in the kitchen despite being Asians speaking Asian language, but they were apologetic enough when I brought it up and wearing them now.

New policy: when renting long term private rooms, try to find ones that have a 30-ish day minimum, to avoid this turnover problem.

I guess I've noticed my irritation before, but not as strongly. Pandemic doesn't help. Thin walls don't help. And it hasn't been much of an issue in a while: Most of my places for a while have been entire (Osaka, for less than I'm paying for a room here), the only guest room, or multiple guest rooms but fairly isolated (like an ornate garret I stayed in in Berkeley).

Well, two Saturdays from now I start splurging on an entire bungalow for six weeks. Expensive but I started figuring it was worth it to avoid people, especially the sort of people doing short term travel now. Spend on rent instead of medical bills.

Wow, I haven't had an airbnb tag before.