HTD

Don't worry -- even though most Germans refuse to recognize our gluttonous holiday and forced me to work today, I'm still getting a piece of the Thanksgiving experience. One of my teachers was able to bring in a couple of pumpkin pies today so the students in my two classes could try out this traditional dessert. I don't care for it, though the piece I tried wasn't bad. I wanted to bring in a pie or two myself, and a friend in my choir had her husband look for them at the military base in Wiesbaden, but the best we could do was a can of pumpkin pie mix. Germany doesn't have pre-made pie shells and I don't have an oven, but if I ever overcome those two obstacles, I'll try to make pumpkin pie anyway.

And Bettina, my mentor-teacher, is making Thanksgiving dinner tonight, which is very sweet of her. She's spent a lot of time in the US, so I'll get my fill of turkey and such. She's really getting the full Thanksgiving stress-effect as well: too much to do, too much food to try to prepare, and a bunch of people she invited have had to back out last minute because of illnesses. I told her and her class that this was the dark side of Thanksgiving that you don't see in the happy-go-lucky pictures and descriptions of the holiday. But anyway, I'm really looking forward to dinner soon.

In one of my classes today, I showed the students how to draw a hand-turkey, I told them the joke about April flowers, Mayflowers, and Pilgrims, and I showed them a couple of comics (this one and that one) relating to the holiday. As with all funny things, the more you have to analyze and dissect them to understand what they mean, the less funny they become. I expected this, but it's still unfortunate. Only my artificial laughs broke the tension, since they understood that and subsequently laughed too. Saying "Ha ha ha" with a straight face is a surprisingly powerful tool.

And when I found out another of my teachers had a 6th grade class today, I told her about hand-turkeys too, and that it was a fun activity for kids. So when I got back to the teacher's lounge at the end of the day, she showed me a stack of papers: the hand-turkeys her class had drawn and colored. Those were great. My favorite was the turkey with dark shades and a fat gold chain around his neck, including a piece that said "HTD." I asked her what it meant: "Happy Turkey Day," a message I gladly pass along to you.