Thanksgiving Giving

Glenn and Veronica invited me to join their family this year for Thanksgiving. Glenn is a long time friend of Cappy's from out on the water. They had been on the same boat together, but he's a boat captain now, on another boat, so they don't get to see each other very often, but talk either on the cell phone, or on their boat radios as they pass by one another along the waterways. I apologize that my pictures didn't turn out the best...the lemon bars I made for them, for example; they look a little green and yechy. I made them from the lemons from our tree in the yard, the crust, which...grrr, rose to the top, was made from the pecans from our trees, and the sugar, most likely from the Domino's plant in New Orleans where the sugar cane which grows all around our neighborhood and town, is processed. I promise you they were gooood. I'd never made them before, but they tasted like lemon meringue pie, sans the meringue. I think the other pictures turned out great, tho. Glenn and Veronica are warm and fun people, and so is their family. As usual, I'm not that good at remembering names, so I forgot who is who, a lot of the time. The woman sitting at the table is Prisilla, and I really like her because she always has a smile on her face and has a merry laugh. I honestly can't, for the life of me remember the names of the other people in the room, except for maybe one of them, whom I was introduced to as "Fat Boy" (I'm blushing here...I hope it's ok to say on the blog) but I never really got his real name. A nephew's name was Bobby, who also makes his living out on the water driving a crewboat. He used to be an artist in NYC, went to clown school and was a professional clown named Bo-Beaux (pronounced Bo-Bo) as per the Cajun French spelling down in this area...pretty cool, eh? The doggy who is mooching turkey morsels is Rufus. What a SWEET boy! If I coulda brought him home with me, I woulda, but his people parents wouldn't let me; they are attached to him the same way I am to my 'boys'. Oh, rats, as usual, the blogger got the pictures in the order it wanted them, and not the way I intended. The deep-fried turkey ended up down in the cow pasture pictures below.

After dinner, most of the guests left, so Glenn and Veronica took me out to show me their beautiful cows. You can tell these are their 'babies', too. They were so gentle and soft to the touch. If I hadn't been wearing black dress clothes,instead of blue jeans, which I swear I will be wearing next time, I would have had my arms around the necks of some of them.

Giggling....some cute 'smarty-pants' teenager was teasing Bryleigh, so she told them, "Talk to da hannnnd."

One of their son's, Phillip and his wife, who is expecting their second child in the Spring, live on the same property in a gorgeous 'double-wide'...castle, as I put it. They lost their other home last year when right after hurricane Katrina blasted the New Orleans area, Hurricane Rita destroyed so much property in South-West Louisiana. The tiny FEMA trailor, which they had to live in until their new home arrived, still sits outside in their driveway waiting for FEMA to come back and pick it up. I didn't get the opportunity to get Phillip's wife, Rackel's picture, as she had a lot of family and friends visiting, and we kinda/sorta barged into the scene so I could get a grand tour. It's VERY nice.

Phillip and Rackel's daughter is Bryleigh, who is 3 years old. She was tired and cranky that day, doing a fine job of being a three-year old. When we got into Phillip's house, it sounded like a child was screaming the paint off the walls, but three seconds later, in her grandmother's arms (Veronica) she, all of a sudden the sweetest, prettiest little girl. Veronica, says, "Oh yeah. She's spoiled for sure." She just wanted her Grandma. I know how she feels sometimes. I'd still like to climb up on my grandma's big cozy lap on some days.

Above there, somewhere in the group of pictures, Glenn is picking me some citrus from their orchard. They put ours to shame. Look at the grapefruit, tangerines and satsuma oranges. Up north, if someone offers you tomatoes, you are tempted to raise one eyebrow and ask, "How many zucchini do I have to take before I can have the tomatoes?" Up north, in my old neck of the woods, they grew to be the size of cavemen's clubs and you just couldn't give them away. Some pranksters were known to leave a sack of them on someone's doorstep, ring the doorbell and run away. (and NO, I didn't do that :-P) Down here, when the season is just right, folks are knee-deep in citrus, and I'm fending off Satsuma oranges. But, AHA! Right now, they are just coming into their own...even in our yard, but Cappy said to save them for our kids, sooo, when Glenn and Veronica gave me a sack of their latest produce, those oranges were really the cherry on top of the whole wonderful Thanksgiving Day.