This week was Thanksgiving – the ultimate American family holiday when everyone appears to travels vast distances for a traditional turkey meal on Thursday. Then the real celebrations begin with Black Friday – a frenzy of shopping. All the stores offer bargains to celebrate the fact that the retail trade has now covered its costs for the year, and every subsequent sale goes into the profits column. The festive season extends all week to permit people to travel and work slows down. Television advertising ramps up for the sales – Thanksgiving week is apparently a great time to buy a mattress, a huge assortment of pumpkin and cinnamon flavour convenience foods, celebration pizzas or yet another pickup truck.
We had three Thanksgiving celebrations this week. The first was on Sunday, we went 10 miles to Cleveland to share the day with Karen’s mother Hazel. And lots of other folk, family, friends and neighbours. Nearly forty people were in and out of the house, with temporary seating put into service everywhere, though it was too cold for people to sit on the porch outside. A huge turkey and a dozen side dishes brought by visitors could have led to serious overindulgence. For us, it was an opportunity to meet up with friends here that we hadn’t had a chance to see since we returned. A surprising amount of the conversation was about Obamacare – health insurance and the shambolic implementation of the new systems has everyone, whatever political persuasion, upset. Let’s hope things do get resolved soon.
On Thanksgiving Day, it was a family only event down in Monticello. Lisa’s Aunt Gert was hosting and there were four generations of her cousins of various proximities there. Again, a turkey was the centrepiece of the meal, cooked by Lisa’s cousin Billy in a turkey fryer. That is a terrifying device, a metal drum over a propane burner filled with boiling hot peanut oil in which a whole turkey is dunked. No wonder that only outdoor use is recommended – it sound like a recipe not only for a succulent bird (yes, the results are remarkably good, not at all fatty) but for a visit from the fire brigade. We took the opportunity to discuss with Billy the ins and outs of shotguns – he’s a hunting man with a small private arsenal, and we recognise that we will probably require a shotgun for emergencies in the new home.
Finally, on Friday we celebrated with two friends at our home. Much more like the annual dinner party we used to hold for a very select few back in Ealing. Lisa pulled out all the stops and I raided the wine cellar. In preparation, we had driven thirty miles to the best grocery store hereabouts, Harry’s Farmers Market, where all sorts of exotic foods can be found. English cheese from Neals Yard, Swedish anchovies, Argentinian wine, French puy lentils, and even freerange organic turkey. Partly as a result of the visit to this cornucopia, partly a reflection of Lisa’s skill, a higher standard of cuisine was offered, and lots of (surprise, surprise) turkey for sandwiches, turkey pot pie, etc. left over for the coming week.
On the build site
As well as the delays due to the Thanksgiving week, the heavy rain (3 or 4 inches over 2 days) left the build site a bit of a quagmire Georgia’s famous red clay is very slippery and sticky when saturated – even the 4 wheel drive Ranger has to handle that with care. So progress has been slow – work ground to a halt for the most part, but we carried on in the background. Lisa has been investigating elevators (yes, we plan for a lift between the two floors. Lisa and I have one good knee between the pair of us, and nobody knows what the future might bring). The quotation for windows arrived and that presented quite a nasty surprise – considerably more that we had budgeted for or expected. Bill made reassuring noises about another supplier he deals with who might be able to reduce the pain. We don’t want to find ourselves in a “Grand Designs” type crisis when the funds start to run out before the project is complete, so we are having a meeting with Bill next week to reassure ourselves that things are clearly on track.
The bird feeder continues to provide harmless entertainment – lots of birds and now even the squirrels have found the supply. The squirrels have to climb about 30 feet up the pillars supporting the deck – but that’s a minimal height compared to the trees they scamper about in. On Friday evening in the middle of dinner, there was a noise outside – we turned on the light and saw a flying squirrel enjoying the suet feeder. A different species to the usual grey squirrels, they have loose skin across the belly stretching down the arms and legs. They can’t actually fly, but when spreadeagled, the taught skin makes a parachute enabling them to glide for hundreds of feet. The little flying squirrel roused many memories for Lisa – the last time she observed them was as a child in central Georgia.
Robin’s Opinions of America
Continuing my weekly Likes and Dislikes section, here’s my personally opinionated thoughts for this week on life in USA. And the subject is television. You have already read my thoughts on advertising (and things don’t get any better as Christmas approaches). But here are thoughts on a positive and a negative aspect of TV here.
Likes
Georgia Public Broadcasting
The quality of the average television channel in America is surprisingly bad. Talk shows, “reality” programmes, celebrity rubbish and the like abound. With nearly a quarter of every hour devoted to adverts (and you know what I think of those). A few premium channels may offer programmes without the adverts, but then you have to pay handsomely to access them. In general, there is a drive to the lowest common denominator of programmes which are just good enough to hold viewers until the next advertising interruption. But amidst this mass of pap, there is a gem. And it doesn’t even command a premium price
Georgia Public Broadcasting supports two channels that we can access via our satellite TV service. They are not premium channels where you have to pay a subscription. They don’t carry any of the advertising which pollutes the remainder of the offerings. And the quality of the output is usually much higher than the norm. We have watched documentaries about local Georgia places and events, thoughtful analyses of American history (recently a very good three part series on the history of Appalachia), international drama (anyone for Downton Abbey?). Orchestral and popular music concerts. Even the BBC News (broadcast at 5am to start your day off right – we record it for viewing later in the day). For kids, there is Sesame Street, for geeks there is NOVA, for collectors there is Antiques Roadshow. Something for everyone.
The joy about public broadcasting (both in Georgia and sister channels across the country) is that it is a non-profit organisation supported by voluntary contributions. So, if you don’t watch it or don’t like it enough to contribute, it costs you nothing. And there are enough supporters, both individual and business, that care enough to make this great service available.
Dislikes
TV schedules
Lisa and I have for several years been time-shift viewers. We record things we want (or might want) to see off the television to view at a later convenient time. It helps to overcome the curse of competitive scheduling, when two channels deliberately put their prime shows on at overlapping times. We have been doing this in UK using both a digital recorder, and the same facility is provided by the control box of our satellite TV.
BUT
Back in England, Lisa used to complain about TV channels which changed the timing of programmes without notice. A start delayed by 5 minutes (for an overrunning sports event or some other vital issue) could mean a loss of the five critical minutes at the end when the truth is finally revealed. Whatever the truth un question might have been. After a while, we got wise to this phenomenon, and would always record an extra 5 minutes of everything. And we very rarely had an incomplete programme. Lisa used to chafe at these incidents and claimed that it would never happen in America.
Not so these days. Programmes are shifted by up to half an hour without any prior notice (or maybe a banner running across the bottom of the screen in the preceding programme for a minute or so.) The controller box supplied with the satellite dish isn’t clever enough to deal with these unannounced changes. The main reason for these incidents can be put squarely in the lap of American Football. If the actual game overruns by ten minutes, there is no thought of abbreviating the post game pundits discussing every fine detail of every play and what it means for the next game in the season. No chance of any flexibility, everyone has to suffer in the name of Football.
Please feel free to let me know of your own feelings about America – maybe this will be a place to give you my take on them!