Happy Thanksgiving, Peoples!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.*

(This is Husband's Turkey Day card.)

I love Thanksgiving.  It's a day of good food eaten with people you love unemcumbered by present pressure.  There is usually some kind of drama, as there is when people are in big groups, but that drama almost always gets worked out and becomes a funny memory.  Mainly, to me, it's all about taking a minute to be grateful for all the good things.

Also, I LOVE the fried turkey**, next to key lime pie, it's my very favorite food in the world.  Seriously.

But in years when I haven't made it Georgia for the holiday, I've had some great ones as well.

My sister and I were guests of LisaD's family Thanksgiving in Brooklyn the morning after we spent happy, chilly hours watching the Macy's balloons getting blown up next to the Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side.  I hosted a friends' Thanksgiving in my tiny apartment in the West Village complete with a champage fountain.  And this year is going to be great, too.

Husband, Elliot and I have been invited to have Thanksgiving at our best friends' home here in Stavanger.  It's happening tomorrow night and there will be the requisite turkey*** and ham and best of all, assorted goodies and important ingredients imported all the way from Denver, smuggled**** in a suitcase carried by an American who has come all the thousands of miles for a real Norwegian-style holiday.

We couldn't be more excited about it.

But tonight, we're having our own little family Thanksgiving---not with turkey, but with Asian BBQ'd pork and cheesy potatoes.  The dishes may not be the "appropriate" ones, but the thankfulness for our good things and happiness is all there.


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*That, and other peoples' birthdays.
**If you're not familiar with it, imagine this:

Take a thawed turkey and a special turkey hypodermic needle.  Then shoot the turkey full of buttery cajun goodness all underneath its turkey skin.  Then drop it into boiling peanut oil. Remove it from the oil about 45 minutes later and enjoy its cajun, buttery goodness.  And also enjoy the fact that it's less calories and more healthy than the turkeys cooked in the oven for hours and hours.  Seriously.

***Not fried, but prepared by an Englishman who knows what he's doing.  Don't be sad for me, I'll get the fried goodness at Christmas, so all is well in my world.

****If you are the custom authorities reading this, don't believe a word.  I made it all up.  So pass along, nothing to see here.

Do these socks make my feet look fat?*

Over the past few weeks, I've also been asked:

"Now that you're heading back does this mean you're going to be shutting down or renaming your blog?"

The short answer:
No and no.

The long answer:
Striped Socks and Skinny Jeans was never really about stripes, socks, skinny and/or jeans.**

It's always been about figuring out how to navigate where I am---which right now has been Stavanger, Norway and soon will be Atlanta, Georgia.

I've written about gettting hitched up, being newly married, traveling and having a baby, as well as other weighty topics such as wombats, how not to be burgled, glitter and tobacco.

I've even had contributors.

None of this will change.

So I'm just going to keep on with what I'm doing.

Please feel free to stop back by anytime.  You're always welcome.


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*Horizontal stripes are often not considered a great idea on most body parts unless you are very very brave.  I am not.  But stripes on feet?  I kind of like them.  They just seem friendly.

**The name came from my very first trip to Stavanger, which was not Husband's first trip.  (He's American, but had lived here before, moved back to the US.  Then we got hitched up and moved back to Stavanger for a few years.)

It was early in 2008 and as it often is in these parts, Stavanger was cold and rainy.  But being the optimistic sort that I am, I immediately tried to figure out how to make the dampness less annoying.  And I began with my feet, which if you've ever had really wet and cold feet, you may know that often that makes all the difference.

If you every happen to drop into Stavanger, and really most of Scandinavia, you'll notice that women tend to wear close-fitting pants or leggings, often jeans, tucked into knee high boots. I am convinced that it is less (or at least equal) a fashion statement and more of a practical one.  

On dark, dank days, the last thing you want to do is get the hemline of your pants wet.  Then not only will it eventually creep up your pants, but also will track into your home.

Which brings me to the next bit, the striped socks.  Unless it's a place of business, shoes are never worn inside.  Once you step over the threshold into your home, the shoes are removed.  And really, no one wants to see holey socks.

Also, I just like stripes.

Things I Will Miss, Part One

There have been a few common questions I've gotten when I've told people we're heading back to the US.

The most frequent one is "Aren't you so glad to be going back?"

And I am, mostly.

I want Elliot to grow up close to his cousins and I want him to spend lots of quality time with his NeeNee (BigD)*. My career has been on hold for the past two years and while** Husband and I are excited for me to be fully hands on for the next few years, I'd like to start dabbling in the freelance again when I can.  I miss great museums and we're going to spend lots of time at the High Museum of Art and at the Georgia Aquarium. I love going to matinee movies*** in the middle of the day. The mani/pedis are $20 and Elliot will have a backyard where I'm hoping we can clear out a space for a swing.

But we've had a great two years here.  It has been the best place for Husband and me to start off our adventure.  And other than the initial business about the car, which passed, we've been really happy.

And there are going to be lots of things, I'm really going to miss.  Below aren't all, but just what popped into my head at this minute....

Girlfriends
No matter how much I love Husband,**** I always need at least one good girlfriend.  And in my time here, I've been so so lucky to have had several.  Some who have moved on to their next location and one in particular who is here on a semi-permanent basis. It's going to be no fun to be six time zones away, but there's Skype and also a pile of airline miles, some of which are going to be used to pop over to Atlanta.  So there's that.

The language
I am no good at the speaking, but I've gotten fairly okay about understanding a little bit when I am listening.***** Norwegian is a challenging language, especially for me and especially because it's Germanic-based.  The rules can simple, but the exceptions are tough.  And the cadences are fun to hear, but they are so hard to emulate...But I still love it. My favorite part is that many of the words are just what they are. For instance, hospital is "sykehus" (sick house) and kennel is "hundepensjonat" (dog hotel).  It's straightforward and great, which is akin to how the Norwegian people are in general.

Baby Cakes

Pre-Elliot, Husband and I took a childbirth class with nine other couples.  And those moms, along with one mom we adopted from a pre-natal yoga class, have met every week since with our sweet babies.  Those weekly meet-ups saved me in the beginning when I was so tired and recovering.  And as the months have passed, it's been one of the major highlights of our week. We visit and compare notes on everything.  And Elliot LOVES his friends.

Roundabouts

This is a pretty rotten photo, but you know what roundabout are. Traffic merges, comes together, then splits off into all the different individual ways.  Sometimes there is just one lane, but often there are as many as three or four, but it all works. Navigating them in the beginning was nothing less than a giant, pain-in-the-caboose challenge, but as the months have passed, I kind of love them.  Seriously. It's much like walking on the streets of New York.  No matter how many people there are, if you know what you're doing, people just move and make it work and it does.

The airport

Ahh the airport.  I've always loved the airport.******  And I love this one, too.  Husband (and now Elliot, too) have had so so many great adventures that (for the most part) started right here.  Europeans know how to live.  No joke.  They work to live, not live to work. And while Husband has worked so so hard, we have also been traveling.  And, once we're back in the States, that kind of adventure will be over, at least for a while.  We'll still go places and do things, but it won't be quite the same.

This sandwich

I LOVE this sandwich.  I kid you not.  It's chicken breast, with hummus and lettuce and tomato on sourdough bread.  If you're in Stavanger, go to either of the Ostehuset locations, go immediately and eat it. Look on the menu under "Sanwich på dansk rugbød." And it's called exactly what it is...Hummus, kylling, ruccula og tomater.******* Have them put it on their sandwichbrød ("sandwich bread,") which is this light, fluffy sourdough-ish bread.  Then ask for an extra side of the hummus.  It's an awesome mix of chunky hummus, with just a tad of curry, but they are a little stingy with it. Good stuff. Trust.





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*Hopefully a few of which are overnighters, once the little man can handle it.  I am not worried about NeeNee's skill in this, she's a pro and I have already scheduled a weekend with her in Spring 2010 so Husband and I can have a weekend away.  I love the little man like crazy, but I love his daddy like crazy, too.

**If all things go well...

***This ship may have sailed.

****And it's alot.

*****Which really means that I could have a small little conversation with a toddler and could gather the subject of a conversation being had by grow-up.  It's hard.

******Seriously.  In most of my jobs, I've always had to travel.  And in a few of them, alot.  And, especially in the years before the things happened in New York, I loved going to the airport early just to watch the travelers.  You can see the entire range of human emotions within the walls of any airport.  Everybody is going on some kind of an adventure.  It's amazing.

*******Which shockingly enough is the "Hummus, chicken, lettuce and tomato" sandwich.  It is, what it is.