Saucyman: You Say it's Your Thanksgiving, Well it's my Thanksgiving too

Thursday, November 27, 2008

You Say it's Your Thanksgiving, Well it's my Thanksgiving too

For those who need a little turkey support, cooking hints or just possess a voyeuristic need to look in on other’s day. Kim Severson of The New York Times will be blogging her day and dinner here - Maybe next year I will sell my services as a Thanksgiving coach - Best business cards ever: Account manager? Nope, Thanksgiving Coach - an imprint of a pie on business stationery, now that is cool.

For the first time in 18 years, I will be guesting instead of hosting/co-hosting Thanksgiving. Despite fighting an urge to get up and check the oven for pie or stuff something with something else, I feel surprising good about change of roles.

Granted the host/guest relationship is a bit symbiotic, or maybe a better way to state that is the two roles aren’t that sharply divided, they blur into one another. A host makes sure their guests are comfortable and sated. A good guest can help the host by behaving, staying relatively sober and like a good host, being thoughtful to the needs of the others at the event.

A good guest, according to the axiom - never shows up empty handed. Maybe a better way of stating that is you gotta bring something. Not necessarily material something either - there are ways to help a host that are worth more than a moderately priced bottle of wine. Not that there is anything wrong with moderately priced wine or premium bourbon for that matter.

Offer to help. The timely offer of help is the greatest gift of all. Help in the kitchen? Sometimes extra bodies aren’t help at all. Be careful about the difference between hanging out in the kitchen and actually helping. You should not be in the kitchen if you aren’t peeling, trimming, washing dishes or performing a specifically requested task. Yeah, that is kinda like the job description for a dishwasher/prep cook but it is the selfless guest is going to chip in with some thankless jobs.

Help takes different forms. Do you like children, watch them. Do you pride yourself on your ability to be able to hold a conversation with anyone? Maybe your cousin’s hot friend needs less chatting up than your great aunt - Just suggestin’. Make sure everyone is included in conversation. Ask plenty of questions and be respectful to the expressed opinions of others that are different from your own – no matter how ill-informed they are. When frustrated conversationally, ask questions not make statements.

Watching football? Maybe you work hard, have a busy schedule through December and just want to drink beer and watch football with your day. Okay maybe that is true for the host as well and they decided to have 20 people over to their home. Even if you are a guest, the event isn't about your wishes and desires. If football is an integral part of the event, watch it, if you are the only one watching a game in the basement, rethink your strategy.

Watch the txt messaging and no matter what else, 15 minutes worth of dishes is a requirement.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Saucyman will – taking a few days off before returning on Monday with a new post by Charles Seluzicki.

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Basketball

Since the lockout ended, I have been largely silent about the great sport of basketball. Despite Brandon Roy retiring, despite my beloved Blazer’s sprint out of the blocks to a really good start, despite my home team playing a style of basketball than can no longer be described as Van Gundying (Jeff) up the sport’s fluidity.

I don’t know, some interesting developments transpired: During the lockout, analysts and beat writers, the very people who possibly think about professional basketball more than I do, had a light bulb go on over their collective heads and across the league they discovered what everyone else pretty much already knew, NBA Commissioner David Stern is a dick. Over the last decade Stern forced bankrupt municipalities to build new stadiums for billionaires’ new play thing, this heavy handed behavior garnered nothing but praise. The writers sighed and thought eh, “we live in the suburbs, we write for suburban middle managers, our values are if anything anti-urban” - with all the weight that word carries. But needlessly locking out players jeopardizing their tenuous employment in publishing, well that is something that we might complain about except they hate the players more - Oh the conflict.

But mostly I can’t get excited about any team helmed by Nate McMillan. We’ll make the playoffs with a pretty good but not best record, maybe get home court advantage in the first round and then fail to advance. This is true until McMillan proves otherwise, 11 years a coach out of the first round once - this record while coaching some pretty good but not great teams. Along the way Nate will overplay star forwards LaMarcus Aldridge and Gerald Wallace so there is nothing in the tank come playoff time and risk their health. And yo-yo Nicholas Batum’s minutes so the young player becomes a head case instead of developing into a consistent contributor.

So a predictable finish is part of the my own jejune response to the return of the sport of kings (not really, that's horse racing) maybe it's the sweet science (damnit google says that's boxing). My attitude goes deeper than a finish more predictable than one of McMillan's earth toned, triple pleated suits, if the lockout exposed a fault line in NBA coverage it's that broadcasters and writers are now PR agents for the teams - so who is left to advocate for the fan - thank goodness for blogs and the posting cyborg that is named Henry Abbott.

2nd round or bust