Bok, Bok

So much more than a mis-spelling of "Book, Book"

It is a truth universally accepted that a family during the festive season must be in want of good telly. Fortunately, the folks at Shaw (Canadian digital provider) have come up with the ultimate solution for Thanksgiving (which is today if you're in Canah-diah): Turkey TV. All day long, lucky lucky Canadians celebrating the holiday can tune in and watch a turkey being roasted. Live. (Just the filming, not the turkey, one hopes) With occasional basting. There is even the roasting of vegetables and the stoking of fires. Most festive indeed.

Moi? I got to watch the little plane move slowly over a digital map of England, the North Sea, Belgium, Germany and the Czech Rep. Not a golden brown roasted parsnip in sight. Not even a baguette, since the gastronomes on the incoming flight from Milano had scoffed the lot. I was offered a "snak-pak" as a substitute, but refrained on the grounds that the spelling would give me indigestion.

But I am thankful. Mainly and rather selfishly, I'm thankful that I don't have to get on another plane for four whole days. Even a floatplane. I'm on bended knees with gratitude that for the last couple of trips I've come out good well hunting in the charter flight/cheap airline seating roulette, and ended up at one end of a row graced by an unoccupied middle seat and a non-psychopathic neighbour with progressive ideas about hygiene at the far end (now I've gone and done it…) Then there's the business of the rediscovered, unsquished mocha brownie extravaganza at the bottom of my carry-on bag. And of course, I'm also thankful for the usual: family, friends, sentience, fruit, opposable thumbs, the recent dvd release of season 2 of Green Wing.

So happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate it today, even if your turkey is only virtual (and by that, of course I don't mean turkey twizzlers). And happy advance thanksgiving planning to those south of the 49th parallel who have to wait another month(?) but may even be looking up pumpkin pie recipes as I type. In case anyone's wondering, I'll be having eggs tonight. But I might decorate them with a drumstick-shaped splodge of hot sauce.