Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

[renaeden]

Gomez Addams - the father, John Astin
Morticia Addams - the mother, Carolyn Jones
Puggsley Addams - the son, Ken Weatherwax
Wednesday Addams - the daughter, LIsa Loring
Uncle Festus- the uncle, Jackie Coogan
Grandmama - Gomez's mother, Blossom Rock
Cousin Itt - Felix Silla
Lurch - the butler, Ted Cassidy
Thing T. Thing - Ted Cassidy or Jack Voglin

^My ex-boyfriend was sometimes called Lurch by his mates, he certainly had the build and could do the same voice pretty well.

I think it was Uncle Fester instead of Festus?

[odeon]

Yeah, Fester sounds right to me.

[Lestat]

Yeah, its fester.

There is an (in)famous clandestine chemist (although not either a pariticularly intelligent nor very capable one) who goes under uncle fester, and he's got several books out, such as 'secrets of methamphetamine manufacture' and 'secrets of methamphetamine manufacture II. Never read his books, but when he posted at a prominent forum it seemed easily apparent that he was not what one could call the brightest fairy-light on the xmas tree, and I'd certainly not use his works fguidance thats for sure. That and fester is an arrogant shit too. Never liked a damn thing about UF, and i still don't either.

[Queen Victoria]

Ya'll are right.  Festus was on Gunsmoke.   

[Lestat]

The real uncle fester is as much of a mental case as his Addams family counterpart. Although with one main difference-the fictional one isn't an unreliable cunt by nature who's writeups I avoid like a case of the black death starting from an infected flea biting one after crawling up the eye of one's dick to the depths of one's urethra before biting and vomiting forth Y.pestis-infested part-digested blood from a previous, bubonic-plague-infected victim.

[DirtDawg]

Hey, Pyraxis,

How many other Canadians are on this site? I wonder.  I wish you a belated happy day in general and specifically on your Thanksgiving.

I see that you have gained a nickname from a prominent poster; Raxy?

Honestly, if I was going to "bless" you with one of my nicknames, I might call you Pyra and associate a bonfire at your command as an type extension of your name (awesomeness?).

I have a "friend" who is considered Native American by some but he prefers to be called just an "Indian" (the nomenclature, Native American has no meaning to him since he is native to a land that was existing centuries before it took the name America) and he despises the capitalized word "Thanksgiving."
In his belief system the tradition of thanksgiving was more like a thanksTAKING.
He claims to be Algonquin from southern New York and he rejects the whole white people thing we do every year.
In his view the thanks that is owed has never been offered.

He has told me what his original people were called but it is too many syllables to remember. It has nothing at all to do with York, but their native tongue name for a river there.

Just wondering if you had any thoughts upon the notion of thanksTAKING by so many of us whites.

*grin*

Heyyy, you're back. It's good to see you. I like both Raxy and Pyra so no objections here. As far as I know it's just me and Phoenix, there have been a few others but no one who's currently active. We're fire people up here, got to be with all the snow. 

WolFish was some small part Blackfoot - any more knowledge than that has been lost - his family, a couple generations back, set out to pass for black because there was less stigma, and even then his father wouldn't admit to the connection directly. He said something like "my aunt is part Blackfoot" and yet the aunt is a full sister to the grandfather. I might have the relations wrong. But the gist of it is that the family hid it, and WolFish was the only one who had any interest in going to powwows or reconnecting with roots. One of the things that's hitting me hard is that he was so excited that we were moving out here closer to Blackfoot territory and then he never made it. He wanted to see what the land was like.

WolFish liked to play fast and loose with holidays, like with names - the idea that a name was not a permanent thing and you earned or took on different ones at different times of your life. He made up holidays too - we used to celebrate Homters instead of Valentines 'cause neither of us gave a shit for pink sugar overload. I think he would have just as soon called it Gatherday instead of Thanksgiving. These all have stories behind them. But he loved Thanksgiving as the start of the Christmas season which was his favourite time of year. We always did a turkey (well mostly him, I did the pumpkin pie) and listened to Alvin Ailey and his mother's traditional Christmas CD that I can't actually think of the name of, but I know the songs very well. It starts with this superspeed rendition of the Handel's Messiah Alleluia chorus which he said she would always play at top volume and catapult everyone out of bed. 

I see it as a harvest festival more than any kind of political thing between Indians and whites. I wasn't even aware of the sickening extent to which people in the USA play that up until I saw the scene in the Addams Family movie where Wednesday sets the whole damn thing on fire (which is awesome,  ) and realized that it was parodying something that actually happens.

I think your friend is right, though, there's not much thanks to be had to the people that actually deserve it.

I have come to agree with him over the years.
We never talked about these things for many years, but one day the damn dam just broke and we were so much more open with each other. I think it took me many years to gain a type of trust with what he thinks of as a "true trust" (see they do not need the extra word when dealing with their own, but when dealing with "us" outsiders, they have to add the adjective as a kind of bridging device) before he spoke his mind freely with me and I did the same.

I am not sure how I have earned this "true trust,"  but I am honored to be in that fold.

I like the idea that Wolf did the turkey. I am only "allowed to touch"  our turkey when I plan to slow smoke one outside. Often the weather is too messy, but when things go just right, I slow smoke a turkey for about sixteen hours.

I might adapt/adopt the term Gatherday to my own needs.

[DirtDawg]

Actually, my Gatherday was two days ago and yesterday, I was off work and I brought everything in from the garden that could possibly be salvaged (and would not survive the early frosts, such as any tomatoes or peppers, tropical spices, etc).  All the various greens and root crops, such as spinach - quite hardy, kale - even more hardy, carrots - hardier still, turnips - very hardy, just mulch them over ...   all will be well.

I took all the tropicals and made a fabulous chili, froze the left over basil, cumin, sage, cilantro, etc.

I canned seventeen quarts of beets over the past three days. Nothing like pickled beets in the winter or early spring.

Hard freeze three days in a row. Gardening is over for the most part.

[Pyraxis]

 

I didn't have a garden this year because of the move, but I have high hopes for building one next year. The back yard is a great big empty blank canvas with nothing but grass and patches of concrete. The wheelbarrow has been acquired and the compost bin built and fed. I also want to get one of those multiple plant pot hangers, a metal structure like a coat rack with pots hanging off it, and put it inside by the sunny kitchen window for an herb garden.

Tonight is pumpkin carving. 

[Lestat]

Decided that this coming spring is when I replant my collection of exotic psychotropic plants from around the globe (including plenty highly toxic ones with indigenous traditional uses by cultures around the world that I'd never use, but still enjoy growing, as part of a collection of wonders from all over the planet and all manner of different cultures, or which have been whilst still those cultures lived)

And to plant both a memorial garden for a clandestine chemist lass who I really cared for and never got to tell her. And also lots and lots of poppy fields (there will be poppies at her funeral garden too, lots of them, since I know she'd like that. Its all I can do for her, but at least I can do that something to commemorate her, to celebrate her life, her talent for clandestine chemistry and her love for the calling. A real A-grade Bee, she was.

Going to try and get the Khat seeds I have growing especially. And I really, really would love to get a collection of two rather special and rare plants growing, iboga, and coca. They can be got, but they are rare. And especially growing some iboga bushes, that would be a real prize treat of a specimen, the envy of collectors of such plants the world over

[DirtDawg]

So, tell me, if I order seeds for لقات I might be investigated by the DEA?

[Lestat]

I don't read arabic, DD. I assume given the culture and traditional users of khat, that you mean that, rather than iboga, since Iboga is used by the african Bwiti cult religion, who are a traditional tropical african jungle-living animist religion followers. (I do literally MEAN jungle-dwellers here, not being racist, thats where they live, and that is what they believe, in Bwiti, the iboga spirit)

DD-unlikely, very unlikely. And in any case, if they saw the plant growing even, as opposed to bundles of shoots wrapped in the traditional banana leaves, they would not recognize it.

I could, try and get some plants started even, if you wanted, and when they get big enough, assuming the seeds I have are viable still (refound them a few years after buying), take cuttings for you.

The seeds themselves are tiny little things, no more than a mm across, flat, with a little bit of membranous, wing-like projection on one end, so if you did order any they'd not make much of a package of note anyway.

Why, do you know where to buy them? because I'd quite like to order some known-to-be fresh and viable ones myself.

And if you ever decide to grow coca plants DD, make SURE to go for already living plants, don't buy coca seed because they only remain viable for a very very short time, a few months at most. But live plants are available online in some stores catering for plants for exotics enthusiasts that grow psychoactives. You really need the plants already rooted and growing to stand a chance with coca because of the low viability of the seeds.

If you have a place for the khat seed I've love to know it. Please post if you do. I have a little plastic packet with a few seeds in, but it is, as I say, a couple of years old, its tiny, no bigger than the tiny bags used for wraps of heroin or single grams of coke, ice, etc.

And as for coca, there are two commonly (as common as coca plants get anyhow) sold species, Erythroxylon coca, and another, E.novogratense. The former is the better producer of the two if a choice is available)