Oh, yeah...blogging

I was reminded of a couple things recently that are tenuously related like most of the things in my life.

The first reminder was from my sister. We had a family gathering and she casually mentioned that I hadn't been doing much with the blog since China. So I was reminded that I am a slacker. I'm a slacker with enough ambition to create a blog, enough confidence to announce to anyone that cares to listen that I am going to write things about my life, my world and my thoughts and then just enough slacker to allow weeks to go by with nothing said. Sorry, Christie...I am back on it now...


The other remindering was this morning. On my drive in NPR had a story about lobster and Thanksgiving that reminded me about my Thanksgivings past. My family was never, collectively, a huge fan of turkey (probably the amount of work + the amount of ceremony + the slim margin of error to get it right) but we do like our lobster. For many years, my family would spend our Thanksgivings out to dinner with the Duivens at a restaurant that served lobster and almost everyone would order one (Dad would often as not go for lamb because Mom won't cook it at home). Eventually, lobster became our turkey-of-the-sea and even when we would cook at home for the holiday, lobster would take center stage. Eventually, Thanksgiving moved from my parents house and the lobster tradition moved from eating them in November to dressing like them in October (see gratuitous Grace picture) and most of my parent's friends created a horse track Thanksgiving that is much less work and many more trifectas.

Even though it is now a ghost of traditions-past, I have always thought of lobster as a modern Topliff (ok, and Duiven) Thanksgiving tradition. Now that the all-knowing NPR points out that it was on the menu in 1621 at the First Thanksgiving alongside Wild Turkey and delicious eagle (which eventually beat out the Turkey to be the national bird and left our menus forever), I have to wonder if this tradition is genetic. While there were no Topliffs at the first Thanksgiving (on either side of the table), as far as I know, they did show up about 14 years later and settled in Dorchester Massachusetts so maybe our habits stretch back that far. Before Grace came along, I spent some time tracing the family tree, so I will have to look and hopefully get some of that down here. If someone reminds me...