Thanksgiving at Thayer

Because of Cannon Beach rental rules, the rental for our house couldn’t start until Thursday. The rental agency called Wednesday night and said the house was ready and we could get there “as early as we wanted”, and I wondered if that meant (wink, wink) that we could go on Wednesday night. It didn’t matter because we weren’t ready anyway.

Our rental this year is Thayer house at 123 Laurel, just a couple blocks west of the Coaster Theater. It’s the best location of any house we’ve ever rented, close to town and on the beach. It’s also badly in need of a facelift – it just looks old and tired inside. That said, it’s very comfortable and super convenient to town (did I mention that) and everything works and we’re happy to be here.

We left home a little after 9 and were here and unpacked by 11. Jen made the traditional Stromboli (if it starts to get brown too soon, cover it with tinfoil and keep baking) which we had with a bag of salad. After lunch Dave prepared the bird and the rest of us relaxed. I started working on the first sleeve for my Dubioza sweater, which I worked out the chart for and which I am hoping will go well. Once the bird was in, Dave and I went for a walk down towards midtown, but turned back when Dave’s turkey sense told him the turkey was starting to get too brown and needed to be tented.

We came back on the beach road that goes past Captain Kellogg’s (aka Crab Shack), where we stayed two years ago, and Sea Forever which is next door to CK aka CS where we stayed last year. Faithful readers will recall that we stayed at Sea Forever last year because we couldn’t rent CK/CS because it was being “renovated”, and it turned out that in fact it had been torn down and a new house was being built on the lot. We’re staying at Thayer this year because Sea Forever was being “renovated”, and when we walked by it sure was – the balcony on the second floor is mostly removed and the door leading out to it is boarded over, and the entire inside has been gutted, including removing several of the walls. With a track record like this, we would not be surprised if Thayer is the next in line for renovations.

Anyway, when we got back to the house Josh was just checking the turkey, which he said was starting to "smell brown". I am amazed to be among people with such strong turkey senses. Eventually it was time for Josh and Jen to join Dave in prepping the other meal ingredients – 

Jen does the mashed potatoes and Josh does the gravy and the grandma salad (with honeycrisp apples this year – we all agree they’re better than the traditional golden delicious). We all took a break to go out and watch the sunset. Although there were clouds on the horizon the sun set through a gap in them and there was even a small green flash. Then back in and back to work. Dave has the timing down even working with a different oven every year, and we sat down to dinner a little before 6, as planned. After dinner we got the leftovers put away and the kitchen cleaned up, and then there was a little game playing in which I didn’t win anything. But I did beat Josh at Trouble – we were 2^nd and 3^rd losers. Jen won, of course, because she used up all the threes.

We were all too full for pie, even after all the game playing and duolingo-ing and reading. So we went to bed without eating any. This has never happened before.