Thanksgiving is fast becoming my favorite holiday. It’s hard to beat the fat guy in the red suit, but Thanksgiving in my world is just the weirdest, funnest (yes, I said funnest) damn thing you ever saw. (For confirmation check out last year’s holiday post titled “When sweet potatoes go wrong.”)

It all started when the internet service went down.

Our modem and router followed through on a suicide pact Tuesday, which lead to no small amount of cussing and one late-night trip to Best Buy, followed by more cussing and a lot of e-mails to tech support on my husband’s part.

While he did that, I made pie. Now, you have to understand, I hate making pie. Hate. It. I’m as afraid of making pies as I am of an IRS audit. You’ve got a top crust that’s just dying, DYING, to burn. A bottom crust soaking up apple juice and refusing to turn even the slightest bit of beige that might, in any way, indicate it was not raw. And a filling hidden inside, so who the hell knows what’s going on in there.

When in doubt, compensate, I say. So if a big scoop of apples and spices is good, then TWO scoops is better, right?

KA-POW-EE!

Turns out the structural integrity of the top crust was not rated for the second scoop. On the other hand, when it cools, it more or less collapses back down into the original pie shape, and you can totally cover that with whip cream.

You can do this while your husband is writing hate mail to tech support. For the second day.

Things were not right in the internet department of the Ream household until late Thursday morning, which you wouldn’t think would relate to turkey so much except that my husband unplugged and replugged our phone cord a number of times during the Great Online Disaster of ’07. That would’ve been fine except the last time he plugged it back in, he didn’t get it pushed in all the way. Not that we knew this until about 6:40 when the first of our guests managed to break into our apartment building…after standing outside for an hour…because our buzzer wouldn’t ring…because it goes through the phone line. They almost had to go home and eat frozen pizza, and the only thing that made me feel worse than having them stand outside all that time was that I was standing inside pissed as hell that our friends couldn’t show up on time after I’d spent all day blowing up pies. Oh yes, cue the guilt, people. Standing outside. On Thanksgiving. Holding a giant bouquet of flowers. Waiting for someone, anyone, to let them in. So, so sad.

The thing to understand about our Thanksgiving is that we don’t live within a day’s drive of anyone that could remotely be described as next of kin. And because 1,500 miles is a long way to go for dinner, we choose to celebrate with whatever motley group of other not-going-home-ers we can find. Nine times out of ten this means the only Americans at the table are us. This year we had Australians and Indians, which lead to a wee bit of a culturally based food problem. Turns out pumpkin pie does not translate. Okay, it does but not well, even when you manage to not blow that one up. The Australians had been around the American food block enough times to be familiar with the concept, but our Indian friends were dubious.

(Imagine her side of the conversation in an adorable accent.)

Friend: “Pumpkin is a vegetable.”

Me: “Yes. Also a pie.”

Friend: “Vegetables don’t go in pie.”

Me: “Generally true, but this is an exception.”

Friend: “Sugar and vegetables?”

Me: “Just one vegetable. It’s pureed.”

Friend: (silence)

Ultimately, one of our Indian friends had her very first piece of pumpkin pie. Apparently, she’d been afraid of cheesecake for years, too, having equated cheese with mozzarella. The cheesecake had been a hit. The pumpkin, not so much. She tasted it and then told me this story, which I swear to God, I’m not making up.

(Again, imagine the accent.)

“In India, after a cow gives birth, the first milk is very high in protein. It tastes terrible, but people believe it is very healthy for you. So they cook it and eat it. Tastes just like this.”

Really, what do you say to that?

Turns out, you say this: “Apple bomb instead?”

Hope you guys had a great one, and next year, you’ve got to make it to my place.