In order to totally understand a holiday like Thanksgiving, we first have to understand that there is a basic symmetry in the universe.\u00a0 Thanks to our friends, Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking, we have quarks and quirks, string theory and string bikinis, dark matter and dark meat (from the turkey, of course).\u00a0 Special thanks must be given to Werner Heisenberg who kindly gave us the \u201cuncertainty principle\u201d, which limits precision in quantum theory.\u00a0\u00a0 To apply Heisenberg to our general life, a bit of extraordinary extrapolation perhaps, it is guaranteed that there will be a certain amount of unpredictability in our lives.\u00a0 So for all of you fans suffering from OCD, sorry but you cannot always be prepared for what comes next.<\/p>\n
Thanksgiving should be classified as \u201cThe Holiday of the Anomaly\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0We see both sides of the coin throughout the entire day.\u00a0 Many of us get to spend the holiday with family members, a group which may include those members that we truly love and wish to see more often.\u00a0 But then there are those that we would far prefer to stay in the other room (or Siberia, if possible).\u00a0\u00a0 In-laws aside, who are already classified as the \u201cenemy\u201d, we may have to deal with cousins that we really never liked, uncles and aunts that insist on pinching your kids\u2019 cheeks (knowing full well that the kids hate it), and relatives with political opinions to the right of \u201cAttila the Hun\u201d.<\/p>\n
The food at Thanksgiving is often the standard fare, with a few twists occasionally thrown in.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0A scrumptious turkey or ham generally graces the table at a traditional family feast.\u00a0 If you have Italian relatives, you may find lasagna or pasta carbonara invading the norm.\u00a0 \u00a0The center of the table displays a large dish of giblet gravy, a visually unappealing substance.\u00a0 However, when embraced by your taste buds, a sensation of delight sends your palate into overload. \u00a0\u00a0The festive table is adorned with a wide variety of side dishes: multiple types of stuffings; cranberry sauces; broccoli; candied yams with marshmallows; and those ever-popular brussels sprouts.\u00a0 The dessert table will be saturated with delicacies: apple and pumpkin pies; fresh fruit platters; and a multitude of pastries.\u00a0 This is a feast fit for any king and his court.<\/p>\n
But then there arrives the relative who finds tryptophan to be an issue, so a substitution of capon for the turkey becomes a necessity.\u00a0 We may have to endure the semi-Kosher Jewish relative, who is not about to tolerate ham at the table.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not forget the vegan, who will scoff at the glorious display at the table, while lecturing the family with \u201ccruelty to animal\u201d slogans recited from the PETA website.\u00a0 \u00a0And finally we have the \u201cdieters\u201d who view the dessert table with lust, while stating very firmly that we should be bringing up our children with a much healthier diet.<\/p>\n
There is rarely enough room at the main table, so kids are often relegated to a separate table or even a separate room.\u00a0 That is ok until you receive the slew of complaints from the teenagers that they do not desire to eat with the five and six year old \u201cbrats\u201d that are \u201cjust so annoying\u201d.\u00a0 (They don\u2019t want to be around the extremely boring adults either!)\u00a0 And for that matter, why did they have to come to Thanksgiving dinner anyway; they could have had a much better time staying home, playing video games with their friends!<\/p>\n
For the male attendees of the holiday, there is Thanksgiving Day football, Green Bay vs. Detroit, an absolute necessity for all true fans.\u00a0 This is where Heisenberg\u2019s \u201cuncertainly principle\u201d appears to fail = Green Bay has won the last eight Thanksgiving Day games.<\/p>\n
History paints a beautiful picture of the first Thanksgiving.\u00a0 Somehow I have a little trouble visualizing the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe sitting at a giant table, dining in peace and comradery, celebrating a future of peace between Europeans settlers and Native Americans.\u00a0 Being slightly cynical, I cite the words of the great statesman, Jon Stewart<\/i>, who describes the holiday in his memorable words, \u201cI celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In order to totally understand a holiday like Thanksgiving, we first have to understand that there is a basic symmetry in the universe.\u00a0 Thanks to our friends, Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking, we have quarks and quirks, string theory and string bikinis, dark matter and dark meat (from the turkey, of course).\u00a0 Special thanks must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pearlsofwisdom.guru\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}