Gobble

MY THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY.
by jenni ripley.

I got up. I got dressed. I went outside. I took a picture of la casa, with snow. And vehicles.

I took a Thanksgiving picture of myself in said vehicle, which was cold and made uncomfortable creaking noises when I backed out. You would think that a Swedish automobile would be made for cold weather, but it’s not. It’s made for lovin’. Also, speeding.

It was a beautiful day outside⁴. My car told me it was just below freezing, and in Minnesota at the end of November, that might as well be summer. The sky was the perfect blue, it was sunny, the trees were covered in frost, and the snow hadn’t yet turned grey. As you can see, my car was also playing me track 8 off the White Stripes’ Elephant (i.e. ‘Ball and Biscuit’), which is, in my completely unbiased opinion, one of the best songs for gettin’ it on, ever.

I got coffee. Since I posted a picture of my ugly grey house, I might as well post a picture of my second home. Or my home office, as I like to call it.

I went to the Y. On the way there, I enjoyed having almost the entire world to myself, or at least the entire city of Edina. Everyone was still at home asleep, or claiming their place on the sofa with the family-sized bag of Funyons, ready for whatever sporting event was happening. Football, I think. Or NASCAR. Right.

This might be weird, but I really love seeing all the deserted stores. Target, with its vast empty parking lot, a few wayward shopping carts being blown around by the wind. The windows dark at Best Buy. If there’s something to be relied upon in America, it’s our commerce. Seeing it shut down and neglected is trippy and confusing. Some people have visions of the apocalypse as fire and chaos and war; for me, it’s an empty Wal-Mart. Awesome.

The YMCA was packed and sweaty. Partly because it was only open til noon, but mostly because everyone wanted to get in their pre-gorge penance. I was amused by the number of people who were there signing up and taking their tour on Thanksgiving. I realize it’s going to be crazy there until mid-January, when people get bored with their resolutions. Oh, and I took a photo in the locker room. It’s fuzzy because I was being surreptitious, and I did it just to prove I would, in fact, take a picture in the women’s locker room.

Speaking of Best Buy, I took a picture driving past their headquarters. Tell me it’s not menacing. There are eight of these Best Buy sandcrawlers.

I had to go to the bank. But rather than photodocument my credit union, which is not only boring but possibly even illegal, I decided to give you a photo tour of the area instead. You see, my bank is next door to the Mall of America. And if I was freaked out by an empty Target parking lot, imagine the thrill I got from the Mall!

I wanted to drive up to the top level of the ramp, but security had closed it. I imagined this was a completely inept attempt to prevent another jumper, and didn’t take it personally. I settled for level 7, which still gave me a good view of the new IKEA. Their press release says it’s the hugest goddamn store they’ve ever built (in those exact words), but it doesn’t look like it to me. I guess I should keep in mind that it’s next door to the national monument to shopping, which makes entire planets seem small in comparison.

Here’s my car again. I always take pictures with my car in them, because we’re close. In fact, the vacation photo with the open car door is a standard theme for me, a technique I rely upon as a photodocumentary journalist. Also, the mall parking ramp is empty. Empty!

Here’s me at the Mall.

Looking north toward civilization. That’s downtown Minneapolis in the background.

A tiny little bit of the Mall. With skyways, which seem to confuse people not from here. You can’t fit the whole thing in one picture, so try to multiply this by 50 in your head.

Back at home, prep was underway. The Jack isn’t for Thanksgiving. Not for the guests, at least.

Here’s where the photos leave off, because the rest of the afternoon was laundry and cleaning and burning CDs and visiting Stephanie and Escobar, because I am a good sister, really. I care.

Then Heather and I went on a quest for dinner. You know what’s open for dinner on Thanksgiving? Nothing. Well, there are a few places, but they were offering all the meat and potatoes we couldn’t eat. So we went to the CC Club, because bars stay open on holidays. They’d be stupid not to.

Now I’ll tell you why CC Club was the perfect choice, while all you suckers got stuck with turkey and extended family.

• Thanksgiving nachos (these differ in no way from regular nachos, except that you eat them on Thanksgiving).
• Half a Thanksgiving gardenburger.
• Creepy staring locals seated at the bar.
• Peter (the server), who has achieved the perfect balance of sweetness and apathy.
• The jukebox. My masterful three-song playlist consisted of the White Stripes (the aforementioned track, which makes Heather roll her eyes all the way back into her skull), Willie Nelson, and Har Mar Superstar.
• The girl at the door, who was adorning the newspaper’s coloring-contest turkey with fangs.
• The drama of the unhappy couple at the table next to ours, who drank about four sips of an entire pitcher of beer, then left, angry.

END PHOTODOCUMENTARY.

¹ The girls at Dunn Brothers know that the quickest way to win my undying affection is through the secret bonus shot of espresso.

Dear Coffee Girls:

I love you. However, my coworkers hate you, because they can’t get me to shut up.

Jenni

² You can’t go wrong with the southern punk rock:

You drank all my whiskey/ You stole all my smoke.

That’s right. Also, their website tells me they’re opening for the Strokes on New Year’s Eve in Vegas. Oh man. I so so so want to be there.

³ I’m not telling you that number, because you’d think I was an asshole. You’d be right, but I still don’t need to be providing further evidence.

⁴ You know that line at the end of Fargo when Marge says, “There’s more to life than a little money, y’know. Don’t you know that? And here you are. And it’s a beautiful day.” It’s one of my favorite movie moments ever.

⁵ The Tofurky Feast features not only the Tofurky, but un-gravy, tempeh drummettes, and Tofurky Jurky Wishstix. Also, research for this footnote has led me to a discovery which makes me want to declare, once again, how much I totally fucking LOVE the internet:

The Tempeh Drummette Manifesto

Bring on the ecotoxins. Yum!