This is your Community Bulletin for the week ending November 26th, 2016.
It’s coming to you a little late because some of us were touched by unfortunate history. Let me explain…
Thanksgiving, the joyous day of fellowship and gluttony was a great success through much of Leverite. I’ve heard told that the gathering over at the Ansari household was a fête for the ages. They had unexpected relatives and long-lost friends rolling in all weekend like the party scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Abraham was pretty exhausted afterward, but said with a thin smile that “It was…too good. Nothing that joyous should happen until you are about to die. Nothing can top that. Aaahhhhh. Nothing can top that.” He then went back to trying to patch his previously pristine front lawn, which now lay in ruin after serving as a parking lot for most of the weekend.
The gathering at Edna’s, it is said, was a delightful, if low-key affair. It was the first time in many years where Edna permitted the TV to be turned on in the diner. Moreover, it was turned to The Big Game. “After two years of dirty politics, it felt like an appropriate gift,” she said while slinging plates. “Now are you here to order or help with dishes? ’cause I’ve got no time to chitchat.”
Even Brother Louis had guests at the chapel. A young man named Chris, calling himself “a wandering seeker,” stopped in for a few days, shared food and drink, then continued down the road. Chris flew from Arizona to Barrow, Alaska back in the spring, and has been walking south since then. His goal is to reach Tierra del Fuego, on foot as much as possible. “That’s the excuse, of course. Really, I’m trying to find something. Something I doubt I ever lost, but just can’t see right now. It’s like feeling in your pocket and knowing it’s empty, only to later realize what you were ‘missing’ were your car keys, which, you know, you had absently stuck in a different pocket.” It was a pretty rewarding experience for Brother Louis. I think he saw something of himself in the young man. “Someday, he may find that you can stay in one place and have the river flow to you,” he said with a smile, “until then, Godspeed him.”
The Thanksgiving gathering for the Museum staff, on the other hand, ended with a lot of gut-ache and wretching, as something wasn’t quite right with one of the dishes. Initially folks thought it might have been the bird, cooked as it were by the younger, clearly less-experienced and out-of-town Miss Sixkiller. As she realized this was being suggested she politely pointed out that, “Oh HELL no, I’ve been cooking turkey since I was twelve. You are NOT gonna hang this on my bird. I’ll send this off to a pathology lab faster than you can say ‘hypocritical [redacted].'”
The next object of suspicion was Amma’s mushroom casserole, but nobody said anything. The questioning glances were not missed by Amma however, and she seemed rather hurt by the unspoken accusations. Stunned, all looked to her with pleading or conciliatory glances, but the damage was done, though not a word was said.
The real culprit, I suspect, was the wine. Mrs Holt, as you know, won’t eat anything she didn’t raise and kill herself, and so brought her own food to the shindig. The only thing she had that the rest of us had was the bottle of antique wine we had found in the storeroom last year that we held on to for a special occasion. The one hundred and twenty year old bottle…with the questionable cork…found in a collapsed cellar The one that technically was an irreplaceable artifact?
I don’t mean to stir up the pot. I’m just saying that some poor decisions come with their own inherent punishments.
That said, it’s time for another round of chalky pink stomach elixir and acetaminophen.
We will return you to your regularly scheduled news as soon as we can walk this off.
This Community Bulletin made possible by the traveling clinic from the local trauma center. Thanks, Docs!
