A very tofurkey thanksgiving.

This year was my third Thanksgiving away from my family. The first year was in 2009. I flew to Virginia to visit Jordan for a few days and we had our Thanksgiving meal alone together. We had grand plans to make a tofurkey roast but a few hours before we wanted to eat dinner, we finally read the package and realized we were supposed to thaw the roast overnight. Oops. So we had fake chicken patties instead. Oh well. I think I might even have some old pictures from that day...

We don't always read the directions right away...

The next day we had our roast.

 

Taken on campus at Virginia Tech.

Last year I flew to Columbus on Thanksgiving Day, got off the plane, went to Jordan's apartment to make a casserole with him, and we brought it to another couple's house (Ben and Steph) for dinner with a bunch of other people from the OSU Philosophy dept. I remember eating with all these people and thinking that they were strangers to me, but I knew that by the next year I would be living in Ohio and know all of them really well. And that's exactly what happened.

We went to Ben and Steph's house again this year and ate with about 10 other people. I made a big salad with homemade cranberry vinaigrette, a tofurkey roast (properly thawed in advance this time!), a fancy cheese and cracker tray, and some chocolate pretzel snacks. It was a lot of fun and there was a ton of great food. Many of Jordan's friends are also vegetarians so it's nice to have dinner with lots of delicious meat-free options. 

I had four days off of work which was a really nice vacation. We didn't do a lot, mostly cleaning around the apartment and decorating for Christmas. I've never cared much about decorating for holidays but I'm finding that now I live with Jordan I want to have more Christmas-y stuff around. I put out my advent calendar and we set up Jordan's little Charlie Brown tree with some ornaments. There hasn't been any snow here in Columbus yet, but there has been a ton of rain. Now that I don't have a garage anymore for my car I'm glad that I haven't had to scrape off any ice or snow in the mornings yet. 

I've also started the Cats-Be-Friends campaign again. I did some research online and got some library books about cat behavior with the hope of getting some ideas about how to makes the cats tolerate each other better. I bought some Feliaway spray and a diffuser for the apartment. It's supposed to have synthetic cat facial pheromones that cats naturally release when they rub their face affectionately on an object. By smelling the pheromones, it's supposed to relax the cat and make them more confident. I also got a 'comfort' collar for Stella that releases a smell they're supposed to like, a bag of cat nip, some homeopathic calming drops for their water, and some wet food to use as reward when things go well. We've started trying to keep the cats together in the living room in the evenings, giving them cat nip and wet food, and giving them affection when they're calm and getting along. It's a big project. I read a book by a cat behavior expert that said that sometimes cats will just not ever get along, no matter what you do. This isn't really an option for us so we're doing our best to make it work. Here are some pictures of the monsters. 

  It took a lot of time and effort to get them to lay together like this without growling and hissing. Stella is licking her lips because she wants more wet food. Also, notice how she's surrounded by cat nip. I have to drug my animals to keep them from fighting.

The orange brothers are ready for Santa to arrive.