Thanksgiving 2005 at Lou and Linda's

Hau'oli la pelehu! Happy Thanksgiving Day! So this year, I opted for staying in town and spending with my friends, Louis his girlfriend Linda, Adam and his wife Grace. I don't think I have actually had a Thanksgiving holiday spent away from family before, so this was my first year.

Louis, some time prior to Thanksgiving day, had invited us to dinner. We had finished a morning of paddling in Marina Del Rey, and had gone to Garndena for lunch at Bob's Okazuya. He mentioned to us that he wanted to deep fry a turkey for T-day. Of course Adam, Grace and I were intrigued as to how this would taste. And so the invitation was thrown out there for us to come to dinner. And of course we accepted.

So T-day was upon us, and before setting foot in his place, I had to stop off at Savons to get myself some Claritin. Unfortunately for me, he and his girlfriend have two cats, and I'm allergic to those felines. So I intoxicated myself with the necessary remedies to make myself comfortable for the night. I arrive, and lowe and behold, i'm the first one there. Funny thing was that I was following "Hawaiian time" and was still early. Some time after Adam and Grace arrive. Lou and Linda were great hosts. They had poke for pupus and chips and salsa, and Adam made and brought his home made guacamole. It was pretty damned good. Once there, we began messing with our ukuleles. We had to try and tune Lou's instument, luckily for us we had tuners at our disposal and off we were. He needs some practice, but it's not like Adam and I were any Shimabukuros or anything. After having exhausted or fingers playing the "crazy g" arrangement, we turned our attention to hula. Adam and I had brought our Merrie Monarch DVD's for us to watch, and of course we were going through the pointing out people who we knew and what not... I think this is our subtly way of trying to get Lou and Linda to dance hula... we'll see.. ;)

Dinne was soon served and we were diggin into freshly deep fried turkey. Both of which was injected with spices and what not. We had two turkeys in all and one of which had cajun spices the other i forget what it was injected with. We also had Grace's mango salad, stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, yams, and of course Hawaiian potatoes... rice. Come on... we're hawaiian, we have to have rice! Anyways, there was little talking at the table. It was either because our m ouths were full of yummy tasty turkey and fixins or we were catching glimpses of performances that we had playing in the background from Merrie Monarch.

Lou was well prepared for our after dinner antics. Meaning he had gone out of his way to travel down to Torrance and buy us some nice desserts. He bought, Dobash cake, Guava cake, and Haupia cake. So for dessert we had those cakes AND pumpkin pie. All of us were grabbing slices of everything, and burying our taste buds in the multitudes of flavors! Hoh man! So after we were finished stuffing our faces, we retired to the front room to rest our stomachs. Of course we were still watching Merrie Monarch videos and seeing what was to come for the next year.

Amongst watching MM videos, Lou and Linda had us playing Texas Hold-em poker. I have never played this before. I have always watched this on television and what not, but I've never actually sat down and played this game before. Of of course I figured what the hell and we'll see how this goes. Lou was patient and explained all of this to us. I guess Adam knew how to play this. So I guess Lou was just addressing Grace and I. I knew how to play poker, and it wasn't much of a stretch for me to learn how to play this version. But unfortunately for Grace, sh ewasn't too familiar. As we played, we kept looking at Grace for her bets and actions. "I don't know..." (in a small voice) was her answer. I guess that because since she hadn't played poker before, she was unfamiliar to how to make the winning combinations one can have in a hand. Well as luck would smile on her, not long after having helped her, she was killing us. But thankfully beginner's luck only went so far for her. All in all we had a grat time playing this game. The big winners of the eveing was Grace and Adam.

After playing poker, of course we went back to watching more hula videos and ukulele playing. We saw what time it was and it was about to settle on midnight. We made our thanks and took our leave. I have to say, i had a great time there last night.... ;)

Thanks Lou and Linda!