A Piteous State of Affairs

Update:

I now submit for your approval, The Thanksgiving Day Blues ; a piteous tale of two idealistic young women, a struggling nation and a dream.

Sarah and I took a walking tour of the city (Vientiane, Laos for those of you not updated) that day, thinking we would undoubtedly hit a restaurant or hotel with Thanksgiving dinner. We wandered for hours. We all but gave up hope and settled on an Aussie ex-pat bar with burgers, chicken and such. Then in our afternoon wanderings, we saw it. "Turkey dinner. Come experience American Thanksgiving. $7 special."

Our prayers had been answered. I remained skeptical, let me say for the record...having been in Vientiane for 4 days and not spotting a single American, my fears were well founded. But Sarah was adamant and we couldn't pass it up.

Eagerly, we went home, showered, changed into the nicest clothes we had, (not that nice...but still...) tried our best to beautify.

We arrived, breathless with anticipation. Ordered a bottle of white wine. They came back with two glasses of red.

This, in retrospect, should have been a sign.

They brought dinner...apparently they only heard us ask for one turkey dinner, and one they brought. We waited in vain for the second. Eventually, we decided to split it, then ask for another when the time came. Forks poised, we dug in.

It was terrible. Needless to say, this is not turkey country. Turkey had no flavor, no gravy and was dry. They put chili peppers in all of the veggies and potato's. There was no promised cranberry sauce. Instead of green beans they places a few salad leafs in the center. The promised pumpkin pie was spiced up beyond recognition.

Dejected, we paid our bill and went to the Aussie restaurant. This was Thanksgiving goddamn it. And we were going to be full to the point of vomiting if it killed us. Another meal was ordered, and then we were informed that a special presentation was happening upstairs about unexploded bombs left from the Vietnam War and their effect in Laos. We took our meal up there, and enjoyed our burgers over tales of 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos not exploding during the war, causing an enormous casualties in the last 30 years, wreaking havoc on the economy, etc. Not your typical Thanksgiving chatter.

We got out too late for any real dessert.

Misery misery misery.

And then suddenly in an embarrassed rush we remembered.

We have quite a bit to be thankful for.