Thanksgiving and a Karaoke Birthday

Well, despite all my misgivings about my first attempt to cook a 15-lb turkey, Thanksgiving turned out impressively well. Thanks to days of preparation and some wonderful assistant cooks (or just Nic, really), there was quite an impressive spread for Thanksgiving dinner - which is good, considering I had 18 people to feed. It was a really fabulous party - we all got stuffed and tired and happy - just like Thanksgiving! - and everyone got along - not like Thanksgiving at all. :P It was actually really great - I was worried about my first Thanksgiving away from my mom's delcious feast, but I think I did a pretty decent job attempting it myself. I have pictures of my massive table o'food, but I need to set them up first. Link to come.

I spent so much time preparing for Thanksgiving, that I almost forgot about my birthday, but it ended up being tons of fun as well. Eric flew over to London for the weekend, and in the middle of theater extravaganza number 2, we had a fun little celebration for my birthday. After my £5 Vidal Sassoon Academy haircut disaster, we gathered at the house for pizza and lots of wine. Since everyone else in my house would apparently rather lounge on the couch than go out, I only went out with Nic, Eric, and Jenny, but it was fabulous. :P We headed out to this local Greek restaurant (a REAL one, Denis) to do karaoke, but they weren't starting till about midnight. We went to the World's End - this huge pub - to kill some time, and for some reason, they started playing songs from Dirty Dancing, Aretha Franklin, etc. It was fantabulous. We were dancing and singing at the top of our lungs and generally making a scene. Then some of Nic's friends came bearing balloons and we headed off to karaoke. Apparently the restaurant was hosting this corporate christmas party and we completely crashed it. We goaded people on and managed to get a couple of songs in ourselves before they asked us to buy drinks or leave. Being cheap as always, leave we did, and we headed up the street to Marathon, which is a kebab shop that becomes a kind of speakeasy at night with live music. It's hilarious - their liquor license is illegal, so if you ask them about the music at the front of the shop (which looks just like any other greasy food place), they get all shift-eyed and start talking in code. A couple of drinks and plates of greasy chips later, we were ready to call it a night. So a pretty good birthday, overall.

OH. AND I saw Jeff from Coupling. First celebrity sighting in London, and definitely the high point of my day.

= :)