November is our rainiest month. The transitioning between Fall and winter is always unpredictable especially the week before Thanksgiving. Our tradition for many years was to get together with G’s parent here in Seattle. It was an ongoing joke about what was the weather going to do this year. We had a little bit of everything. One year we had to put on chains to get to the airport. One year it was freezing with temperatures down into the ‘teens. The most memorable was the year we had the wind storm. It came up the night before Thanksgiving. Trees were blown down everywhere. I had just put the turkey in and about 30 minutes later – the power went out. Uggg. I took the turkey out and moved it into the cold garage to wait for the power to come back.

An hour passed and we brought out the candles and lit the fireplace. Another hour passed and we got the transistor radio and cards. We played games by candlelight listening the the crackle of Komo radio reporting how wide spread the power outage was. About 3pm, we had to do something about dinner so we called a couple of restaurants. We found one with power and taking reservations. By 8pm, we were waiting in a crowded restaurant lobby with everyone swapping stories. Our power was still out. The power came back on just after we arrived back home after almost 12 hours.

By then the turkey was unsafe and we threw it out. I don’t remember much of the meal but oh what memories do I have spending time ‘off the grid’ together with family. This unplugged Thanksgiving lives on in our memories much more than the times when the meal was perfect.