Third Time Lucky

in curlers. She looks very surprised. This might not only be because we arrived so early, but also because no sooner had my mother entered the house than she was forced to run for the bathroom with her hand pressed over her mouth, on account of the smell of the roasting turkey. I am hoping this means that my future half-brother or sister is a vegetarian, since the smell of meat cooking used to make my mother hungry, not nauseated.

My mother already informed me in the car on the way over from Manhattan that Mr. Gianini's parents are very old-fashioned and are used to enjoying a conventional Thanksgiving meal. She does not think that they will appreciate hearing my traditional Thanksgiving speech about how the Pilgrims were guilty of committing mass genocide by giving their new Native American friends blankets filled with the smallpox virus, and that it is reprehensible that we, as a country, annually celebrate this rape and destruction of an entire culture.

Instead, my mother said, I should discuss more neutral topics, such as the weather.

I asked if it was all right if I discussed the astonishingly high rate of attendance at the Reykjavik opera house in Iceland (over ninety-eight per cent of the country's population has seen Tosca at least once).

My mother sighed and said, 'If you must,' which I take to be a sign that she is beginning to tire of hearing about Iceland.

Well, I am sorry, but I find Iceland extremely fascinating and I will not rest until I have visited the ice hotel.

9:45 a.m. — 11:45 a.m.

I watch theMacy's Thanksgiving Day parade with Mr Gianini Senior in what he calls the rec room.

They don't have rec rooms in Manhattan.

Just lobbies.

Remembering my mother's warning, I refrain from repeating another one of my traditional holiday rants — that

the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is a gross example of American capitalism run amok. I mean, using cute animal-shaped balloons to lure children into begging their parents to buy them products that they don't need and

the manufacturing of which is contributing to the destruction of our planet?

I am sorry, but that is just sick.