A lovely Thanksgiving week

As is tradition, I took the whole week of Thanksgiving off. It's not actually as dramatic as it sounds, since the AMA gives us both Thursday and Friday off, so I took Monday through Wednesday off and settled in for a relaxing week. I sent in my JET essay, so I had no deadlines hanging over my head. I mostly just sat back and played Breath of the Wild. I'm 85 hours in and I finally uncovered every region of the map, so I guess I should get to doing story things now.

I put on the Ocarina of Time outfit I got from the Amiibo when I went to draw out the Master Sword. It made for a pretty good image, I think.

On Wednesday I went out to my parents' house for Thanksgiving and mostly just relaxed out there. There aren't any relatives that come to visit for Thanksgiving, and my sister was busy with work and studying, so it was just the three of us. We had turkey and roasted cauliflower and Brussels sprouts with rolls and strawberry jello, and my parents had stuffing. A small meal, but it's satisfying for me. That's the sort of thing I've had every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember, and our Thanksgivings were never a huge affair.

I spent part of the time I was there reading the manga version of Ocarina of Time, which I bought in Japanese as an excuse to read it and call it studying, and part of it watching a TV show called "Trails of Tsukiji" on NHK World that my parents got in the habit of watching after they came to visit us in Japan. They record it when it's on and watch it every time I come to visit, and every time it makes me miss Japanese food.

Well, this time when my parents sent me home with a load of fish (which I go through pounds and pounds of since I eat it every day for breakfast), and a load of Thanksgiving turkey, I decided that the turkey wouldn't go to waste. One of the Trails to Tsukiji episodes we had watched was about sudachi, a Japanese citrus fruit, and so there were a lot of noodle dishes flavored with sudachi sauce or rind featured in the episode. Well, I didn't have sudachi, but I did have a lot of noodles and a lot of turkey, so I combined them and, well.

( Turkey yakisoba )

I tagged it 和米料理 on Instagram, "Japan-American food."

Friday I got back from my parents' house and other than going shopping, I did nothing all day. Saturday was the same, except that lisekatevans invited me out after her show to what used to be called That Little Mexican Cafe for post-show margaritas with the cast, and then the margaritas were stronger than any of us expected. And today, I likewise haven't done much of anything other than some cleaning and some prep for the week. The laundry is in, the eggs for my week lunches are boiling, the chicken is thawing, and I'm writing this while all that is going. I'll be ready.

Which isn't to say that I wouldn't love more time off, but I have two weeks coming up at the end of the year. Three more weeks until then.