Weekend Coffee Share, Thanksgiving Edition

November 26, 2016 — buffet, food, Hare Krishna, Thanksgiving

Govinda’s Thanksgiving

holiday buffet

Friend for lunch

holiday buffet

Govinda’s Thanksgiving

If we were having coffee today I would tell you our week was almost perfect here.  Welcome to my home this lovely mild weekend in Tucson. If you are living up north I hope you packed your bathing suit so you can go in the jacuzzi and get some sun on the deck before you head back home. These are the perfect weather days that make Tucson so popular as a winter destination.  Help yourself to tea or coffee, and please enjoy a snack from the sideboard laden with food. I know many of the Americans will be weary of even seeing food, but for those of you who live in other countries we are serving pecan sweet potatoes, mini-croissants, green beans almandine, homemade spicy cranberry ketchup with chunks of ginger to compliment a large cheese tray.  In the center of the table is a mega plate of raw and pickled vegetables, olives, pickled peppers of every kind, and 20 different sauces in which to dip them.  If that does not overwhelm you with the colors and flavors of the fall season, there is nothing more I can do.  Please make yourself at home and eat as much or as little as you want.  Tell me what has been going on in your life.  Pull up a chair and stay a while.

If we were having coffee I would tell you about our day on Thursday.  We went to Thanksgiving lunch at our local vegetarian buffet run by the Hare Krishna community.  They have a great selection, beautiful outdoor patio, a band, and a live turkey.  This is the perfect place for our celebration.  We ran into an old friend we had not seen for years and ate our meal with her.  That was  pleasant surprise.  I chose not to overeat at lunch because I could take the leftovers home in a box and keep going later.  It all tasted great cold, especially the green beans mixed with mashed potatoes and gravy. I dump the carrot gravy on all my food because it is the thing that pulls the whole meal together.  I could drink this gravy as a beverage.  We write down what we appreciate most on a piece of paper to enter a drawing to win a free lunch.  It is not important if you win the lunch, but writing your gratitude and putting it in the jar with the other papers completes the group intention.  It is simple yet effective. They would love to encourage participation in their religion, but never solicit or recruit patrons of the restaurant.  The old days of aggressive Hare Krishnas chanting in airports are gone. Now they make fabulous food and finance their temple feeding Tucson. They announced a new  delivery service they are launching which I will surely use, even though I live right up the street.  They will bring me delicious food as well as any clothing, incense, wall hangings, or books I might need in the future.

As we drove to Govinda’s we were stopped at a red light when we observed two cop cars and two cops running around in a shopping center next to us.  One cop approached a Native American man who was waiting at the bus stop on the corner.  We rolled down the window to listen to the conversation between the two men.  The cop asked the native man if he had seen anything in the area.  We did not clearly hear his response, but he seemed to indicate the he had seen someone enter one of the locked, closed businesses.  The cop asked him for ID.  The man asked why he had to show ID.  The cop told him “I don’t know who you are…”  The light turned green and we drove on thinking that must have been some Twilight Zone Thanksgiving re-enactors back at that bus stop. Why should a Native man at a bus stop have to show ID to Tucson Police Department employee?  I thought about Standing Rock and the military vets who are self deploying to protect the sovereign rights and water quality of the First Nations in the Dakotas. The violence being used at Standing Rock reminds me of the Indian Wars, and that reminds me of Harvard being founded to convert the local Native Peoples to a particular brand of christianity. All that reminds me of Wounded Knee.  Our history is highly genocidal.  The irony is wildly significant on our “how we bonded with the Indians” holiday.

On a lighter note, my Thanksgiving cactus started blooming right on cue, on the very day. I am proud of her.  Please check out her rapidly unfurling flowers next to the front window.  Thanks very much for visiting on this busy weekend.  Please check out our other coffee sharing friends who gather at Diana’s site, here.  Post, comment, or just enjoy the coffee.