WHere's a Thanksgiving story I wrote again today: Chapter Twenty Two Tuna Noodle Casserole Georgia and I had been emailing back and forth for two years, without phoning and never yet having met in person, when she emailed to suggest it would be convenient for her to drop by - rather than mailing - a bundle of the new Metaphysical Times with another of my articles in it. I was not suspicious, skeptical, or cynical about the innocence of her intentions. She may have put a spell on me, but …as I would eventually learn … she was semi-tragicaly afraid that I would be disgusted at first sight of her: an overweight, sixty-eight-year-old,virgin. Before leaving Syracuse, she had to pick up the papers from the printer,so she would not arrive until afternoon, plus there’s always weather and traffic… so I cleaned out the guest trailer, in case it was needed. Georgia almost never started. She would not have even tried to arrange it, if it were not for her friend Betty, on whose milk can dog-food containers Georgia was painting gnomes at the time. Betty knew Georgia’s whole story, and urged her on. Georgia made it half way here, then stopped and called Betty; who encouraged her to keep on going. Georgia did keep on …. but later needed further encouragement, pulled over and called again, which worked again. When she saw a vintage junk store, she stopped to pick out some sort of gift: and came out with a mini, multi-tool, suitable for gnomes, and now among the treasures of the Dogs Plot museum. As soon as I knew she was underway, I watched the weather radar on my computer, and I probably spent a lot of time looking out the kitchen door too, because I was standing there when her little Ford pulled in off the highway. I’d told her to park out by the mouth of the driveway and walk to the house … because of the chickens and cats wandering about. I was soon out the door, and it isn’t like we were running toward one another with hair streaming in the wind …. but we met in the driveway half way between the house and the road and as I seem to remember, passed through or into one another like two clouds …because most of the evening is hazy after that. There sure was a lot of talking … and it went on past most folks dinner time. Even given my addled brain, my smittenness, my enchantment or whatever you say, it’s hard to see how in the week or so I’d had to prepare, I had not given a thought to offering her lunch or dinner. It’s not so much that I don’t ordinarily cook, as it is that for me, living alone so long, cooking had become an impractical pass-time. . Tuna Noodle Casserole it would be. Easy with green Peas in it. One like my mother used to make would have been appropriate, but instead of using Muellers egg noodles, I mixed up my own, with whole wheat flour, egg from my hens, olive oil; kneaded the dough rolled ut out, cut up and boiled it…. all to Georgia’s complete amusement …. amusement to the degree that I now realize she was only a little short of the sort of laughing fit she was prone to that had gotten her kicked out of both Lillydale and a YokoOno exhibition. She might have thought that next thing, I would go down to the pond and catch a tuna. But I’d raised Bass in the pond, not tuna, the bass died in a five year drought, and anyway, I always used StarKist then because of the logo and I used Campbels soup like my Mom did, included slivered almonds, baked and browned it, and by the time we ate, it was well past bed time. I offered to light her way across the yard to the trailer where she could spend the night in reasonable comfort. As hesitant as she had been about coming here, Georgia was not at all bashful about saying she wanted to stay up in the loft with me. Somehow that was a surprise, but that was OK with me. So up we went, We cuddled all through the night … what was left of it; the most comfortable I had been since my dogs died. We didn’t have sex that night, nor did I realize then that she was a virgin. But she drove back to Syracuse the next day to handle business, and start packing clothing, portfolios, family photos, books and dolls, her father’s Buddhas and Pearl’s fiddle. It took several trips in the next days. I don’t know why I couldn’t have been more helpful, but it’s obvious to me NOW as it is to you, that we two were subconsciously acting out the historic event of her own parents’ first thanksgiving.