Thanksgiving thoughts

Preliminary thoughts for Thanksgiving include scheduling our late dinner on a night OTHER than Thanksgiving night because the neighbor situation is OUT OF CONTROL these days and every year that Ghetto Lady and her Ghetto Ass Family is pretty rowdy and uncontrollable (not to mention how the other two neighbors can really pop off on holidays, too). Also, this way I don't have to worry about you two not getting to spend the holiday with your kids and Paul will hopefully get the chance to spend it with his wife, and Shelby, his friends/family.

Secondly, I was thinking we could schedule our dinner sometime that weekend at least, Thanksgiving weekend, but my ne'erdowell neighbor situation has been so volatile and trigger happy, I'm wondering if it might be safest avoiding Thanksgiving weekend altogether and aiming to have our late night supper either BEFORE Thanksgiving Thursday or on a following weekday night the SUBSEQUENT WEEK (Hope this is making sense). What are your guys' thoughts on that???

As a backup, we could do Buca di Beppo Italian restaurant again. We could schedule it for a day other than Thanksgiving to allow everyone time to see their families. Buca is, however, typically open for business on Thanksgiving day proper, too.

Jack, you'll be happy to know there's a Buca di Beppo in Nashville, TN and one in Livonia, MI (about 25 miles outside of Detroit). There's one in Seattle for Eddie: a few in the UK for Paul; and several here in LA for Shelby and I. A couple of things on using this as a back up plan, however:

1) It offers vegetarian, but not really strong vegan offerings and Shelby is a strict vegan (though perhaps he'd be amenable to just grabbing a salad and bread rolls if he shares his main Thanksgiving dinner with family/friends on Thanksgiving day proper.

2) If I go eat at the restaurant in real time, I can't really converse with you guys bc I'm out in public. Now, like you and Paul did last year, Eddie, I could pick up the food the day before we eat it and then fix it up at home, but I don't have a microwave (by choice) and will have to think about whether I could reheat everything sufficiently in my little oven (also, if I don't eat at the restaurant in real time  that would put me back in my apartment anyway - so, if I'm eating Buca at home, I might as well just buy traditional Thanksgiving food from the grocers and eat it at home).

3) Also, unfortunately, I get less food for the money with Buca di Beppo, whereas if I buy food from the grocers, my buck will likely go farther.

4) I do love me the traditional Thanksgiving fare: mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegan gravy, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, Tofurky, green bean caserole (maybe) and vegan pie. Yuuuummmmers!

Presently, I am still inclined to make traditional fare at my apartment on a night OTHER than Thanksgiving so we can talk some and connect and if the neighbors act up on THAT night, we can hopefully just try again the next night. And, hopefully, everything will reheat up again well enough if we need to try again.

What do you two think???

I'll try to sense whether this preference is OK with you two and then post a Thanksgiving plans confirmation post on here. THAT post you can share verbatim with Paul, Eddie. And then, I'll post the final post which will be a listing of the vegan Thanksgiving groceries I buy from Whole Foods, et al, so you guys can duplicate it (as best as possible). That way we can "share" a Thanksgiving meal together. :) ♡♡♡ You can share that grocery list post with Paul, too, Eddie. I'll also post that one on Facebook for Shelby. :)