Thanksgiving...of sorts

So here’s the payback for humorously alluding to the outbreak of avian influenza in an earlier post, there are no turkeys being imported. Lino and I even went to the mondo Keels Supermarket at the Crescat Plaza and asked for a turkey in Sinhalese …only to be disappointed. Thanksgiving is over and will now be replaced with a “fill your pie-hole with pie” night. I still owe Dani a pumpkin pie and have the makings for a mincemeat and pecan pie (thanks mom). Now we just have to figure out when the hell I’m going to find time to make a bunch of pies!
I did manage to knock a couple of things off my list of things to do this weekend. I got Kenney set up with business cards. He’s a translator, driver and tour guide and I highly recommend him should you decide to come to Sri Lanka for a holiday. I also wrote and had witnessed a letter to the Australian High Commission urging them in my own inimitable style, to give my friend Kenney a visa, you knuckleheads. It was actually a bit more polite than that… I also had some generic business cards made up for the volunteers to use when dealing with vendors. As with many Asian countries, the exchange of business cards here borders on the ritualistic. I’ve spent the last several months feigning patting myself down and muttering, “Sorry I seem to be out of cards at the moment…” This is always followed by hastily scribbling my name and cell number on an errant scrap of paper or cocktail napkin. As you might imagine, this part of the ritual does nothing to instill confidence in my new business partner. I also roped my friend Jules into helping me dress up the Café Press site since it’s deadly boring the way it is currently. Jules knows HTML and is generously donating her practical skills and artistic vision to this project. If you go there right now to purchase items either for yourself or as Christmas gifts, I will NOT consider it an endorsement for the site the way it appears now…it will soon be better…I promise. Go pick up a tote bag for Aunt Mavis; I defy any gift recipient to dislike a gift that helps out a charitable organization. Gift with confidence…be sure to check out the wall calendar, it has beautiful pictures… go on…
http://www.cafepress.com/helpingvi

The first thing I need to do this morning is get a do-it list together for my remaining few weeks here. Max left last week and unpleasantly discovered that a large gift she had intended to ship home, would not be accepted by the U.S.P.O. Apparently, Sri Lanka is on some list somewhere that indicates parcels from here will not be allowed into the U.S.
Just what am I supposed to do with all this stuff? Nephews and nieces will be glad to hear that the preliminary plan is to pack all the gifts first, throw a clean pair of underwear in a manila envelope and leave everything else behind.