For Thanksgiving break, I left Los Angeles to visit my relatives in the small town of Ojai, Calif. As we drove on an idyllic country road from Santa Barbara, I could not help but point out my extensive knowledge of nature and country life despite growing up in a big city.
"Horse," I said, pointing out the window to where a horse meandered in a field of dry hay.
"Yes," said my 13-year-old cousin, looking at me as if I were deranged.
"A real horse?" I asked, in disbelief.
"Of course, a real horse," he said.
"So, what do people do with them?" I asked, curiously.
"They ride them," he told me.
"No kidding," I said. But I was already off on another epistemological tangent. I couldn't be stopped.
"Barn," I said, pointing to an old lean-to wooden structure behind the horse that looked as though it needed some serious hormone shots and possibly some calcium supplements.
"Yes," he said. "Probably with a groom."
I stared at him. "A real groom?"
He did not grace this with a response. He just peered at me with his head cocked to the side as if he wasn't sure whether I was real.
"We have malls," I told him.
"Mmmhmm," he said. Ojai is a great place for seeing animals and gaining three pants sizes. We did what any normal family does in a warm weather climate: we barbecued. Not turkey, because turkey is for wimps. Instead, we barbecued steak, chicken,and salmon, and made bashed potatoes, which we washed down with plenty of Häagen Dazs before declaring we could not eat another bite. Then we ate some more.
Eventually, we ate through what was left of Thanksgiving dinner and were forced to venture elsewhere.
At the local Italian eatery, the waitress asked my cousin interestedly why he was in Mongolia last summer and then presented us with a strawberry "shortcake" that was as tall as Shaq. I didn't have to ask my cousin if it was real shortcake. I could tell.
My grandmother reassured me. "When you are on vacation, food felonies don't count." I wanted to believe her. There are three traffic lights in this whole town, so it is difficult to work anything off. I thought that maybe I could go running, like Anne of Green Gables, in some local field, but my cousin helpfully informed me that these were "real fields" full of nettles and gopher holes that could break your leg. "Stop," I told him. "You're ruining my dream." But he wasn't, really. Now I had a good excuse to eat what I wanted and not exercise. After all, I was on vacation.
"But you can always go work out at my parents' club," he said.
"I wouldn't dream of it," I said. "I could never in good conscience enter a manmade structure that so besmirches this natural landscape."
Instead, I wandered around downtown, which is only a block long. There were three movies playing at the local theater, which was a real step forward, I was told, because they usually play only one. As I wandered, I felt the beginnings of a blistering burn and discovered that the sun here is real. I burped and it tasted like strawberries.
Bring lots of SPF 40 and drawstring elastic pants if you go to Ojai, or better yet, a giant bathrobe. Continually push locally-grown strawberries coated in sugar glaze into your mouth and imagine running it off in golden fields. Never leave your lawn chair. That's a real Thanksgiving.
Alexandra Toumanoff '06 will soon froyo.
