Nov. 26, 2010

I'm not much of a dinner conversationalist.

It's not that I lack the gift of gab-though my high school debate record has me thinking the kids I faced in break rounds must've got theirs from nicer stores.

The table setting isn't the problem-I could open and close the Tombs a few times over if you gave me a couple of friends and the Study Snacks menu.

Heck, the Hawkes are great communicators: my mom has the best and still most out-of-nowhere sarcastic sense of humor of anyone I know; I borrowed my entire note-taking style and sense of logic from my dad the attorney; and my sister has run the gamut of the hospitality industry from front desk at the Ritz-Carlton to behind the bar at a seedy college dive in Orlando…she's got stories.

I just don't have the attention span. Must be some kind of silly Millennial thing-no wonder the Hoop Club put me in charge of a Blog and half a Twitter feed. Put a plate of food in front of me and I'm finished in 140 characters or less…errmmmm, five minutes flat.

Nowhere is this more evident than Thanksgiving. The prep work for my family is a culinary marathon-I was on the phone Wednesday morning with my mom and sister for Mile 1 (pie baking)-but the meal for me is a gustatory sprint worthy of my Georgetown roommate the competitive eater. Little sis hasn't even scooped out the stuffing and I'm on the sofa watching sports.

Not football though. Far be it for me to pass on one of America's greatest annual traditions. It's not the pigskin per se…though the Lions and Cowboys are worse than tryptophan. There are just too many better options…

…and the ESPN family of networks has helpfully gathered them into a week-long holiday smorgasbord called "Feast Week"-the second-greatest scheduling idea ever conceived for college basketball fans. As Hoya fans from coast to coast re-unite with their families for the holiday season, we can all re-connect with our surrogate families on the hardwood and get re-acquainted with the top teams in the country as they compete in various sundry tournaments sponsored by gas stations, sporting goods stores, and deodorant.

Ah yes, the Old Spice Classic. Two Thanksgivings ago, I convinced* my family to move our annual gathering north to my sister's condo in Orlando (how convenient!) so we could indulge in the combo of basketball and Butterball, and I could get in some blogging on the side.

(*About as difficult as convincing Jack to "Eat That Box." After we finished discussing the Thanksgiving pies yesterday, my mom asked about the logistics of getting tickets to the Georgetown-USF road game in February.)

With the Georgetown-Wichita State game scheduled for mid-afternoon on Turkey Day, my mom decided to move our Thanksgiving dinner up 24 hours and dispense with all the trappings and table settings. Once I arrived after a 12-hour, 835mile drive from Northern Virginia, the family flipped open the aluminum trays, piled our plates high with fixings, and took our places at the Thanksgiving "table"-in its normal life known as the bar in my sister's kitchen.

As per normal, I lasted about five minutes. For one thing, 12 hours and 10 minutes of consecutive sitting had done to my back what the Hoyas would do to Maryland three nights later. And besides, there was some Preseason NIT, or CBE Classic, or Dick's Sporting Goods Great Alaska Virgin Rico something or other…well, basketball anyway is all that mattered.

That Thanksgiving weekend was special for me because I got to spend time with my family and share with them an activity-watching Georgetown basketball-that we've enjoyed together ever since they blew a lot of potential fancy dinners to send me to school on the Hilltop a decade ago. (Also, the beating Maryland thing).

Alas, there's an empty chair (okay, maybe 5 minutes more of an empty chair) in the Hawkes dining room this Thanksgiving: I'm stuck in Arlington working the night shift at my office through Friday.

It's a lonely world out there in the post-Last Call hours of the night. When I'm not busy grinding out night differential pay, I find myself taking walks outside in the dead of night, pondering life's great unanswered questions: Where can I find enlightenment? What is the afterlife like? Who are you and what have you done with Henry Sims?

What's really strange is late night television-I had no idea MTV still played music videos (I hope Kanye let the ballerinas leave). My only respite from Infomercial Roulette and cable news re-runs arrived in an unexpected triumph of stunt programming last week: ESPN College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon, the third-greatest scheduling idea ever conceived for college basketball fans. I watched the Central Michigan-Hawaii and it was fantastic. Even if I couldn't remember anything about it when I woke up for work…at 6:30pm (Ohio State and Florida is an odd "breakfast" game).

So I'm left to spend my Thanksgiving weekend with my surrogate family-the thousands of Georgetown fans, students, alums, ushers, vendors, and t-shirt gatling guns that have stuck around the Nation's Capital. A turkey dinner? Nah, had one of those during the Thanksgiving night shift…one of the great tragedies of collective thinking: whenever an office organizes a potluck Thanksgiving dinner, ¾ of the people will bring a pie, and nobody makes stuffing.

Besides, my rapidly-shifting attention is on basketball for the moment. And it's a great time to be a Georgetown fan, after the Hoyas flew back from South Carolina with the Charleston Classic trophy and our Blog Staff ran off with the Charleston Classic banner.

The Verizon Center is a far cry from the family dinner table, the Hoyas won't get a trophy for beating the not-to-be-underestimated UNC-Asheville Bulldogs of the Big South Conference, and I can guarantee even the finest of Chinatown Potbelly's offering can't beat a turkey-and-stuffing leftovers sandwich on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

But it's a reasonable enough substitute. And maybe I'll stop by for a bite to eat on the way to the game.

If I can spare five minutes.