LA Thanksgiving

One of my friends invited me to Thanksgiving at her place this year, and her place is in West Hollywood, a city more known for its lavish Halloween celebrations than for family gatherings. When most people think of LA they're really thinking of WeHo. Or Beverly Hills. And when my friend told me that out of nine people coming only three ate meat, I knew I was in for an interesting time. See, I'm from Texas, and while I'm sure somebody there doesn't eat meat, unless they live in Austin they keep it to themselves. As God intended.
   Since she knows I can cook I was directed to do so, given responsibility for sweet 'taters. And they were good, thanks for asking. The freeways were empty so I got to her place waaaaay too early, first one there. Come to find out, I was going to be the ONLY person eating meat, the other two bowed out. Everybody else was a vegetarian or vegan.
   To those of you wondering what the difference is, vegetarians don't eat meat but they eat eggs, cheese, milk, that kind of thing. Vegans subsist on air and the good wishes of their fellow man, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe they're photosynthetic, I don't know.
   I wasn't really sure I belonged at a gathering like this, but as more people arrived my apprehensions subsided. These were good people, nice people, and they were good company.
   But aside from me they were still sickly vegetable-eaters, and we were in West Hollywood. The conversation veered in an LA direction several times, mainly the vegans discussing where they could get good vegan cheese (evidently a real problem), how much better some of them felt by eliminating gluten from their diet, and how to use tofu instead of scrambled eggs in a meal. Oh, and we talked about auras too. And yoga. And chakras. Really.
   I was definitely a fish out of water, but it was still a good Thanksgiving. The dog and I shared the turkey.