An ethical lapse

Alone this Thanksgiving. Despite her recent promise, my daughter Billie had to cancel. But at least she's not going to her mother's...I know it's crude, but if I can't have her, nobody should. My other daughter, Ella, has volunteered to cook at a homeless shelter in Colorado. She's in culinary school, so the less fortunate of Denver are in for a treat. Even Nawaz has abandoned me for the home of an American classmate.

I'm blue, and it's been compounded by my ethical lapse this morning. I've had to choose two of my students for a scholarship nomination, and I'm afraid I've bent the rules of better behavior. I won't mention which two of the three aforementioned candidates I've chosen, but suffice it to say that my selection procedure probably violates some campus rule. I wonder how many other "professors" factor the possibility of seducing a student into their decision-making process.

In any event, I'm going to prepare a proper fall table. I've been thawing the two wild turkeys...royalty among table birds...that I shot last April. One is to be smoked, the other roasted while filled with a miraculous chorizo stuffing that I concocted with assistance from my Mexican writer friend, Paco Taibo, during a happier Thanksgiving when I was still married to Wife 3 and the girls were home. I've got several good bottles of Ontario Vidal that I'll use to wash down the birds. I then intend to waltz through my apartment, naked, to the usual Strauss. A starlight hike in the state park should help to sober me up and then sleep dreamlessly.