fullygoldy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fullygoldy) wrote2006-11-23 08:47 am
fullygoldy) wrote2006-11-23 08:47 am
Giving Thanks
Last night as I was coming home from the hospital, I was thinking about doing this thanksgiving post, and thinking about trying to give appropriate props to all our wonderful friends and family who have helped us through the year of the BMT. REally. I was in this deeply appreciative place and I wanted everyone to know about it.
You know, maybe America is so dysfunctional because we adopted this crazy-making feast early in our formation, and it's influence has been handed down through generations until we can't help but have this mass hysteria. I think someone should do a study on how long it takes immigrants to fully adjust to our society, with the markers being their reaction to the national day of thanks. We'll know they've been assimilated when their T-day is finally decorated with some sort of acrimony, recrimination and dry or too-raw poultry, and at least one person storms out of the main room in tears. Welcome to America! We hope you like green bean casserole and relish trays!
But I got home to NO exterior lights on when the kids already knew I was on my way. And the area of the porch directly in front of the door was a tripping hazard because the boy is constitutionally incapable of not dropping things in doorways. So I go inside with my last-minute groceries and find the kitchen is a mess, because the boy didn't clean up after himself post-pumpkin pie baking and dinner making. I was supposed to come home to a clean kitchen so I could prep the brine for the turkey and the chestnuts for the stuffing, and then have a little glass of wine and go to bed.
Best-laid plans and all that. Because it turns out the pumpkin pie was some dark poo color (which he had warned me about), so I had a tiny taste, and called the boy upstairs to ask "exactly what did you put in here?" He picked up the empty pumpkin can - conveniently located on the prep table instead of in the recycling bin - and read off all the ingredients listed in the recipe (I had figured we'd just go with the basic pie since the boy was doing the baking) except the final one: 12 oz evaporated milk. Fortunately for us, (i thought) I'm a prepared mom, and had brought home a new can of pie mix, just in case we needed it. So I told him to start over. That would have been the end of it, except it took 3 teeth-pulling conversations to get him to clean up his mess afterward.
During the pie fiasco, the girl decided to come downstairs and inform me that she left the pineapple out of the cranberry salad (It's a jello-based recipe received like ambrosia in our house). Volume-wise, there's not much difference in the end result, but I already dial back the sugar in the recipe because it used to hurt my teeth, so without the pineapple, I'm thinking we're having a really tart relish today. I'm afraid I lost my cool at this point, because I just couldn't believe that after stripping the menu down to the most basic items (and having to put up with the whining about no sweet potatoes) and farming out the 2 easiest dishes to my 2 normally capable cooking assistants they *each* left a major ingredient out of their recipe.
Also during this time period, I took a call from a stressed-out spouse who wanted to be home doing the holiday thing instead of lying about in a hospital bed, and an enigmatic mother who sounded on teh verge of tears but wouldn't cop to anything being wrong. She's not a real surprise because she rarely tells me anything important, but she doesn't usually call sounding that upset either.
I did all those things you're supposed to do to de-stress your holiday, but they didn't work, and I'm still stressed out, and you know, I'm not usually stressed out about the turkey day. B usually brines the turkey and takes over it's prep, I do the side dishes, we trade off on gravy (and this year I had decided to go with the Williams-Sonoma turkey gravy base - easy, peasy), I set and decorate the table, and 'voila' - a gorgeous feast for however many people is on the table at a reasonable hour. No fuss, and minimal muss.
You know what I *should* be doing right now? changing sheets and vacuuming and dusting the bedroom, and re-mopping the kitchen floor and clearing the dining table so that when B calls for his ride home, I'll be ready to go get him and the house will be somewhat ready for his return to neutropenic status. The turkey went into the brine an hour later than planned (I don't care) and let me tell you, playing with raw poultry before I've even had breakfast is not my optimal wake-up call. the little red button fell out too, but we have meat thermometers. I was up till midnight prepping chestnuts, and then till 1:00 winding down, so I didn't wake up at 0600.
And now I'm whining instead of giving thanks. Bad goldy! No cookie!
Best-laid plans and all that. Because it turns out the pumpkin pie was some dark poo color (which he had warned me about), so I had a tiny taste, and called the boy upstairs to ask "exactly what did you put in here?" He picked up the empty pumpkin can - conveniently located on the prep table instead of in the recycling bin - and read off all the ingredients listed in the recipe (I had figured we'd just go with the basic pie since the boy was doing the baking) except the final one: 12 oz evaporated milk. Fortunately for us, (i thought) I'm a prepared mom, and had brought home a new can of pie mix, just in case we needed it. So I told him to start over. That would have been the end of it, except it took 3 teeth-pulling conversations to get him to clean up his mess afterward.
During the pie fiasco, the girl decided to come downstairs and inform me that she left the pineapple out of the cranberry salad (It's a jello-based recipe received like ambrosia in our house). Volume-wise, there's not much difference in the end result, but I already dial back the sugar in the recipe because it used to hurt my teeth, so without the pineapple, I'm thinking we're having a really tart relish today. I'm afraid I lost my cool at this point, because I just couldn't believe that after stripping the menu down to the most basic items (and having to put up with the whining about no sweet potatoes) and farming out the 2 easiest dishes to my 2 normally capable cooking assistants they *each* left a major ingredient out of their recipe.
Also during this time period, I took a call from a stressed-out spouse who wanted to be home doing the holiday thing instead of lying about in a hospital bed, and an enigmatic mother who sounded on teh verge of tears but wouldn't cop to anything being wrong. She's not a real surprise because she rarely tells me anything important, but she doesn't usually call sounding that upset either.
I did all those things you're supposed to do to de-stress your holiday, but they didn't work, and I'm still stressed out, and you know, I'm not usually stressed out about the turkey day. B usually brines the turkey and takes over it's prep, I do the side dishes, we trade off on gravy (and this year I had decided to go with the Williams-Sonoma turkey gravy base - easy, peasy), I set and decorate the table, and 'voila' - a gorgeous feast for however many people is on the table at a reasonable hour. No fuss, and minimal muss.
You know what I *should* be doing right now? changing sheets and vacuuming and dusting the bedroom, and re-mopping the kitchen floor and clearing the dining table so that when B calls for his ride home, I'll be ready to go get him and the house will be somewhat ready for his return to neutropenic status. The turkey went into the brine an hour later than planned (I don't care) and let me tell you, playing with raw poultry before I've even had breakfast is not my optimal wake-up call. the little red button fell out too, but we have meat thermometers. I was up till midnight prepping chestnuts, and then till 1:00 winding down, so I didn't wake up at 0600.
And now I'm whining instead of giving thanks. Bad goldy! No cookie!
You know, maybe America is so dysfunctional because we adopted this crazy-making feast early in our formation, and it's influence has been handed down through generations until we can't help but have this mass hysteria. I think someone should do a study on how long it takes immigrants to fully adjust to our society, with the markers being their reaction to the national day of thanks. We'll know they've been assimilated when their T-day is finally decorated with some sort of acrimony, recrimination and dry or too-raw poultry, and at least one person storms out of the main room in tears. Welcome to America! We hope you like green bean casserole and relish trays!
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As much as I love you (and I DO love you) it's good to know that you're not all noble and coping and stuff. It's perfectly natural to lose your shit, especially if the other members of the family are not pulling even a minimal amount of weight.
And I certainly won't attempt to get you to look on the bright side today. :-D You'll get there in your own way, in your own time.
*hugs*
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