My parents, having burned themselves to a near crisp for the last few Thanksgivings, threatened for 11 months to go turkeyless this year, or at least to try the restaurant route again.
Five years ago, we went to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. My uncle had just started dating a new woman, and she came back from the buffet at one point and announced that they had run out of turkey. My grandfather turned to my grandmother and said in his restaurant voice, "Isn't she cute!?" Turns out they had run out of turkey, and then they'd resorted to cold-cut turkey, and then they'd run out of that, and so all that was left was too-pink ham with cherry glaze.
The restaurant was also home to a work program for reassimilated convicts. Most reassimilated convicts end up in upstate New York, you see, and so the transition back into society takes place among the generally unaware residents. At this restaurant, they were put to work cooking and serving on the buffet line. Incidentally, buffets where someone has to scoop the food for me make me very uneasy, but that's another story. There was one particular reassimilated convict, coincidentally the one in charge of slicing the too-pink ham with a gigantic knife and then pouring blood-red cherry glaze over it with a ladel, who seemed particularly pleased with his lot in reassimilation. He was all too happy to fill our plates with, if not turkey, then ham! ham! ham! He was also given a steel sharpening device, which he made good use of in between each ham slicing. Ah, rehabilitation.
When we left, he followed us out into the lobby to wish us a happy holiday season. He seemed particularly interested in how and where my female cousins and I would be spending the holidays. He had reassimilated enough to know better than to bring the knife with him into the lobby, but that didn't stop him from bringing the sharpener.
When I reminded my parents about that Thanksgiving, they finally agreed to make another turkey meal this year, as long as I would contribute accordingly. So I've spent the last two days making rolls, pickled cabbage, candied sweet potatoes, butter cookies, and, miracle of miracles, what appears to be a perfectly passable pumpkin pie.
I was really worried about the pumpkin pie, not just because my grandmother made the best pies ever created, not just because my mother and brother are sentimental fools for whom every Thanksgiving detail must be exactly just so or else, but also because on that fateful Thanksgiving day where we all reassimilated with the convicts, we found out just before heading up to the dessert line that the restaurant had also run out of pumpkin pie. Or rather, just moments before, there had been one remaining slice, which my brother had dropped on the floor in his haste to secure it for himself.
We all had cherry pie, which wasn't the most appetizing follow-up to the plate of cherry glaze we'd all just choked down, the one with the freshly sliced ham floating in it. Thanksgiving really is my favorite holiday, as long as I ignore the possibility that it could be messed up so badly that you're still laughing about it years later. I'm glad my parents caved, because being five months pregnant means I can collapse into a quivering weepy mess at the drop of a hat, and no Thanksgiving probably would have left me completely useless for the next few weeks. On the other hand, I'm so excited that there's a possibility that I'll actually eat the whole turkey myself. I just hope the pumpkin pie sets up right as it cools.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, from me and mine!
1. Complete Tomb Raider. Although I wasn't actually in the room when he finished, there was something about the hours he spent bathing in the glow of the TV screen.
2. Create spreadsheets. Somehow he has learned every keyboard shortcut known to man, and isn't afraid to use them.
3. Get dressed in the morning. For almost ten years, it has been boxers, t-shirt, another shirt, pants (tuck-in-shirts), socks, shoes, belt. In the summer and on weekends, there is usually only one shirt, and shorts instead of pants. There is always a belt.
4. Make pancakes. Bisquick, egg, milk, white mixing bowl, skillet, butter, whisk, and then ladle to pan. These days he also preheats the skillet.
5. Shave. Although the beard is nice, I miss the upper-lip-shaving dimple face.
6. Wire things. Whenever we've moved, our TV, stereo, speakers, computer, telephones, and alarm clocks are powered-up and ready to go before I would have even thought to unbox them, all while I'm still unpacking in the kitchen.
7. Pack the trunk. For a mechanical engineer, I have shockingly poor spatial analysis skills. Also included here are organize the Tupperware, assemble Ikea furniture, and preserve leftovers.
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