Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thangiving In GeeezLand

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving
Mine started very early and very cold with a 5K Turkey Trot


Chandra and I arrived early to get ready and set to go    I was SO JEALOUS of this gal with a turkey hat!  It looked like the turkey was stuck on her head.  It was awesome!
As you can see we were situated toward the back of the pack with the people who brought their dogs.  In strollers.

We were numbers 491 and 492.  We were in the section of people who didn't care weren't rabidly serious. 
By the time we got to the first incline the guy who came in first passed us going the other way
We Yelled "SHOW OFF" at him
We had to make a potty stop partway along which made us lose quite a lot of time.
Therefore we cut a few corners.
So our time over the finish line is ambiguous.  But I am going to claim the 57 minutes and 13 seconds as my new best time.

Then I went home, took a shower (cuz I was all sweaty like) and fell back into bed and slept for a few hours.
Then I got up and cleaned the house and started cooking
This is the holiday where divorce has reduced our numbers to mostly the old folks.  This happened a few years ago also and so I decided to cook something special:  Squash soup with kale.  The looks I got.  I am pretty sure they suspected me of trying to kill them.
Last year the child migration to their fathers took place over Christmas and so I didn't cook (putting the celebration off by a week until they migrated here) and my parents and grandma went out to eat.  They didn't tell me how horrible this was, I can just tell.  I couldn't do this to them again and so I cooked (my sister was working). 
But I made a traditional menu.  Nothing too imaginative.
That is my culinary heritage.  Meat Starch Vegetable   DON'T GET ALL FANCY
On the rare occasion when my mom was feeling really fancy she would make jello and float a pear half in it.
It worries them that I don't eat meat.  It worried them that I wouldn't have anything to eat at Thanksgiving.  It worries them that doing yoga several times a week will turn me into a Buddhist.  They also were anti-karate when I was a kid.  I lot of worry about religious brainwashing.  One day you achieve Downward Dog the next you have shaved your head and become the Dali Lama.
In years gone by I have tried to make the day special with meaningful little things like going around the table and saying something we were thankful for or writing what we were thankful for on a cutout of a leaf and taping it to a tree I had painted on the living room window.  But these things never go over well.  It is because sentiment has been bred out of us.  We are stoic German robots.  Don't try to get all creative and stuff.  Because we will not have it!
I spent quite some time in the morning trying to heat up the downstairs so my parents wouldn't freeze.  I could not figure out the thermostat.  Later when I admitted this my father and son took a look.  Turns out it was broken.  Also they discovered several lamps that were broken.  In my universe if we can't figure something out we just do without it.  We will usually try to fix it with a hot glue gun before giving up altogether.  I think this really worries my dad, lol.  Like he has two teenagers out living on their own instead of two middle aged old ladies. 
Someday......maybe..... I will be the matriarch of this family. I will teach all the little ones the secrets of hospitality and of hosting a generous and beautiful holiday.  I hope to pull out all my linens and china and all the interesting recipes and establish traditions that do not fall flat.  We will not have families broken by divorce.
And I will be Queen
It could happen.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am tired of dreaming about the future, being surprised by it, having things unexpectedly happen in it, being disappointed in what happens to loved ones. I am feeling like having a gigantic garage sale....and going to live in a gopher hole!

JC said...

Wow what a day you had !!! Traditional sitting at the table stuff went out when my Mom past away almost 15 years ago. Now, we just make spagetti ... really good ... and enjoy the day. All three of us ... it's a crowd at my house.