Thanksgiving

over the river

Posted on by Dave O

It’s about twelve-thirty as I type these words and I should be about halfway to Arkansas right now. My Darling B and I had plans to travel to my mom’s house, where we would stay for three nights over the holiday weekend. For a while earlier this week it looked as though the weather might derail our plans but that turned out not to be the case. Instead, I fell victim to a virus that’s been going around. It started with a scratchy throat on Tuesday, blew up into congestion that filled my sinuses from top to bottom with goo more powerfully sticky than anything Gorilla Glue makes, and which left me weak and sleepy and worn-out as a bald tire. I got a solid eight hours of sleep last night with the help of a shot of Nyquil before bed, so I almost feel as though I’m starting to come back from the worst of the congested sinuses and cruddy throat. If I can get a nap and another solid night’s sleep, I just might come back from this by Saturday or Sunday, and that would be a very good thing. Nothing worse than staring into a computer screen all day Monday with a head cold pounding away at my skull.

thriller

Posted on by Dave O

Our after-dinner entertainment on Thanksgiving was the Michael Jackson music video Thriller. Fun Fact: Tim had not seen it before then. Amazing, I know. Now his life is complete. To think we came so close to being complete failures as parents.

Thanksgiving dinner

Posted on by Dave O

The main dish of our Thanksgiving dinner this year was a lovely roast of lamb covered in pesto and cooked to perfection.

Tim’s mother offered to cut his Thanksgiving lamb into little pieces for him, but he managed just fine on his own in spite of a broken hand and the pain it obviously caused him.  He very gingerly placed his knife in the weakened grip of his forefinger and thumb, then slowly and methodically cut the meat into bite-sized cubes.  It helped that he had a sharp knife.

My Darling B served mashed potatoes and carrot sticks with the roast, so all Tim had to cut was the meat.  And he was very thankful.

He walked over from his apartment, possibly because he didn’t want to muck around with driving the car one-handed, but maybe just because he wanted to walk.  He lives just a few blocks away and walks the distance maybe once a month, just for the hell of it, even in winter.  More often in summer.  He came over at about three and we had a nice chat in the front room for a couple hours while he iced his hand.  B called us to dinner at about six, a little later than she’d planned.

After dinner, we retired to the living room for maybe half an hour to sit and digest, but all of us were quickly fading then.  It had been a long day and it started early.  I drove Tim back to his apartment with two sacks of frozen food his mother insisted he take with him so he wouldn’t have to worry about fixing dinner for himself one-handed.

Maggie, his hyper-shy cat, glared at me from the middle of his living room when he let me into his apartment with the bags of food.  I slowly set them down, hoping not to spook her and maybe ever get a long look, or even get close enough to pet her.  This was only the second time I’ve laid eyes on her; the first time all I saw was her face glaring out at me from under a dresser.  This time, she trotted away into the bedroom after just a beat or two.  “She’ll hide for at least an hour now,” Tim said, laughing.

I wished him a good night, headed back home and turned in early.  Read almost an entire chapter from the book at the top of my “to be read” pile (“Apollo 8” by Jeffrey Kluger) but my eyes were slamming shut before nine, so lights out. Slept the sleep of the dead.

carbo-overloaded

Posted on by Dave O

I finally overloaded on Thanksgiving Day turkey. We made another batch of stuffing and reheated the leftovers, then pigged out again last night, and this morning when I woke up, I was still full. It was sort of like when you drink beer all day, then wake up in the middle of the night after a dream about drinking from a fire hose. You want to go get a big glass of cold water, but you know it’ll just make you queasy and you won’t be able to lie down again. So instead of real breakfast this morning, I had a pot of tea, and got through the day on a bowl of noodles. That’s because we all went to Viking in the evening, and I wanted my stomach ready for a big meal. Twelve bucks for all you can eat is a great price, but I wanted to rob them. I think I came pretty close, too, but was I ever disappointed in Sean. I expected the evening to end when management came to our table to beg him on bended knee to stop eating, but he bogged down long before the dishes and bowls piled up above his shoulders. I can usually depend on him to eat his weight in carbos alone, so I can’t explain what went wrong.