Whew

Thanksgiving is nearly over. Ii hardly had to do any cooking at all because oldest son took over, telling me that I had made dinner for so many years it is now time for him to take over. Which is basicly the same thing I told my parents when we got our first house. So there we were with a 20 lb turkey and equally big ham and enough sides to float a battleship. As soon as the button popped on the turkey the men came running. Not just mine but the periphiral men who are friends of the sons. Oldest son LOVES being a host and he was beaming as his friends lined up. Younger son said it looked like a soup kitchen and I had huge plates enough for everyone. My men eat on big round serving plates instead of taking two regular plates. We ate and ate and ate some more and now it's a rock band in the basement as they play guitar hero.
Oldest son and I even rememenised (god why can't I spell tonight) about turkey in a bag and the day the turky ran pink and he ate three plateloads of salad. I got to thinking about how my mother never would have opened her house to my friends and she must be spinning in her grave because gasp shudder, cringe a couple of the guys were black. She didn't even like the fact that there was a greek family on her block. Yes I have mother issues and even though she's gone, those issues surface regularly. But I am thankful for her as well. She was the perfect example of what I didn't want to be as a mother and I have, perhaps, spoiled the sons some but what the hell. If you can't spoil your kids who can you spoil? And if you can't open your doors and feed the neighbors, well who can you feed. It isn't even as if the neighbors don't have food of their own... it's just that everyone else in hte neighborjood eat late in the day while we usually eat about one.

And now I have a confession to make. I am not as benevolent as I would like to be. It seems that evil voodoo woman has lost yet another job and her unemplyment hasn't kicked in because she had ot pay back the unemployment form the last time she was fired. This makes five jobs in three years and her landlord is threatening to throw her ouyt and while I did toy with the idea of inviting her to dinner I didn't. Maybe I should have but I had enough of tense Thanksgiving when my mother was alive and my sister still speaking to me and I like our easy breezy thanksgivings that my men and Ii have.

Sauerkraut anyone?

inist \iutar gitaruar aur hero.

Sauerkraut

Here in Bawlmer Merlin we have sauerkraut with our Thanksgiving turkey. Don't know why only that it's the way it has always been. Of course that makes people living outside of Merlin (bawlmerese for Maryland) look at us as if we were drooling out of our ears. Cranberry sauce for god's sake or those sweat potatoes with the burned marshmallows or even that stupid green bean dish with canned onion whatevers sprinkled on top but SAUERKRAUT?
My mother's sauerkraut was rinsed within an inch of its life and cooked with fresh polish sausage and barley. Fresh sausage was an unappealing gray color and the barley was soft and mushy. My own sauerkraut comes from a can and is slightly rinsed and for years I ate it alone so I always bought a small can of it. And then, older son shocked the hell out of me and made the sauerkraut for last year's thanksgiving. It seems that he discovered that he LIKED IT!!! Now to realise how odd this is, this was the kid who for his first six years of life was serenaded with "Eat Josh Eat' at every meal. One thanksgiving at my parents, they nagged older son so that his eyes filled with tears as he leaned over his plate and threw up everything he had eaten. He was only three but it was enough for them to leave him alone that year. So you can imagine my surprise when he made sauerkraut, unrinsed with no gray lumps of sausage but cooked with a green apple and a pig tail. (forgi ve me Dottie and DearHeart) He got the recipe form a friend's mother who has also introduced him to fried chicken, collard greens and mac and cheese made from scratch. He's cooking it now and my stomach is already grumbling at me. Older son has always been a help at thanksgiving. he and I seem to work as if we possess a single brain. When we used to go to my sister's or my mother's it was alway sbedlam at dinner, people flying around the kitchen, my sister calling upon Dear Sweet Jesus to make her gravy thicken, my mother proudly claiming she made REAL mashed potatoes and not that STUFF from a box. (Hey! The men love boxed potatoes) The mother and sister never wanted to come to my house and so we went there each thanksgiving but I finally put an end to it, the year we had pink turkey for dinner. My mother got the idea of roasting the turkey in a paper bag. Why, I have no idea. My sister followed that cooking tip and one year as she carved into the bird it ran pink. The meat was pink the juice coming out of it was pink and when I suggested that it wasn't quite done she told me it was because the skin had turned brown. When I tried to microwave opur meat, I was told that I as not allowed, that the meat was done and nuking it would make it tough. It was a good thing that my contribution was a salad because that's mostly what we ate. I still get queasy just thinking about it. I'll concentrate on the sauerkraut smells instead. Yum.

HMMMMMMMM

I am in a bit of a quandry though I'm not sure it's big enough to qualify as a quandry. To make a long story short, I sorta signed up to classmates dot com not planning on actually joining and somehow three people have checked my site and signed my guest book. I didn't even know I had a guest book. Anyway, there is no way I can find out who these three people are unless I become a gold member which translates into... give us some money.... So here is my quandry (I swear I'm spelling that properly despite the underlining the computer insists upon aS if to taunt my lack of spell-a-bility) I want to know who is checking me out , I really do but I'm not sure I want to know enough to pay for it. Besides, I was NOT the most popular kid in high school and so I have no idea who even knew I was alive then, let alone wonder if I am alive now. Some days I wonder if I AM alive. So why should I spend money to find out who was interested enough to look me up while I'm thinking they probably looked me up because they couldn't remember who the heck the polish girl was. There were two polish girls in my grade, me and a girl named Janet Equallylongpolishnameasmineski and everyone was always mixing the two of us up. We looked nothing alike and while I am not a raving beauty, poor Janet was downright odd looking. So now are they looking for me or for Janet Equallylongpolishnameasmineski?
My maiden name by the way was Kwiatkowski and I could spell it in kindergarten. But I'm wandering. So do I spend the money to find out? And if I don't why can't I let it go and allow it to keep pestering me. or find out and then be disappointed? AHHHHHH!!! decisions decisions.
Oh and ever hear of the saying about "damning with faint praise"? Want to know what it said under my graduation picture in the yearbook? Cheerfullness and kindness beget each other. gag. They must have gotten that from "The Book of What to Say in Yearbooks About People You Know Nothing About Nor Care to Know."

Of course the best one in that yearbook was under the kid who spent most of his life with a camera hanging around his neck. His read, "A Picture is Worth a thousand words" and sine he hadn't shown up picture day there is only a gray rectangle saying Picture not available.


But the very best of all was in a friend's yearbook. She went to the High School that my sons went to and since she and I are the same age we were both in high school when people weren't so ready to take offense. In one picture there are a couple of African American girls eating something and the caption reads.... Mmmmm those BROWNIES look delicious. If that happened these days someone would be strung up by their petard.

SO do I don't I do I don't I do I Don't i do?

Minor Sacrifices

I've gotten used to making daily sacrifices to the god of ice cubes. NOt that I had much of a choice. It seems that anytime I go into the freezer for ice, one cube always escapes to go skittering across the floor and hiding itself away where it will slowly melt into an obvious puddle which then compells the husband to point at it and say "Who peed there?". Since we have dogs and cats, well, if it was pee, there is a culprit of sorts and yet I find myself so tempted to fall to my knees and hug his knees sobbing, "It was me! It was ME! I PEED ON THE FLOOR" As if my creaking knees would allow such a thing. So I;ve come to accept the whole ritual of the sacrifical cube but now a new sacrifice has cropped up. that is the sacrifice of the envelope.
We have a toner printer at the office and for some unfathomable reason the first envelope of any batch tends to print too small forcing me to ge tup, turn of the printer, turn it back on and try again, all the while muttering threats under my breath, like how I'd like to take it home and have SOMEBODY pee on it. That would show it. Ha! I'm sure there's and easy way to prevent such a sacrifice other than me sticking a sacrifical envelope in first and small print on that over and over.
I suppose it could be worse. At least I'm not an indiginous INCA and therefore not cutting out heart and chopping off heads. the house is messy enough as it is.
I have this week off and hopefully I can unwind from the grind of endless data entry and letter printing. I'm already planning on not leaving the "crap room' ....... Oh God I just realized!!! Ther's polymer clay sacrifice going on in the crap room. Sign.