Category Archives: Days to Remember

Thanksgiving wrap-up 2007

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve got a lot to be grateful for this year. A panties-wearing Laurel and a 20/20 Allen, a mostly healthy Terry, and an exuberant Kelsey. We’ve weathered storms this year (and continue to) that would shake the foundations of most families I know. We hope next year will be a bit more boring.

TurkeyThanksgiving prep was rather lonely this year, and I really missed my family of origin and the group spirit of preparing for this holiday. This year is actually the first that I’ve had to prepare a Thanksgiving turkey by myself, without my mother or a friend looking over my shoulder. It was a little daunting, having that responsibility! Allen and Laurel were making a last-minute grocery store stop to find mincemeat, so it was just me, a turkey that needed to be put into the oven, and my squeamish 5 year old.

Unfortunately, I may have converted the five year old to vegetarianism.

It’s not my fault. I was stuffing the neck cavity, spooning stuffing below the neck flap (gods this is disgusting) when she snuck up behind me and asked what I was doing. I tried to shield her, but my hand slipped on the skin flap, which slapped down with a gooey meat splash. I thought Kelsey was going to retch.

“That looks yucky! I’m not gonna look at THAT again!” she cried, before leaping out of the kitchen to hide her eyes in a book. She came back a few minutes later to talk some turkey with me.

“But Mommy, I don’t want to kill turkeys just to eat. I think that turkeys are good for the world!”

Although I tried to explain food chains and omnivorous-by-choice stuff, she just didn’t seem convinced, and instead concentrated on getting the green beans ready for cooking while carefully averting her eyes from the obscene things I was doing with the turkey.

I can’t really blame her. I was close to puking myself. I’ve never enjoyed the WORK of preparing a turkey or chicken for baking. Maybe next year we’ll have tofurkey!

After I got the bird into the oven, Allen and Laurel returned triumphantly with my jar of mincemeat. Our friends came over, and we had a really nice time. Here’s the menu, for those interested:

24 pounds turkey stuffed
I rubbed the turkey with some butter and fresh rosemary. Very juicy — the 1/2 apple in the body cavity did its trick!

2 butternut squash
Oven roasted, and prepared with roasted almonds and a little butter, some salt to taste.

1/2 pound green beans
Steamed, then tossed with roasted smashed garlic and olive oil.

5 pounds potatoes
Your basic whipped potatoes w/butter and a little milk, prepared by my friend, E.

Yummy Sweet potatoes with brown sugar
Corn
Dinner rolls
Gravy
Pinot Noir
Apple cider

Dessert included E’s apple pie and pumpkin pie, and my favorite Toll House Cookie Pie (with, as usual, an irresponsible amount of chocolate chips inside!), and a Key Lime pie for Allen. Need I mention the mincemeat? I’m the only one who ever eats it. More for me.

E’s husband, M, brought the family’s china over, and the table looked gorgeous. The table itself is an old friend, and it was nice to see 9 chairs wrapped around it to share a meal.

Our friends are gone and are already missed. My kitchen is clean, the counters wiped. The dog finally let in and fed. The girls in their beds, sleeping peacefully. They both had passed out in my arms downstairs, and their father carried them to their beds. I love it when my girls fall asleep with my arms around them. I’m thankful for my amazing, crazy, silly, supah-smaht children, who make me cry and laugh and crazy every single day.

Allen is snoring beside me. I’m thankful to be sharing this bed and this life with my very bestest friend.

I’m speaking for him now, but I think he’d agree. We’re grateful for friends, here and far. For family from Birmingham AL to Pensacola FL to Marblehead MA, and everywhere in between (and above — don’t wanna leave out the Vermont folks! Howdy!). *Big Waves* to the Boston folks and the NC-Triangle folks and the Durham UK folks — yeah, we’re thankful for you guys and toasting your health!

Thanks for tuning in tonight. Many blessings to you on this Thanksgiving day and every day.

Halloween ’07

Posted on by
Reply

Top 10 things I’m thankful for.

My kids…

  1. ate nutritious snacks prior to stuffing their mouths with what must amount to buckets of refined sugar.
  2. were charming and courteous!
  3. suffered no costuming tragedies, except that the little one decided last-minute to ditch Diego and go with “blue princess.”
  4. didn’t, to my knowledge, ask for treats with any reference to requesting homeowners to smell their feet or other body parts.
  5. had NO sugar-induced meltdowns that couldn’t be solved by exclaiming “Hey, there’s another house! Go, get your trick-or-treating on!”
  6. didn’t get jumped by ninjas (except at the end of the night, but he was 5 and rather short, so we had the advantage).
  7. want to be skeletons next year (take that, Disney!)
  8. shared their trick-or-treating bounty with each other and their parents.
  9. lost interest in their candy after a few days (WOOOT! CANDY! -errr, I’ll… save that for next year. Heh.)
  10. passed out like floppy tired things and slept for 9 straight, uninterrupted, blessed-gods-thank-you hours.


More photos here

The girl’s got some sass

Posted on by
Reply

Reading a book with my five year old this morning before school, we get to the part about colors. I ask her to give me the Spanish names for red and blue. “Rojo?” she says, with some hesitation. “Good. Now, how do you say blue in Spanish?” Pause. She clearly is struggling to remember.

From the next room, a small voice booms out “Azul!” with such certainty. It’s the three year old.

Later, that same three year old is invited to play hide and seek with some other children in a courtyard at the downtown library. While she runs out of my sight to hide, I pick up the remains of our lunch and tidy up the table, listening as an older child (probably 10 or so) counts to 40 to give all the other kids time to hide. I follow the boy who is “it” so that I have a clear view of the courtyard, and there is my brilliant three year old, squatting in the grass in the middle of the courtyard. With her hands over her eyes.

The boy who is “it” stops for a second beside L, clearly not knowing what to do. I hear him giggle, and then he passes her by, to chase some of the kids who are slightly better at this game than she.

I walk up to my little kid and ask what she is doing. “I’m HIDING, Mommy” she says crossly, eyes rolling, hands on hips.

Birthday Phone Call to Dad

Posted on by
7

“Hey there! Long time no speak! Happy Birthday, Dad!”

“Hi, hon! Yeah, I’ve been missing you. Thinking ’bout ya. Oh, yeah, the big 7 4 this  year, huh? I haven’t been keeping track.”

“Well, I and my daughters (5 and 3) celebrated today. We had a fantastic mommy day. Museum, fast food, playground, lots of snuggling. My younger child, Laurel, asked about you. She asked where you live.”

“I wish I could meet them. I know what it’s like to have daughters who are two years apart. I’ve talked to your sister a lot lately. I don’t know if she’s listening…. Oh, hey, I hate to ask, but who is the father of your little ones?”

“Oh, you haven’t met him. His name is Allen.”

“YES! I remember hearing about him. Didn’t you say something about having some great sex with a new guy, a guy who was “just a friend?” Is this the guy? What did you call him… “Mr. Great Sex, No Commitment?”

“Umm, errr, yeah. *blushing* That’s him. He and I just toasted your birthday. Slogged some Jamaican dark rum into some glasses, added some coke. It tasted funny, though. We aren’t drinkers. We got a couple of sips down, but then traded them in for bowls of ice cream. I had Starbucks Java Chip.”

“Thanks, kiddo. What – you couldn’t find any Bacardi?”

“Oh, well we don’t buy a lot of alcohol. A friend of mine gave me the bottle. His dad died recently, and he had quite the collection of bottles. He gave me some Maker’s Mark, too, and 3 bottles of tequila…”

“Don’t drink the tequila.”

“I know. I’ll probably give those away as presents. I don’t drink these days, believe it or not. I’ve got kids. I don’t want my girls growing up with parents who drink. Allen and I made some promises to each other, about 6 years ago.”

“Do you smoke?”

“No, Dad. *tears welling up*”

“Good girl. Hey, play me a song on that guitar. You know what I want to hear.”

“Sure. Hey, I taught Shannon that song when she came to visit us this summer. She’s 16 now and SO beautiful. She’s made some bad choices lately, taken up smoking and not just cigarettes. I really hope she’s turning around.”

*silence*

“Dad?”

“*voice cracking with emotion* I made some bad choices, too, Terry. I love all of you so much. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, Dad. It’s OK. We’re OK. We’re making it without you. It’s been hard, but, well, isn’t it SUPPOSED TO BE hard? Isn’t that the beauty, the terrible beauty of it all?”

“Tell my family I love ‘em. Tell Alden I wanted to be there for him, to show him what a man’s supposed to do, who he’s supposed to be. Kiss the grandbabies for me, the ones I haven’t met. Tell the son in law he better earn you every day of his life. Tell your mom that I really planned to make it through. I didn’t want to leave. That she’s my girl.”

“OK, Daddy. I will. And I guess I’ll talk to you next year. Hey, I restrung your guitar finally! Wanna hear an old favorite?”

“Yeah, I do, honey. Sing it out loud this time, huh? And watch that F. You always have trouble holding down the B and E strings…”

Am          C           D               F
There is a house in New Orleans

Am       C       E
They call the Rising Sun

Am         C       D                  F
It’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
Am     E            Am

and Lord, I know I’m one.

*stops playing to wipe the tears*

“I miss you, Dad.”

New Strings

Posted on by
2

I just re-strung my dad’s guitar. It’s been one of my annual resolutions for a few years now. Well, 8, to be exact. He died 9 years ago this week.

Is it sentimental to want to keep old guitar strings, just because my dad played those same strings in the last few weeks of his life? Yeah, probably. More than any other memory I treasure of my dad is the one where he is sitting beside me, with this guitar, his thick fingers playing impossible chords, singing in his deep, rich voice, while I struggle to keep up. I never felt like his equal, even at my best.

The old, rusty strings are gone, in the trash. I wrap on six shiny new Gibson steels, tune it by ear, enjoying the way new strings vibrate lightly on my fingers. I’m envisioning his fingers moving up and down the frets, where my fingers are trying to fly like his once did. I’m only doing impressions. I may never keep up with that image. It’s nice, though, to try.

This guitar feels like coming home, on a break from school, driving the 6 hours from Gainesville to Pensacola, Florida, walking in the front door to see my dad, rum and coke melting, cigarette burning to ash, playing Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson or some other song I used to think I was too cool for. Dad would sometimes have a cold beer waiting for me, my guitar nearby and in tune. He’d been waiting for me. Waiting for me to accompany him.

I may not have felt able to measure up, but I know that HE thought I was more than good enough. And now there are two little girls, two amazing grandchildren who never got to meet their grandfather, and they are looking up at me with shiny faces, trying to sing “Moonshadow” with me, forgetting the words, grinning and overflowing with silliness, their fingers just itching to strum these strings.