1 post tagged “turkey”
I had a nice day today despite missing my family a little bit. My plan was to go to Gilbert V's house for T-Day. He has been hosting an orphan Thanksgiving celebration for 20 years. I feel so honored to be a part of it because I am not an Language and Literature Department member. Those folks have adopted me and I am so grateful for their presence in my life. Gilbert's is always a fun time so I definitely wanted to attend as opposed to making a turkey dinner for just Kel and I.
Although if Kel had asked I would have done that. I know he enjoys it when I cook. I think he was just as happy visiting his godparents. It almost makes it seem like he gets to get away from town for awhile like a real college student who doesn't live within the city confines of Wayne America. I know that I have been so blessed because Kel has so many good people in his life to help him along. Bryan, his dad has always been there. I know sometimes I complain about Bryan but he is a good guy. Shelly, Bryan's girlfriend has done a great job forging a relationship with Kel. I admire her for helping raise/support our son and being a friend to me. Kel's godparents Kim and Jeff, along with their children are Kel's large raucous extended family. My sister has also been there doing fun aunt things with him. It does take a village or a small SWAT team to raise a kid. I am very thankful for all of this help with parenting because I don't know that I would have done without this sort of support.
I didn't sleep well last night so I just ended up clearing off my TiVo till it was time for the Macy's parade. I watched for a bit and then slept for three hours. I took my walk in the beautiful crisp fall air. I made my creamy cornbread. It turned out really well. My oven doesn't always heat evenly so I have to watch it.I managed to put on make up and be ready on time. Janet G and I were the first ones there. Gilbert was peaking out the window as we trugded up the walk in the dark with our ceramic pans and covered glass dishes. We wanted to get inside quickly because it was rather cold.
The kitchen looked like Gilbert had been cooking all day and was sort of a disaster. Janet cracked open the champange. Lisa arrived with her friend Mike and then Reynolds with their daughter Julie and her friend ( fiancee? husband?) Joe. Janet Schmitz and Bobby Z showed up. We had a toast to being thankful. Everyone was talking about wonderful movies that they had seen including Michael Clayton, The Brave One, Darljing Unlimited, and some other ones I wasn't sure of.
The mayhem in the kitchen started when Gilbert asked me where my cornbread was. I told him I saw him take it from the table and bring it to the kitchen. I found it on the counter and tried to step out of the way of Vic who was carving the turkey with a frightening electric knife and tried to not get between Gilbert and Janet G. Gilbert was taking a huge pan of stuffing out of the oven when it flipped over and out his hands onto the floor. It was funny but salvageable because this was the vegetarian style stuffing that had no contact with the bird. At first, Gilbert tried to flip the pan back over. This resulted in the stuffing being on the floor with a layer of tin foil underneath it. I would say you could save ninety percent of the stuffing by just spooning it into a bowl. I am sure I was not helping because I was standing there taking pictures. I was also drinking all of Janet's champagne which went to my head. I sort of still have headache despite drinking water and doing everything to avoid the fermented grape headache I get annually on T-day because I drink wine or champagne.
The table was beautiful and we had just the right amount of folks for great interactive conversations about books, movies, and food. We had turkey, gravy, roast potatoes, turnips in bourbon, cauliflower and broccoli in cheese sauce, Brussels sprouts, corn stuffing with jalapeños, fruit salad, cornbread, wheat bread, rolls, and cranberry relish. Everything was delicious. I took small amounts of all the veggies and had one peice of moist turkey. I think everyone was just stuffed.
We had a spiced pumpkin square with whipped creme that was to die for with candied walnuts. It was so tasty. I had a bite. The we had Gilbert's favorite decadent death by layers of chocolate cake. Omigod that cake deserves a meal of it's own because it is so rich. MMMMMMMMM!!!!!
I managed to get Gilbert to give me a slice to go. That is so wonderful. I will have it with milk tomorrow for breakfast and be on a sugar high all day.
All of this camaraderie helps me to miss my sister, brother, and dad less. I am so lucky to have been able to have these sorts of wonderful friends who were around to help me when I was in so much trouble this year. All of these people have been great to me out of the kindness of their hears.
The only thing I really wish is that I could go to the Black Friday sales. There's nothing that gets the old adrenaline running when you are tearing around trying to find the 100 spindle of DVD s for the incredible price of $4.99. The most popular BF deal this year seems to be the $299 laptop. They vary in brands and specs. The Acer that Wackmart is selling looks like it would work with someone that surfs, does email, and that's about it cause the memory isn't really sufficient to run everything in VISTA. VISTA will be great six months from now when they get the bugs worked out. It doesn't work alot of editing software and it utterly incompatible with many printers and design softwares like Photoshop or InDesign. Not everything works so why would you have installed on your network if you knew that.
On a stand alone machine as long as you aren't playing graphic intensive games or doing extensive photo retouching this is the laptop for you. There are other worthy $299 notebooks out there at Radio Shack and CompUSA. The problem is each store will probably have one or maybe if it's a good store maybe five. Hopefully, the employees didn't set some aside for relatives. I saw this happen all the time at the layaway desk at Wackmart. Not exactly ethical but it is a sub $300 notebook. There are also great deals on memory sticks and cards. I think there are also some deals on things my sister actually needs for her house like an above the range microwave. So I will miss shopping with my sis tomorrow.
If I had more money I would buy everyone I know a digital picture frame and put pictures or videos on it for them. I think that would be a great gift if the digital frames came down just ten more dollars. They are about $50 as door buster products and retailers will take a hit on these things but the price will ease up as production is geared up for the demand for these things. I mean I use my computer to show a slide show as a screen saver which I love but I think it would be cooler and more entertaining to people in my office if I had a digital picture frame. You can even put small video clips on them. There are also digital video key chains. Not much memory but enough to do a good job and the screens are usually less than an inch so these key chains might not be the best bet for older Americans. They work like a jump drive except they have a screen on it to show the pix or small video clip. I mean what will they think up next?
I have to think up some different gift ideas for my family. It might be a Bomgaars Christmas again. One year I had to get the package mailed out quickly. Everyone but my sister and mom got mag lights. Big black Mag Lights that if you bopped someone on the head with it you could easily injure them. This flashlight is often seen in movies where people need to be made unconscious for a short period of time. Even though the being knocked out and then coming back into the world without the signs of a concussion is sort of a myth. I saw that on MythBusters. Anyways my Bomgaar Xmas was complete when I picked up some cheap John Deere gear for the family including hats, key chains, and coasters. Thank goodness my family has a great sense of humor.
For example, for a long time they thought that Target was a French Import store because I messed up the name. I also wasn't sure how to describe it because where I grew up there were no Wal*Marts or Kmarts. I had nothing to compare it. We had something called Bradless which went out of business when I was turning into a teenager. We also had Caldor's which bit the dust. Bradlees and Caldors failed because they tried to be too many things to too many people. Sort of what Target , ShopKo, and Pamida are doing now. Pamida is particularly confusing now because they have many of the ShopKo brands in clothing but not much else in common. I can only hope that they can keep it together against the onslaught of Wackmart. They are coming on strong with new designer dudes and they must have stolen a Target design apprentice for some of the furniture and kitchenware because it has turned into something trendy and cool. I am not sure how comfortable I feel about admitting to buying clothes at Wackmart. I do have some cute things from there but they usually fall apart quickly because I think they are made to self destruct before the trend comes to an end.
Oh well enough babble. I will try to post some pics. My card reader on this machine is being sort of funky.
