I made stuffing, green beans almondine, gravy, a killer salad. Sister and BiL made pies, mashies, candied yams and cranberry sauce. Mom made the turkey and timed it wrong so we had to Rachel Ray it in some chicken stock to finish it off.

all. so. good.

and my haid hurts

And what is lemon icebox pie?

It's pretty close to key lime pie, only lemon instead of lime and with an egg white merangue on top. So, it's condensed milk, fresh lemon juice, sugar, egg yolks... and the crust is crushed vanilla wafers and butter. It's yum.

Just got back. Dinner was for 4:30. but poor SiL underestimated the size of the turkey, so we didn't end up eating until 6:30. We were very convivial, despite the wait time. There was turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, yams, two kinds of stuffing, brussel sprouts, some sort of freaky pink jello thing brought by a guest, cranberry relish, and pecan and pumpkin pie. Yum. Now I must sleep for eleventy billion hours.

Anyone still up? I can't sleep. Too many naps.

Pick me! Pick me!

I am so up that I have in fact just finished a full day's work, and waved my wee darlings off.

FAY!! I meant to say earlier that I'm sorry that things are rough with your co-worker, but then I napped instead.

Yep. Didn't even have to be polite to the brother or sil, I got my Thanksgiving Miracle!

Where I tried to be in the same room as my brother for more than a few minutes (we stopped in at my parents' before heading off to the Marcontell clan's for dinner) and had a rage blackout.

Seriously.

I explained to my parents that it's the old matter/antimatter thing.

When I called later to apologize again for blowing my top, my mother sighed and said, "Well, don't think we don't sometimes feel the same exact way."

Then I asked if Santa could bring him a sense of fucking humor for Christmas. "Wouldn't that be nice," said she.

I'm up but about to be not. Had a wonderful Thanksgiving with way too much food (as per usual) and many wonderful friends. Aimee and I did the bulk of the cooking, and we held the feast at our house. There were about 11 of us in all, and we wandered in and out of the house--back patio, front porch, dining room, living room, kitchen--and munched constantly from 11AM until 11PM. The evening cumlinated in a cross-state Halo game between Pete the Adorable Assasin and ND, Miracleman, Sonusexmachina, and a couple of other friends. Good-natured holiday cheer and profanity ensued.

Sonus is crashing here tonight, so he and ND are having one more Halo match before we let the tryptophan do its work.

I hope you all had a wonderful day. Goodnight all.

Ugh, Plei. I hope the rest of the day was okay.

Sounds great, Kristin.

FAY!! I meant to say earlier that I'm sorry that things are rough with your co-worker, but then I napped instead.

Well, he's been a bit glowery today, but just now he was chatty and almost normal-friendly, so I'm hoping that the bug up his ass is gradually expiring. Maybe. Else it's going to be a LONG year.

Meanwhile I have today, with the help of my kids, organised all the sound effects & procussion bits for our play, rewritten scripts with those inserted, printed and highlighted and distributed (despite death of printer) copies to all relevent people (ie 13 kids and 5 teachers) during the lunchbreak between the music lesson and the rehearsal for Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer Whoops-A-Daisy Angel.

My kids are still So. Damn. Cute. that I could eat them with a spoon. Or maybe with a side of stuffing and gravy.

So cute. Really. Damn.

In today's installment of Conversations With Ray:

Ray: (scandalised) Miss Fay! [best friend] says I will marry [random girl]!!!!

Me: Gosh! I didn't know you were getting married, Ray. Aren't you a bit young to be settling down?

Ray: No! Not me! I said to [best friend] "if she doesn't marry me, she can marry you!" (Ray is enormously tickled by his own cleverness at hoisting his friend in his own petard. Whatever the hell that phrase means. Anyway, you get the jist - he thinks this is just The Cleverest Riposte Ever. Bless him.)

Me: Gosh! So [best friend]'s getting married?

Ray: (triumphant at having vanquished the match-makers with fiendish cunning) Yes! Not me! I am not getting married!

Oh! Also he was teaching me Chinese. We've been answering the register in Chinese this week (don't ask me if it's Mandarin or Cantonese, 'cause this is a distinction Ray wots not of) - 'Nihau' as our multipurpose 'hello' and, er, something else that means 'good morning'. Which Ray had to keep helpfully re-teaching me every morning.

At the beginning of the play our 8 narrators politely ask mums and dads to turn off their mobile phones. One kid says it in French, one in Thai, three in Gujerati, one in Korean, one in Malaysian (or Arabic - to be decided) and one in English. I had a job on convincing the rest of my class that only the narrators got to play this game, because they were all for telling me how to say 'Please switch off your mobile phones' in Chinese and Japanese too. And indeed did, and I was most impressed, but I had to explain that since they were Dancing Angels they didn't get to do this bit.

Bless. Them.