Yum, Thanksgiving food! We went to my aunt and uncles in Brookline (about a 45 minute drive from us) and it was a relatively small affair, aunt, uncle, cousin, Mom, Dad, Grandma, and another non-family couple which probably kept the rest of us civilized.

Aunt doesn't cook much anymore, so we had volunteered to make the sausage-sage-apple stuffing and cranberry-pear-ginger compote and brought over a chocolate pecan bread pudding, oat raisin rolls, and pumkin cornmeal bread from our local bakery. Then I told my aunt to sit down (she has back and knee problems) and I orchestrated the heating up of various things.

Things being: turkey (which she bought and we carved), our stuffing, vegetarian stuffing, mashed butternut squash, mashed potatoes, creamed onions, green bean casserole, our cranberry thing, and the cranberry jelly stuff with the can lines. Dessert was the aforementioned bread pudding, a pumpkin pie, an apple crumble pie, and a faux mincemeat pie that the cook had forgotten to add the brandy while mixing, so my uncle inserted 3 small funnels in the pie and poured Couvosier in before eating. My grandmother LOVED it!!! Heh.

I also spearheaded the cleanup movement. I got lots of props for all this, but it was all selfishly motivated, because being busy in the kitchen meant I did not have to make small talk and drink too much without really realizing it.

Then Tom and I drove home and caught the tail end of a Friends Thanksgiving episode marathon, which was exactly the kind of mindless TV I was in the mood for. Then slept like the dead.

This morning, we got up and hopped over to our farm so that we could get the jump on egg buying (they get snapped up quickly!) and, while chatting with the farmer, discovered that there were still some fresh killed turkeys available, so we bought a small one (6.5 lbs). There will be no brining of this bird, for the brine will overpower the very different flavor of this heritage breed, REALLY free range turkey. (These dudes flew, too - mostly at human eye level - Tom once almost got flown into!) So, YAY, second Thanksgiving!

Today we'll be heading back to Brookline for leftovers and stuff.

Sounds like everyone's had a relatively good holiday. It was lovely here. Lots of good food and good company.

Today is back to craziness. Off to do some research for a paper.

Whatever the hell that phrase means.

It means blown up by your own little bomb.

Our thanksgiving was neither good nor bad. It was good in the sense that we had very little responsibility or hosting stress, but was mostly a rather formal, unjolly affair punctuated by Matilda's arsenic hour. JZ stumbled around stoned on massive doses of allergy medicine. I think she said five sentences all night. After two hours my cat allergies kicked in hard. I spent most of the evening calming Matilda down and handing her off to somebody ignorant of the magic butt-pats, perfect angle of repose and bouncy walk necessary to keep her congenial between 6:30 and 8:30pm.

EM was good company, Emmett well-behaved and JZ's mom had interesting stories of her recent trip to India, but overall it was mildly strained and humorless.

Worse, her Dad committed the cardinal hosting sin of sending me home with NO leftovers. He had half a freaking turkey there. I need to go create my own turkey leftovers or I'll be depressed all week.

On the plus side, Matilda's arsenic hour in the evening is complemented by her honey hour in the morning after she's been fed. Emmett gave her a kiss and she smiled at him and he played with her in his lap for a solid half hour.

these dudes flew, too - mostly at human eye level - Tom once almost got flown into!

So, remembering the single greatest WKRP line every, these turkeys actually could survive being dropped from a helicopter? I'm guessing if they fly mostly at ground level, that is still beyond the limit of their skills.

Emmett was holding Matilda while I made myself a bagel, and she fell asleep in his arms.

He handed her back to me advising, "You have to hold her in tight to your body like a little bundle of joy. Which she is." And he gave her a delicate kiss. Then in a far more gothic mode he observed (very fondly) "She's like a little bag of skin and flesh."

Dude. He's like, if you took all the fandom crazy, and gave it form, then stripped the fan part out. A walking one-man Fandom Wank.

Ray stories are a whole heap of Bless!

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Dan's aunt's apartment. Just her, her son who is Dan's crazy cousin, and us. Small feast, with spiral-cut ham, scalloped potatoes, baked yams (no marshmallow due to half the company being diabetic, and the other half preferring sweet potatoes with gravy on 'em anyway), whole wheat rolls - and Dan and I brought home-made cranberry sauce made with artificial sweetener, cauliflower, and baby peas. Dan's cousin brought pumpkin pie. We had to work around my schedule, as I was on-call for the group home from 2pm on. So we ate at noon, which was about when the cousin called to say he was just leaving, would be there soon, but go ahead and eat without him. He arrived with the pie just as the rest of us were finishing the main course. Nothing was particularly amazingly spectacular, but it was a pleasant meal, and no one was snotty or ill-mannered.

Today has been the laziest day it has been possible to laze. I wrapped the BigAss (tm) box of chocolates that was my mom's birthday present, signed her pink sparkly card (she likes cards with pastel baby animals, simple verses, and sparkles on them. Pink, lavender and peachy colors are a plus), stuck a candle in her mini chocolate chocolate cake with sprinkles and sang Happy Birthday for her. "I can't cut that cake, it's too cute!" So I grabbed a knife and saved her the angst. Otherwise it would have been preserved in plastic till, oh, July.

My mouse's batt'ries went ded. StY and I sort of rambled around looking for the pack we thought we had here, without luck. So I rogued the batt'ries out of the stereo remote. Not using the stereo right now, anyway. Saves me a trip out into Black Friday. And preserves the lazy.

We have no turkey leftovers, but there are lemon pepper chicken leftovers, and they are mighty tasty.

I need to go create my own turkey leftovers or I'll be depressed all week.

Dude, I can bring some over. M brought a whole bunch over to me (I was too tired to really celebrate - I wandered down to where he was, ooohed and ahhhed at the table set for the entire Italian army when there were only 5 people eating, and then wandered back up to bed), and there is no way in hell I can eat all of it. But it is very nummy.

No leftovers is a wrong, wrong, WRONG thing. So sorry, David!

We just put up mom and dad's Christmas tree. It is *quite* lovely. And now I'm pooped.