October 10, 2010
Another Thanksgiving dinner done and over.
The table was groaning under the weight of this feast: two turkeys, stuffing, ham, sweet potatoes with cream cheese and maple syrup, carrots with brown sugar, parsnips in a tarragon cream sauce, homemade cranberry sauce, steamed broccoli, homemade herb biscuits, and "Kat's potatoes", a special recipe which, until yesterday, resided solely with my sister-in-law.
And for dessert: 3 homemade-by-Emily pumpkin pies with freshly whipped whipping cream, one apple pie and an Oreo Blizzard cake, to celebrate Mere's birthday.
Just thinking about it makes me hungry and nauseous at the same time.
Clean up was something else altogether. After dinner, and after Dad left, the kids went upstairs and Stephen and I surveyed the kitchen.
No matter how much I try to clean while cooking, there is something about the last minute preparations that turn my nicely cleaned kitchen into a culinary war zone.
I started at 7.30 and by 9.30 I had washed everything that couldn't fit into the dishwasher or, was determined by Stephen to be too precious to put into the dishwasher. I then turned the dishwasher on and flopped down on the loveseat, channel surfing in hopes of something half decent to watch.
All those new cable channels and nothing to watch.
I briefly considered watching re-runs of America's Funniest Home Videos, but even exhausted, I wasn't willing to sucuumb to a mind-numbing humour, comprised of crotch shots, women who can't dance and animal amusement that borders, in some instances, on cruelty.
I went to bed.
Burying myself in the literary masterpeice, East of Eden, I am suddenly pulled from my reading reverie by a soft thud, followed by padded footsteps moving up the bed in my direction.
I lower my book, and stare straight into the eyes of my sometime nemesis.
Goblet.
Purring.
Which means nothing good.
She wants to suckle.
In particular, she wants to suckle my earlobes.
Normally, this special thrill is bestowed only upon Stephen, but, in times of intense need, she has been known to turn to me.
I'm her sloppy seconds.
Unless you've had a leather tongued cat latch onto your earlobe and suck for all its worth (I am grateful she is good about keeping her teeth to herself), while she kneeds her paws into the side of your head, unless of course she it positioning your head the way she wants it, it is difficult to describe the sensation.
Even worse, she purrs, loudly, when she does this, and inevitably I fall asleep.
I know, its weird, but it always puts me to sleep.
She prefers Stephen. . .and especially his right earlobe. For some reason, its wider than your average earlobe, and she'll suck on it until she draws blood.
Nothing is scarier than waking up in the middle of the night to her yellow eyes boring into your soul while she challenges you to try remove her.
Stephen has tried. There have been times where she actually makes his earlobes raw and sore and yet she still comes back for more.
Trying to dissuade her is impossible. She just keeps coming back until you give in, or lock her out of the bedroom.
Her response to being booted out: cry until Stephen feels so bad he lets her back in.
Makes you wonder who controls whom, doesn't it?
This afternoon we drove to Saint John to visit my sister-in-law, who has been admitted to the Saint John Regional Hospital for an indefinate period of time.
She has an incredibly rare disease called Behcets.
And, because she is part of our family, she has the rarest form of Behcets, Neurological Behcets.
However, because she is part of our family, she tries her best to manage all that is going on with humour.
I called her yesterday, asking for her potato recipe. She replied, "You want a recipe from someone with a brain disease. This could take awhile."
Saint John is about an hour's drive from where we are, which meant in my mind, "ROADTRIP!"
The kids are packed into the backseat, Stephen is manning the wheel, and I am riding shotgun with my car pillow as my compadre.
Five minutes into the drive I am sound asleep.
However, not all roadtrips have been so pleasant.
One of my favourites was the first Christmas we went to Montreal to visit Stephen's parents. Coincidentally, it was the first trip where Stephen's parents met the kids, but I'll save that for another time.
The first problem was Meredyth. She does not like roadtrips unless we rent an SUV.
All we had was the 2001 Hyundai Sonata I was driving when Stephen and I got together.
She had a cold.
Meaning she coughed.
A lot.
And each cough had a secondary, involuntary action.
Farting.
One cough = one nasty, smelly, putrid fart.
One nasty, smelly, putrid fart = all windows being rolled down via our electric windows.
And she coughed a lot.
The drive back wasn't much better.
The window regulators were worn out from being called to duty during the drive to Montreal, especially the driver's side passenger window.
At Montmagny, while trying to put the window up, it just stops.
In the dead of winter, we have a window that won't go up all the way.
Stephen, in a Red Green moment of inspiration, get duct tape from the trunk of the car and tapes the window to the frame.
Duct tape on the window.
Doesn't get much more hillbilly than that.
And this drive had more joy to lavish upon us.
Again, packed into the backseat, tired, cranky, with all of the extras we brought back with us, and we ALWAYS bring back piles of stuff from Montreal, the kids were unhappy campers.
Stephen and I always take turns driving, and it happened that I was driving at the time that Meredyth decided it would be a very good idea to unleash a square cookie tin from the bag wedged between her feet and throw it at her brother's head.
Given the distance between her and her brother (Emily was always in the middle in an attempt to lessen the blood and bruises between Mer and Keith) there wasn't much chance she was going to miss.
We were close to the second last Irving gas station before we crossed the border into New Brunswick. Mer wallops Keith in the head with the cookie tin, and Stephen, with a speed I didn't know he possessed, whipped his head around and gave Mer a death stare I didn't know he was capable of.
He is always surprising me.
To me, he says, "Turn into this gas station."
I do, completely unable to predict what was going to happen, but the tone of his voice implied that negotiating with him was not an option.
Once the car is in the parking lot, and stopped, he turn around in the car, looks the kids right in eye, and reminds them that we still have a three hour drive ahead of us, that Mer could have taken out Keith's eye and we had no idea where the hospital was and if they couldn't behave for the remainder of the drive, they could walk back to Fredericton, and that was going to take a long time given that it was dark, cold and they weren't allowed to hitchhike.
Mer says she was never so scared in her entire life.
But there was no more trouble among the kids for the rest of the drive.
It was actually quite peaceful.
Title Lyric: Cats by Barnes and Barnes
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