October 11, 2011
Our Thanksgiving was as plentiful and bountiful as always.
Roasted to perfection turkey, pumpernickel bread stuffing with walnuts and raisins, Dad's sweet potatoes with cream cheese and maple syrup, lite cream cheese in deference to my lifestyle change, brown sugar carrots for Em because she can no longer consume my parsnips in a tarragon cream sauce, beets for Mer because she loves them and as she says, "they turn my poop purple", my homemade olive oil drizzled potatoes baked in the oven for Em because she can't eat cream cheese potatoes and my mother loves any potato resembling a French fry that she can dip in her ramekin of ketchup, our homemade Ukrainian dill pickles, pumpkin pie that was not homemade but was very, very tasty, homemade cranberry sauce. . .
. . .that Stephen wanted to make using 5 pounds of cranberries.
Luckily I walked in just at the nick of time, and informed him that all one needed to make cranberry sauce for 8 people was two cups of cranberries.
Imagine what I would have done with cranberry sauce comprising 5 pounds of cranberries, which, when including the sugar and water would have been around 8 pounds of cranberry sauce.
Imagine.
But that was the only disaster I was able to narrowly avert.
My father transported his potatoes in a glass 9 x 13 pan complete with it's own pain-in-the-ass-lid to get off.
Plastic lid.
As I was putting his sweet potatoes in the oven, covered with tinfoil, he came into the kitchen and stated that the lid was heat resistant up to 400 degrees so I should put it back on and then put the potatoes in the oven.
My innards nudged me to overrule him, as I am the grande dame of dawne's house, but I was tired, having just taken him and my mother to Costco, the kids were hungry and whining, and all I wanted to do was make my tarragon cream sauce, heat these potatoes and get everyone to the table to eat.
I did as he said.
And then went to the bathroom.
Only to shoot off the toilet as soon as the stench of melting plastic reached my nostrils.
Which was about the same time as it reached my Dad's nostrils.
Now, I have an oven with it's bottom dotted in red plastic.
Melted, hardened red plastic and me with not one f***ing clue about how to get it off without a chisel.
And just as an aside, if I had covered the landscape of my father's oven with dots of melted, hardened red plastic, I would have NEVER heard the end of it.
I would have been reminded of my transgression during every family dinner, every high day and holiday until the end of time.
My dad said he was sorry.
And that he guessed the lid wasn't heat proof to 400 degrees.
Prior to dinner, I had made arrangements with my father for him to meet me, Stephen and Mum at my house for 2.30, at which time we would all pile into my car and go to Costco.
My father wanted to see inside Costco, peruse its aisles to assess whether or not it would be in his best interest to purchase his own membership.
Or just make arrangements with me everytime he wanted something from there.
Given what he determined would be of any use for him, that may work out to about once a year.
About as many times as I could manage shopping with my father.
Our hour and half meander through the aisles resulted in me and Stephen purchasing a family pack of Premium Plus crackers for the kids, as well as a bag of multigrain chiabatta buns shaped like triangles.
Dad bought himself 3 liters of honey, 30 hearing aids and two bottles of cranberry juice for Mum.
Mum just sat in her wheelchair, watching all that was going around her, and commenting on how little my father's shopping habits have evolved since her moving into the nursing home.
Thanksgiving Monday.
Like Easter Monday and Boxing Day, Thanksgiving Monday is one of the three days in a year where I am almost completely responsibility free.
Where the day greets me not with, "these-are-all-the-things-that-you-have-to-do-before-you-can-rest-your-head-on-the-pillow" but with a "hey! The-day-is-yours-do-what-you-want!"
Three days out of 365 I experience this joy.
Livin' on the edge.
That's me.
Instead of being lurched awake by some contemporary popular music at 5.30 in the morning, I was pawed awake by a bladder challenged Tikka at 8.00 am.
Constituting sleeping in for me.
Instead of eating breakfast at the computer in a rush while Frankie stares at me and whines, I was able to eat breakfast leisurely while Frankie stared and whined at me.
Instead of running around trying to get ready for work while dragging the sleep addled Emily into the waking world, I was able to sit at the computer, mark papers and listen to Em complain about Mer wanting her to take her shift.
Em took the shift.
But Em woke up on her own steam and I was able to do all the emotion management from my desk.
This was turning into a regular holiday.
Three whole times a year.
But a whole day off was just not in the cards for me.
Almost, but not quite.
9.00 pm.
I had just finished watching two episodes of Big Bang Theory, had taken my melatonin and was happily contemplating going to bed when the phone rang.
My father.
NEVER a good sign.
EVER.
Sure enough, I was right.
My mother had fallen at the nursing home while attempting to negotiate the bathroom with her medicated-riddled systems.
Watching her do this in the past lead me to conclude that there would come a time when she was going to fall.
And she did.
A goose egg on her forehead and at the back of her head.
My father, of course, wanted me to go and make sure she was okay.
Of course he did.
Why should he drive into Fredericton to make sure his wife was okay.
I go to the hospital, because this is where I was told she was going to be.
Waiting and waiting, I call the nursing home only to find out that she wasn't coming to the hospital, as the nursing home doctor determined she didn't need to.
So I rush down to the nursing home to find my mother in her bed, ice pack behind her head, ice pack on her forehead, trying not to sleep because she is worried she had a concussion.
I'm worried too.
And if anything had happened to my mother over night, there was going to be a doctor in this city who should be worried about how long she'd be keeping her licence.
Luckily, no such incident occurred.
And my mother appears to be fine.
My father and I on the other hand. . . .
Let's just say I am not a happy camper with him right now.
Not coming into see my mother and a plastic splattered oven.
How much am I supposed to take?
Title Lyric: Sweet Potatoes by SIA
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