So another Thanksgiving has passed down the pike and we all are another day closer to death. (oh yeah, happy birthday to me…)
Went to visit the parents in the state I love to hate - Arizona. I really do hate it there, by the way. From their insistance on ignoring daylight savings time (half the year, prime time starts at 7 - how annoying is that?) and the convoluted freeway system that has every rat-racing idiot on the surface streets taking 45 minutes to go 11 miles. I really, really, really hate it. But that is not what the holiday is about, right?
I did have a great time with the relatives. Thanksgiving dinner was a bit of a crush with some thirty odd people in attendance. My weird cousin was all trying to be my friend, when half the time she doesn’t even talk to me. Whatever. BTW, she’s weird cuz she broke her husband’s wing-wang on their honeymoon (yeah, you read that right. I said BROKE!) and then told the family. Me? I woulda said he had appendicitis….but that’s just me.
Anyhoo - my cousin (the normal one) and his wife hosted the affair and there was food everywhere. But he did my favorite - he deep fried the turkey. OMG! I love fried turkey. If you haven’t tried it, it sounds like it would be greasy, but it’s not. The hot oil seals in the juices and it turns out really moist. I used to not have turkey on Thanksgiving at all because every time I had it, it was dry. I just assumed I didn’t like turkey. Try a deep fried turkey before you die, promise?
And it wasn’t too awful being at the parents. Not that it every really is, but sometimes I get so frustrated. My mom always gets mad because I don’t do things around the house. It’s not that I don’t want to, but just that they’re so freaking weird, nothing I do is ever right. Like she asked me to help with the dishes. So after she emptied the diswasher I went over to do the dishes. I’m rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher - its almost fully loaded when she asks if I’m rinsing them. Yes, of course - knowing she’s one of those people who likes to practically WASH the dishes before putting them in the washer - thought I was doing a good job, too. No, she says, I mean after you wash them. Say what? Apparently I was supposed to psycically divine that they literally WASH the dishes and just use the dishwasher as a drying rack. Hmmm.
There’s a million different weird little idiosyncracies like that. Ones they expect you to know because they assume its normal. The decorative trashcan in full view is NOT for trash. The real trash can is under the sink.
Admittedly, a lot of these little rules are ones of my mom’s husband and she seems happy enough to accept them as long as it keeps her from cooking.
But that was another frustrating thing. He’s sort of laid up right now and not supposed to be moving around. So my mom is doing everything for him like bringing him his meals and stuff. He’s in bed watching TV and talking on the phone. Oh, and driving her crazy.
He can’t let go of any little thing. He’s telling her she needs to take a bunch of boxes to the dump or refill his kool aid or giving precise instructions how to heat up his food when he needs to realize that going to the dump is not priority. His kool aid mug is a 64 oz mug. Anyone who drinks more than 64 ounces of kool-aid a day needs to face facts that they’ve got a problem. And he needs to be happy he’s getting food, cuz trust me, if it were me and my husband was 500lbs and laid up, I’d be putting him on a severe diet in a heartbeat.
Then I get a phone call from my father. He’s finally decided to return my calls, but at a time when he pretty much knows I’m not available. Very neat trick I learned from Dear Old Dad, that. Says he’s sending me 17″ monitor for my birthday. I hope I don’t sound ungrateful, but I hope to God it’s a flatscreen. My current 17″ monitor takes up a considerable amount of room, but it appears to be in good health.
My grandmother thinks I live in New York. That Alzheimer’s thing may not be just a blanket diagnosis after all. Although she remembers that I got a new car and that my cousin and his wife just had a baby. She seems to have blotted out her San Diego memories. Weird, huh?
But the good news is that no one was arrested and everyone made nice to each other for the holiday. It was the very best kind of dysfunctional family gathering.