Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving traditions are quite established -- we eat at Anna's house, most of the cooking happens on Thursday morning at Anna's house, Alissa is the one who plans and organizes the pie making, Jesse and others do the deviled eggs and mashed potatoes, it is a beehive of activity.  I am in charge of procuring the vegetables for the day and delivering them after everyone has finished the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot. Somehow Jon and I get to have a quiet house to ourselves, once all the bowls and pie pans and ingredients have been whisked away.  Jon prepares the turkey and I make some vegetable side dishes, but we also get to sit in the living room quietly or read the paper at the table.

Almost everything went according to the usual plan.  Yesterday Sophia brought over a gigantic turkey (31 pounds) and Jon put it in a brine solution in a huge pot in the walk-in cooler.  I had already bought a smaller turkey from the milk delivery people, and it was waiting patiently in the bottom of our refrigerator but it got out-classed by Sophia's bird.

Ever since Sunday morning, Jon has been developing one of his chest colds. To be fair, he has been quite healthy all season long -- but when he does get sick, it travels to his chest and sits there.  By yesterday he was feeling worse and this morning when he woke up he knew he had to call Kaiser, even if it was Thanksgiving.  He got an early appointment and optimistically thought he would be home in time to get the turkey in the oven.  We had calculated that he would flatten it, divide it into two pans and it would need to be in the oven by 10:30.

At 10:00, after I had picked the spinach and pulled some carrots and gathered up other things from the coolers, I lugged the heavy turkey to the kitchen and announced to the many kids around the kitchen table that they would have to look up on google how to butterfly a very big turkey.  They got right on it.  They looked at two videos and appointed David the task of muscling the turkey into the pans.  First I had to go to Betsy's house to borrow some good kitchen shears since we don't seem to have anything here at the moment.  David cut out the backbone while I held the turkey steady on the counter. Shalini stood by with her phone, watching the You Tube pictures to verify that we were doing it right.  It took 40 minutes to get it ready for the oven, after I cut off the drumsticks and thighs because it just didn't fit in the pan.

Jon sent a text saying he was coming home soon, but they were doing some blood tests to rule out things, and they had confirmed that he did not have pneumonia.

Alissa and Becca and David and Jesse and Shalini took all their ingredients to Anna's house and I stayed home.  Jon got back at 12:30, having been poked and examined and found to have a bronchial cold (he knew that). But they did give him a round of antibiotics, which usually helps. He went upstairs to bed.  We just bought our first new TV after 28 years, so that makes watching TV more fun now.  He came down to make the gravy and then escaped again, not hungry and happy to be by himself.

Dinner at 3:00 with 17 of us around the table, a vast array of vegetable dishes, so much turkey, many simultaneous conversations.  As always, we were full way too early.  We got to see both Benjamin and Stephen in their respective faraway countries -- Benjamin had a big Thanksgiving gathering/housewarming party at his Haifa apartment and apparently Stephen was by himself today since they had forgotten the holiday, living in Berlin.

I organized a brief work expedition so we could take a rest from eating before we got to the pies.  We mulched the last garlic bed and did a little bit of work in the Christmas tree lot.  Then back up for dessert.  The pies were outstanding.  Most people decided the key lime pie was the best one, but the maple pecan pie was a close second and there wasn't much of the chocolate pie left at the end.

I feel grateful all the time. Not sure that I feel even more grateful on Thanksgiving, but it is a good time to notice all the many blessings that should not be taken for granted.  To start with, I am grateful for deep breaths and clear airways. I hope Jon gets better quickly so he can be happy to have healthy lungs soon too.