Creating a Stressful Thanksgiving

You're not going to believe what I just did!

I've been in Thanksgiving limbo for a week, unsure what my family plans would be due to my father-in-law's hospitalization in Delaware and my (local) sister-in-law's departure to go to Delaware and help with her dad. For a few days it looked like we would be making that pilgrimage, too, but then Dad Evans was released from the hospital into hospice care... and SURPRISE! The local sister-in-law, Louise, brought her dad home today.... to Brownington... as in, LOUISE's home. Full time care? By whom? What are the expectations of the other local siblings?

Late this afternoon my Thanksgiving plans congealed. Not only Louise and Dad Evans traveled to Vermont today, but also sister Martha from Philly and brother Richard from California who flew into Philly earlier this week. All these travelers? Travelers who have spent the last week and a half running between hospital and Philly, making life changing decisions, getting thoroughly exhausted, etc? The least I can do is give 'em a Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm hoping the turkey will be totally thawed tomorrow morning after spending the night in brine... but if it isn't, I can run to Shaw's and buy a fresh one, right?

After deciding to put on the dinner, soup to nuts, I sat down to hammer out a shopping list. I wish I could tell the world about my very effective method of not losing my shopping list because it works so darn well -- I make my list on a post-it note, stick it to my wallet, and when I get to the store, I stick it on the handle of the shopping cart. I am so proud of that!

I returned from the (expensive) shopping trip to find no people available to help carry in groceries. I hate putting away groceries. I don't mind making the list, organizing coupons, doing the shopping, lugging in the groceries, but finding a home for everything? Especially when the kitchen isn't pristine and there's already stuff collected on the counters where I need to pile the food so the dogs don't lick everything? Yuck.

That issue aside, I really like having a night to get my meal together before the day of the dinner -- rather than make do and get irritated cooking in a non-pristine kitchen because I don't have time to clean, I took time to clean. Hah. Counters decluttered and washed, everything out of the way, even polished the stove. A little silly, I'll admit, but I can't seem to help getting more and more anal as I move along my life, so why not just embrace it and enjoy a shiny cooktop?

Next, I freed the turkey from its plastic wrapper and coaxed the giblet bag out of the semi-frozen neck cavity, mixed up the brine solution and plopped that baby in a lobster pot and set it out of the way. Disinfect the sink, faucet and scissors? You betcha.

I decided to make a list of all my menu items so I don't forget to bring something to Louise's (did I mention that this dinner needs to be transported from Newport to Brownington? not quite sure yet how to time everything and incorporate a half hour 'in the trunk' lag time). That reminds me of a time more than a decade ago when I was a fine, upstanding church lady (this being the period of time when I learned to cook and clean like every fine god and husband fearing wife does)... My first husband and I were going to a potluck dinner. I made a delicious fish chowder -- a fabulous recipe that I created myself, I might add, and the soup was in a crockpot in the back of our new station wagon. First husband was not a great driver -- usually hesitant and prone to slowing down at green lights. Approaching a traffic light preparing for a left-hand turn, the light turned yellow... and he stepped on the gas for once as we turned the corner. The crockpot tipped. Not completely, but fish soup soaking into the carpet? Not a good scene. Remind me to tell another food transporting story another day -- that one was a significant marker of the end of that dreadful marriage.

Back to tonite's work: I made artichoke dip (appetizer) to serve with Rosemary Triscuits and/or french bread. I made the stuffing -- I've tried homemade stuffing recipes and all the store-bought brands -- absolutely nothing compares to Bell's stuffing! And did you know that you can only get Bell's in New England? When I lived in Colorado in the late 90's, I begged my family to send me some for Christmas.

I had made my famous fudge (easy recipe and so freakin delicious it's dangerous) before I went to the grocery store, so that was already in the refrigerator when I tried to stuff in the stuffing and artichoke dip... for a $3000 refrigerator, it really doesn't have that much room, disappointingly, but I did pay extra for a 'counter depth' fridge so it wouldn't protrude beyond the counter as much as a standard fridge does... I did mention in a previous post that I used to be a pauper, right? A 3k fridge is really ridiculous, I know.

I got the stuffing stuffed in the fridge and stacked the fudge on top of the artichoke dip. I'm currently making more room by drinking the beer that was taking up real estate, too. Tomato basil salad -- I went back and forth on this menu item. It's a summer dish... but I have some fresh mozzarella in the fridge that I need to use up... and it's such a tasty salad AND my indoor basil plant is on its last leg, so what the heck? I mixed up the basil-garlic-oil and only have to slice the tomatoes and cheese tomorrow and throw it all together.

My family had their annual Thanksgiving dinner last Sunday -- a wee bit early, but we never celebrate holidays on the date of the holiday because of work schedules, in-law obligations, etc. Usually I host Thanksgiving, but this year we congregated in a more central location -- my sister's boyfriend's house in Milton. I like cooking Thanksgiving dinner, I really do. It is stressful to try to get that turkey done at the right time, then make the gravy super fast while someone else carves the bird (ideally, but I have done it solo before), keep the potatoes hot, cram the oven full of all the hot dishes, etc. I was a little sorry to go to Milton, but also enjoyed the reduced stress of not hosting. I brought fudge and artichoke dip, but that's a piece of cake. However, I really regretted not hosting/cooking when we sat down to eat: no Bell's stuffing. The only stuffing was cooked in-the-bird (yuck -- I do not approve of stuffing the bird!) AND it had sausage in it! I hate that. Stuffing is my favorite part of the meal, so that was quite a disappointment. The gravy wasn't separated -- there was literally a half inch of fat floating on top of the gravy! Come on, sister -- you can get a gravy separator at the dollar store! Then there's my other favorite -- the bread. I won't name names, but the person who brought the rolls made them from scratch... and they were inedible! After taking one bite and finding my roll having no salt and tasting like raw dough, I set it aside and looked around the table -- most people had done the same and politely discarded their roll... I ended up not getting stuffed, which was a good thing.

I'm all about homemade when it's better than what you can buy, but let me tell ya, I like those brown-and-serve rolls. Tomorrow I'm defrosting shrimp. Setting Brie on a pretty plate. Slicing french bread. Making the most delicious sweet potato casserole on earth, recipe courtesy of those church people whose food I usually shun because those people are all fat for a reason. Special occasion sweet potato casserole with a ton of butter, sugar and pecans? Oh yeah.

Louise has a flock of turkeys that she feeds on her front porch, so she doesn't eat turkey. My youngest offspring loves ham more than any food on earth. A spiral sliced ham certainly jacked up my grocery bill tonite, but what fun to offer two main courses! I actually would have bought salmon instead of ham had the fish counter still been open when I was at the store. Oh well.

Help from the fam? Tom will peel the potatoes tomorrow. Maybe I'll ask him to open the pickle jar and pretend I can't get it myself -- I'm not immune to such tactics. Oh, and he does well with a whisk and gravy that hasn't yet thickened -- that'll be good.

Deciding to cook dinner for 12? 14? at 4 PM on the eve of Thanksgiving? Stressful? Yeah. Rewarding? I sure hope so!

Perspective, Please

Ah, a little perspective can make the worst of situations seem relatively mild, eh?

Like thousands of other Americans, I am facing the strong possibility of losing my job. Like thousands of other Americans, I am struggling to live within my means and can ill afford to be unemployed for any length of time, think nothing of taking a pay cut. For someone who works in the nonprofit field in northern Vermont, I make a pretty good living. If my job does get cut due to the dire economic conditions in Vermont right now, I can expect to have trouble finding equivalent employment at the same paygrade... especially if I expect to keep the same flex-time scheduling that I currently enjoy, which I don't, necessarily, expect as a perk at my next job.

My father in law is dying. He's 84 and suffers from dementia. He spent his working years as an executive for General Motors, raising his family overseas in Argentina and England. This afforded my husband Tom the opportunity to experience different cultures and languages in his upbringing, which has its benefits and detriments -- fodder for another blog. When I hear about the proposed economic bailouts for the financial industry (infuriating!) and now the auto industry, I'm finding myself a little more sympathetic because now, it's personal. This man, my father in law, made a career out of GM. They made promises of health insurance and pensions. Health insurance? It's cancelled as of 12/31/08. I am the designated party to navigate the Medicare/health insurance world and figure out what to do for this man with not only dementia, but diabetes and numerous expensive meds that must be maintained. GM is also threatening to terminate pensions for retirees. Ouch. That will require some serious re-evaluation of investments (which have dropped by at least 40%), inheritances and safety nets for a couple of Tom's siblings who are not capable of self-sufficiency.

Understand, please, that until the past couple of years, I have always lived in poverty. I grew up on a farm without regular heathcare or any of the middle class ammenities that my non-farm peers enjoyed. I married (badly) young and bore 3 children into poverty in my 20's. In facing my early mid-life crisis, I divorced, abandoned religion that celebrated poverty and female subserviance, and forged ahead and obtained a college degree and eventually, a job that marked the end of my poverty.

3 years later, it's almost hard to remember what poverty was like. I hate to admit that because it seemed impossible to forget at the time that I was living it. My new husband of 2 years, a school teacher almost at the cliff of his earning power, contributes more to the household income than I used to dream of when I was a pauper. Is that enough? Heck no -- renovations, orthodontry, health insurance -- the American Dream -- those things require a double income family and my contribution is essential.

I've been very happy in my job as a nonprofit community organizer/advocate with a flex-time schedule. But with the recession the USA and Vermont are experiencing, my job is in jeaporady. And that's okay, because my farm girl work ethic has endeared me to the early childhood and nonprofit community.

I received an unsolicited job offer yesterday -- a job in human resources for a nonprofit organization. Should I take it? Should I loyally wait for the state to keep or kill my current position?

This question has set in motion a series of mental exercises that are very interesting -- benefits and detriments of current job vs. perceived benefits and detriments of offered job.

What to do? Good question. Can I accurately judge, given the circumstances?

I doubt I can count on this, but it seems that good work ethic = job security. Is this true? I hope so -- there's little I want more than to be recognized and revered as a person with a good work ethic....