So I published it. Right below this. About the tree. Cryptic. This message, not the tree.

Okay, I’ve had my fun for the day; let me plunge into real sentences. I am going to Las Vegas this weekend for Der Bingle’s  Company Christmas party; I drive to Dayton on Thursday and we fly out on Friday and return on Sunday and I come home on Monday.  I’ve had this invitation before, but  haven’t gone . This time I was on a 3-way call with Quentin and Der Bingle and I said, “You know, I might just let people fend for themselves and go.”

Quentin said, “Yes, there’s no thinking about it, Mom. You’re going. You are definitely going.”

So I am going.

I probably should put Rose in my suitcase to keep me on the straight and narrow.

 What? Suitcase? I want my own seat, the window one, of course.

I don’t know when we’ll put up our tree this year. We get it at a tree farm* down on the north side of Fort Wayne – usually a Fraser fir that comes home sticking out of the trunk. We don’t put it up until the middle of December and I surround it with fountains to keep it moist. I also shut off the heat vent close to it – I kinda figured that would be smart.

Usually I’m a big decorator, but this year I think I’m cutting back. Nutcrackers are sitting by the attic door, however, and they can be pushy.

* I looked and it’s this place. See, this place right here:

It seems like Sunday because Der Bingle went back to Dayton today. But it is not – tomorrow is Sunday. Two Sundays in a row. I’m not particularly fond of the Sunday night feeling; I think it goes back to school days and the put off homework. Sunday night was a grind. A downer. A bummer.  Well, writing about this wasn’t wise; it’s making me feel that way again.

I fished the mashed potatoes I had made Wednesday night for my early preparation for Thanksgiving experiment out of the refrigerator. I just remembered them today. I put a portion size in the microwave for 45 seconds with one of the Nordic Ware covers over it; they weren’t bad, but I don’t think they were as good as those made fresh. Of course, were I to reheat a Thanksgiving meal’s worth, then it might get complicated. I don’t know if I would want to go from refrigerator to crockpot in one fell swoop or not. I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of heating the whole mass that way; it might be possible to microwave partial amounts and then plop them in a crockpot to stay warm.

We had a snag on Thanksgiving – we decided to straighten up the bent ricer handle and it took a little longer than expected – wound up using duct tape on it with a big wooden dowel stuck inside the straightened metal. Oh, yeah, only at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse.

Ah, that’s a lot of discourse for a small potatoes issue . . . . hahahahahahhahaha. Sorry. Actually, holiday meal mashed potatoes are a big deal here – I sculpt them while on my plate. Yes, I, AmeliaJake, play with my food. One year I made a Christmas tree and used peas and corn and cranberries for ornaments. I could do this because Mother always liked stiff potatoes – not ones that oozed into other food.

The gravy was a bust this year – the new roaster worked so well that I was presented with tons of broth and drippings and panicked. Always before, moisture had steamed out more than I realized – a lot more. But Mother made great gravy from the meager drippings. I got to where I could mimic it. This year, I should have thrown noodles into the broth. Well, I’ll look on youtube to see if anyone is giving lessons.

I know I am just being horribly boring here; I know it and yet I continue.

After my refrigerator posted agenda for Thanksgiving attitude, I am going to do the same thing for Christmas – sort of an advent calendar of respectful behavior and a true nod to concepts such as good will and good cheer. I don’t think a little dose of Christianity will hurt anyone.

Crap, now I’m boring myself.

In 45 minutes I am going to have my hair colored, which is good. I have my Kindle charged up and will spend the processing time well entertained. I started this post thinking I has something to say, but I think I was wrong. That often doesn’t stop me, but this afternoon I think I’ll just sign off . . . and go snack on a pre-coloring turkey sandwich.

I am awake. When Mother was alive, we’d have the turkey in by five am. That, obviously, would have been 35 minutes ago.  I don’t know when the chef and the cheflets will get up, but I’m okay with sitting here in the quiet of Thanksgiving morning. I’ve already had some fun; yesterday I made a batch of mashed potatoes in an experiment to see how they would fare in overnight storage and then rewarming. (One of the “take the stress out of Thanksgiving” internet tips)  I had some difficulty saving enough of them for my experiment, though. Vultures were everywhere, spoons in hand. Have they no respect for science?

I didn’t make any fancy salads this year – people are so finicky here. However, just a couple of years ago we had to chase young folks to get them to try a bite of cheesecake and this year they sneak giant pieces at every opportunity, so maybe soon they will be more accepting of jello dishes with cool whip, cream cheese, pecans and buttermilk. It’s nice to have a break from the unmolding procedure, though; it could be tense – the waiting for the complete plopping onto a plate.

Poor Shane can’t have turkey; he’ll have to make deal with a roast. One year, Mother got Sydney a little rotisserie chicken. We thought of doing that this year – putting one in her rotisserie and letting Shane watch it go round and round. I don’t know how patient he is and am not in a mood to figure it out this Thanksgiving.  It would probably be torture for him, anyway – better to get one already cooked. Did I just type all this? Shane is spoiled, isn’t he? Of course he is – it’s the Robert Grismore School of Dog Care. After all, Daddy used to order a chicken breast at Das Dutchman’s to take home for Miss Alice.

I’ve been rambling and daydreaming and it’s probably time to say Happy Thanksgiving and sign off.

Oh, to all those ancestors – those I remember and those generations back: Thanks for coming to America and all the work and enduring it entailed.

That is what I am hearing around here. Along with “What time will Grandpa get here?” I feel bad about it . . . not jealousy, more like a sense of throwing him to the wolves while I settle down with my Kindle.
But he seems to like it, so . . . YES!
Woo Hoo and all that.

I gets even better: Someone has taken it in her head to cook Thanksgiving dinner and so far, I am only responsible for the mashed potatoes. I am guessing Grandpa will be her sous chef. (My mouth is smiling and I didn’t even realize it until my cheeks started hurting.) This could be better than actually blowing up a frozen turkey in a deep fat cooker – one of my Mythbuster-type KABOOM dreams.

I think I will  go to the grocery store in about an hour. Then I’ll come back and announce, “Here’s your stuff, See ya.”

It may not go as smoothly as Someone thinks, but Grandpa, the sous chef, will be there to soothe tempers  . . . and I will be there with my camera.

I just looked at the blog’s first page and saw an enormous stretch of blank space below my remarks on my dead dryer. Was that an inadvertent moment of silence? Well, it gone now . . . not to be disrespectful.

Yesterday my new roaster arrived; I had decided to get one because my old inherited Westinghouse ones were showing splotches on the blue/white cookwell and the heating element on one was getting hotter than the turkey . . . and because someone stepped on the lid of one of them and bent it really bejesus. Not to be disrespectful.

This new baby is supposed to handle a 22 pound turkey; we are going with a 19.54 specimen with extra drumsticks tucked in. It has a brushed steel outer shell. Oh, I mean the roaster, not the turkey. We all stood around going, “Oooooh, ahhhhh.” Yes, it’s so nice-looking NOW but I know what that brushed steel is going to do, so I just wanted to mention the oohs and ahhs before we got to the oh’s and aw’s.

You have to “smoke” a new roaster before you use it for the first time. Fortunately for me, other people must have missed this in the instruction book because right on top of the unit was a separate message: You MUST smoke the roaster before using. I guess the company figured out they should include an in your face notice because some people had an aroma in their kitchens that was not appetite-inducing.

And, the instructions said to do this outdoors. So we did and, yes, the whole garage (with door up, even) smelled acrid. In fact, you could see the smoke pouring out of the roaster. Oh, that must have caused a stir in some households: “Holy Moses, the turkey is on fire, Agnes!” Maybe there were cases where even older grandmas than I with respiratory problems came bursting out of the kitchen door . . . or were found crumpled on the floor. I don’t even want to contemplate the wording of the obituary.

This morning the roaster is safe and sound back in the kitchen, still in its ooh and ahh condition. In 48 hours we will be plopping the turkey in it and it will become one of the kitchen help. From shiny cover to oily smudges . . . it could be a book title.

I joked about the heart defibrillator on Black Friday deals and then my dryer died. I thought about taking two extension cords, plugging them in, cutting off the other ends and putting the bare wires against the dryer, but I figured it had been “down” too long. The repairman confirmed it and said he would deliver and install one if I got it from the little Sears store here – so I did.  I got a very basic dryer because the laundry room is tiny and because I didn’t want to spend more money than I had to. It is white and plain. Boring. But if it works for a few years . . . YEA! Actually, the last time I had an exciting dryer, it was a Maytag with a lint filter in the drum – it would fall off and the dryer sucked in clothes.

That dryer and I fought for a quarter of a century. Maybe one day they’ll make a movie about us. Or not.