My Doom Has Come Upon Me

Just call me the Lady of Shalott.

It turns out that NOBODY is free this year, and NOBODY has any money to spare. So while I have been happily coasting along for the last four Thanksgivings or so, knowing that enormous amounts of deliciousness were going to come floating through the door while I did nothing more taxing than roast the turkey (which a four year old can do, presuming he or she can A. lift the turkey, and B. is allowed to play near the oven) and peel some potatoes and cucumbers, this year I actually have to do the better part of the cooking.

So once again, Mother is thrown back on her own resources (still obsessing about those damn green beans) and getting up early tomorrow morning to set this whole thing in motion.

Luckily, I have Sarah's boyfriend Seth coming over early to sous chef for me, and even more luckily than that, at precisely the moment when I have to start madly chopping celery and onions for stuffing, Channel 13 has come to my aid by putting An American in Paris on. So I shall chop away while wrapping myself in Gershwin, Gene Kelly, and Leslie Caron. I feel this is an excellent idea, even if I get onion and celery scraps all over the den floor.

And I am exceedingly proud of myself because I now once again have a living room that looks like a living room, and not an abandoned storage facility. When Joshua left, he had used the living room for a staging area, so it was full of empty cardboard boxes and scraps of this and that and crud all over the floor...oh, well, it was awful looking. I worked my deeply adorable little tail off today, and it now looks neat and welcoming again...I even got down there with a scrub brush and removed all evidence of the cat's bowel-related senility. (No, you do NOT want to know.)

So now I have all the ingredients, a clean living room, and, since we eat late on Thanksgiving (like around 8 pm), a whole day to cook. It's going to be lovely. I'm going to be sound asleep on the couch by 9:30 pm.

Once again, Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Wendy