Post Thanksgiving 2005 Report

Post Thanksgiving 2005 Report

Well, things started out great.  Wednesday was as short day at work for both Yvonne and I.  Had the ritual office pot-luck, so plenty of good eats before I even started for home (especially the cream cheese/shrimp dip combo).  After work, was the drive home, and with traffic no worse than a Friday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised.  That’s about when the bad luck started showing it’s face.  Turns out Yvonne had been trying to call me on my cell, which decided to have a dead battery.  Elizabeth was getting sick again (looks like another ear/sinus infection) and wanted to know if we should take her to the emergency room since the doctors were either booked or starting their holidays early.  Since she wasn’t too terrible, we decided to wait until the post-holiday rush.  The day ended with a beautiful first snow that I neglected to capture on film.

Thursday was the big turkey day.  Which for me means ham.  We went to a friend’s house (Rhonda and Jason) since they were kind enough (and gulliable enough) to host the festivities.  And Dad came over for a few hours too.  Between Yvonne and Rhonda, we had turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing (both in and out of the bird), corn, carrots, rolls, and cranberries along with apple and pumpkin pies.  The rolls were extra crispy on the outside, but it took nothing from the flavor and only added to the conversation.  The potatoes were also good, considering it was made sans milk (Rhonda had to pass on the dairy).

Friday had Yvonne out early and beating the crowds (beating them to the rush and beating them on the head).  I stayed at home with the little squirt and enjoyed some morning playtime.  Then Yvonne returned home with her bounty of goods and bevy of receipts.  I think the checking account did better than I expected, which truly shows the thriftiness of my wife.  And with one less person to shop for (meaning me), I’m sure she had less stress trying to find something.  Then it was on to the tree decorating and another run of bad luck.  After disgorging the tree from the attic, along with the numerous totes and boxes of holiday supplies, we set up the tree.  And after a few hours, I was getting tired.  Which meant Yvonne ended up decorating most of the tree by herself.  Which is where my bad luck comes in, since she got upset at my lack of helping (and because I was sleeping in the recliner).  But I was amazed that she was still up and functioning after midnight.

Saturday was a trip to IKEA.  The first in a very long time for me.  After seeing Rhonda and Jason’s nice chair, we decided to give them the last piece of our old living room set to make room for a chair like theirs.  We spent a few hours walking their store and getting lost several times (well, maybe not lost, but I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was).  We found the chair we liked, wrote down the info, walked the rest of the store, found the appropriate bins in their warehouse, and went back upstairs for lunch.  For $13 we got a ham and cheese sandwich, poached salmon, macaroni and cheese, two sodas, orange juice, and cookies.  Plus, for that day only, they took the cost of our lunch off the price of our furniture purchase.  So lunch was free.  Pretty good deal.  Then came the bad luck.  We decided to do some window shopping at Potomac Mills since it was across the lot from IKEA.  After a good 15 minutes of driving around and around, we couldn’t find a parking spot and decided to just go home.  We finished decorating the tree and boxed up the stuff to return to the attic.

Sunday was the catch-up day for chores.  Dishes and laundry being the big ones.  And we packed everything back up to the attic, hopefully for the last time (we’re hoping the shed will be done by Christmas).  We got a new comforter for the bed, so that needed to be installed.  The new chair needed to be enjoyed (it was assembled Saturday).  Some football needed to be watched.  And Elizabeth’s fingers were squished in a closet door.  Once again, my bad luck decided to show up.  This time, with friends.  I felt so bad, but knew it was an accident.  I didn’t even see her following me into the back bedroom.  Didn’t even see her stick her hand in the gap between door and frame (on the hinge side) as I closed the door.  I guess the positive side was I didn’t get the door completely closed before I realized something was wrong.  I looked over as I opened the door and she was just staring at her mangled fingers.  At leas they looked mangled, they weren’t really.  Just squished.  No broken bones, didn’t even have bruises this morning.  But she had a good spell of crying and shaking and eventually fell asleep.  And slept.  And slept.  For those of you parents out there, I’m sure it’s happened to you before.  You put your kid down to take a nap, and they keep on sleeping.  And you get to a point in the day (usually as it approaches their normal bedtime) when you try to decide if you should wake them up and run the risk of them staying up way late, or let them sleep and run the risk of them getting up way early.  We decided to let her sleep with myself volunteering to get up with her if she got up early (I felt bad about the fingers so I figured that would be my punishment).  But she slept through the night and was still groggy (but hungry) this morning.

One final note to add about the long weekend.  I watched several Christmas movies to try to get into the spirit since I’m a little slower than normal this year.  So far I’ve marked Santa Clause, Santa Clause 2, Jingle All The Way, White Christmas, Toy Story, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation off my list.  All good movies.

Thus ends Thanksgiving 2005.  Watch out Christmas, you’re next.

Neil@TK42ONE.com
©2005 TK42ONE.com Productions