Thanksgiving was everything I hoped for and more. Being unemployed was definitely a necessity - there is no way I could have collected myself to cook the masterpiece I did if I’d been working 12-hour days beforehand. Blessings to my friends that had to. We ended up with 9 people total, 5 of them strays. It’s a thing we do, for me going back as far as living at home with my folks, taking in people who have no one or can’t go to them for the holiday. It makes for interesting festivities, lemme tell you. All told, there were Mom and Flavio, Sazzy and her hubby, Bob, Terrell and Jeff, Darryll (albeit briefly) and Honey and me. I’d sent and received several “Happy Thanksgiving” text messages that morning, one of them resulting in a phone call from my former wall covering guy, Rick. He sounded the happiest I’ve ever heard him, was ecstatic to hear from me (he felt I needed to make the first move in making contact), can’t wait to meet Honey and agreed to a barbeque I want to throw for Encore survivors in January, finances willing. He also said he loves me – I know that sounds weird, probably more so if you knew him because he generally dislikes all people (the entire human race) with the exception of his children, but we made a connection over many conversations while working (philosophical ones on a construction site, if you can believe), I get him, and he …well, loves me. It was an awesome phone call to have on a holiday based on being thankful.
It all started out well, and as I said it ended up amazing, but there were a couple hitches in the middle. I created a schedule for the items I was responsible for (read everything except turkey) so it all got done at the same time, hot and ready for the table. That was all well and good until we tried to find seating for 9 people when our table only seats 6. We wanted to rent a party table; a round that could seat 10, but nobody thought to call the table guy until Wednesday night, and the call went to voicemail. So then we tried the patio furniture, which had to be Houdini’d into the room, didn’t fit, and would have left people with their backs to each other. I was pretty unset, enough to where Honey decided the only solution was to build a table, which he did in the middle of the kitchen in about 30 minutes flat. The table turned out fabulous, but it impeded my cooking skills (both with stress and limited travel paths) to where I splattered butter everywhere, boiled the cream over, and nearly cut my finger off preparing potatoes. At about this time Sazzy arrived with her hubby, who is by far the shyest and quietest person I’ve ever met, and ironically named Bob. I say ironically because Honey and I name everything Bob, so far the tortoise and a piece of furniture we’re not quite sure what it actually is. I stepped out of the kitchen until construction was finished – I expected a small table to extend the existing table…what I got was an 8-seat, ‘last supper’ type table made of studs and a full sheet of ½” drywall, adorned with a king-sized bed sheet. Like I’m fond of telling people who may not fully comprehend: this is the ghetto, we can jimmy-rig anything. At this point, I was behind on my schedule including the extra time I’d factored in case I was slow. Sazzy was wonderful, volunteering first to do dishes and then chop a mountain of veggies for our mutually coveted dish, the stuffin’ muffins. I made a wonderful mess with softened butter and strained sauce – don’t get me started on the sauce. It could be used in food porn and culinary bedroom play. It’s that good. So it all came together in a random, messy, fabulous way, which seems to characterize my life. Terrell said grace for us with distinction, many thanks, T. After that it was food ecstasy. I wanted to take a group photo, but once the eating started I completely forgot. I still haven’t decided which was my favorite dish, and continue the debate going around the plate while eating way too many leftovers. For once, dessert was not the highlight of the eating extravaganza. I consider that a triumph in itself.
We all gravitated to the fire pit outside to let our food settle before contemplating dessert. Originally the plan had been to eat outside like last year, but the rain had other ideas. The rain did not, however, interrupt the fire, wet wood or no. I found myself with this absent smile on my face quite a bit, content with life. That smile got a whole lot bigger when a couple people got orgasmic expressions with the first bite of pumpkin crisp, my cream cheese-smothered, blondie-like dessert. You can see now, if you couldn’t before, that this day was definitely worth quitting some job. We’re considering having it in our pajamas next year…
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