Thankful for paper plates

Sometimes it takes me a while to process events well enough to be able to write about them. That's why it's December 1 and I'm just now telling you about our Thanksgiving, uh, dinner.

Grant was on duty on Thanksgiving Day so we held our Thanksgiving celebration on the 28th. I baked all Thanksgiving Day making the deserts and corn bread and sweet potato casserole. Perry, Baker and Brown came over to keep me company and, in theory, to help. Perry was the only one who did much helping. Grant came home for a couple of hours in the middle of the day and he helped a bit too, mostly doing dishes and peeling apples for the pie.

I was ridiculously proud of myself for managing to make the entire pie from scratch. I didn't even swear at the crust. I had to promise Brown I would save him a piece since he would be on duty during our dinner.

An hour or so before Grant had to go back to the ship we all decided we were hungry. Obviously, I was not going to cook dinner for anyone that day so we headed out on town to get something to eat. We had wanted to order pizza but the place was closed for Thanksgiving. We ended up stopping even before we reached Womble gate. McDonald's was right there, and it was open. A quick, sidewalk conference decided us. We were going to McDonald's for Thanksgiving. Happy Holidays.

Back at the house, it was midnight before I gave up on my second attempt to get bread to rise and went to bed.

I woke up at 7 the next morning. Grant wakes up at 6:30 when he's home so I guess I'm stuck on his schedule even when he's not here.

Grant and Baker showed up an hour and a half later. I sent them into the abyss to get me a potato smasher. Grant wanted mashed potatoes with dinner. It was black Friday, and since the NEX is the only place the navy and marine families here have to shop, I was pretty sure most of the 20 thousand some-odd families who live here would be fighting each other to the death of Christmas ribbon right about then. I could only start my cooking for the day and hope the boys made it home alive.

An hour and a half later they were back with a huge case of beer and a plastic bag that I thought was far too large to hold a potato smasher. I was wrong. They couldn't find a metal hand smasher, so they bought a food processor instead. This is what I get for sending two nuclear technicians to buy kitchen utensils.

We passed the next few hours in the usual Thanksgiving manner - trying to assemble kitchen appliances, preparing stuffing and shooting Zombies while eating pizza. Baker had brought his copy of House of the Dead for us to play on the Wii. I made time to play while the food was cooking.

That was the height of the day. I should have known things would go down hill for a while. Valleys and mountains tend to stick pretty close together.

Grant had warned me that his friend Morrison would be over to make macaroni and cheese. "Today? That's not a great choice."
Grant shrugged, "He seemed so excited about it I couldn't say no."
I agreed, after all, how long could it take to make macaroni and cheese?

Well, the kraft boxed kind takes about 15 minutes if you're slow. But Morrison showed up with four grocery bags and his own cooking utensils. He was making oven baked macaroni and cheese and two loaves of cranberry nut bread. I was - no surprise here - not thrilled. But I worked around him and he's a sweet kid so that worked out.

A few hours later we hit rock bottom. It was 4 o'clock, about the time Grant had told everyone to arrive. I was planning on somewhere between six and eight people. On final count there were 15 plus Grant and I. Oh, and Patch had brought a keg. I was really not thrilled.

There are some basic truths to life that, if you could only remember them when you needed to, would make your life a lot easier. The one I struggle with most is "going with the flow." I would like to learn not to cling to expectations so that I can enjoy whatever happens. Well, I'm still learning.

The first hour or so was a bit tense. Somebody called for a pack of cards and six people sat around the table, beers in hand to play a game whose title I won't print here - this is a kid friendly blog after all. Someone else popped "The Nightmare Before Christmas" into the DVD player and a group swarmed my couch to watch that. Patch, to my great, great annoyance, attempted to fashion a funnel out of a water bottle. Not only was that completely inappropriate for Thanksgiving dinner, he was also in my way. I was attempting to wash dishes to stave of the mental breakdown building in my skull.

Every once in a while someone would ask me if I need help. I always, very politely, said no. If I had been forced to interact with anyone for longer than a sentence I might have lost all self control.

Now some of you are thinking, so you got more people than you expected, that's not the end of the world. And you would be absolutely correct. But it was very unpleasant in the moment. I didn't even know half of these people.

I ended up slipping while washing dishes and slicing my thumb on the stupid food processor. I used this as an excuse to lock myself in the bathroom for five minutes with the water running full blast so no one could hear me cry. When I came out I felt a bit better.

Except for Patch, everyone really was trying to be considerate. Someone offered to use coasters to protect the dinner table from their sweating beers. Another quieted everyone when they got to loud. The smokers made sure the patio door was firmly shut to keep the smell out. They had even brought paper plates, plastic cups, and extra deserts.

Dinner was successfully served. Though some people had to sit on the floor to eat, everyone commented on how good the food was, even when they didn't think I was within earshot.

Once I overheard Brock say, "I feel like I actually got to have Thanksgiving this year, it's been like three years since I had a real Thanksgiving."

When Patch got too rowdy they bundled him back to the ship. When I broke out speed Scrabble, we had to form teams and play two games so that everyone who wanted to got to play. The night ended with about seven people gathered around the television watching the new Futurama movie.

Saylor even managed to clean up a lot of the kitchen before she left and Grant and Perry did the rest.

It's amazing the affect perspective can have on a situation. To quote a little Asian girl who whispered to her mother when she saw Grant at the NEX, "Fee, fie, foe, fum."