THANKSGIVING 2020: CRISIS AVERTED -- SORT OF

Thanksgiving Morning:

Ah, all I have to do today is bake pumpkin bread and corn muffins. Life is good.  My daughter, who lives next door, is doing ALL of the heavy lifting this year. She baked pies last night and today is cooking the turkey, all twenty-one pounds of it. This is going to be the best Thanksgiving ever—

(Mom? Uh, Mommy? My, ummm, my oven is on fire.)

Fire?

(Well, it’s sparking. We shut it off, but it’s still doing it. We’re going to unplug it now. We called a fireman friend for advice.)

Fireman? We’re on fire?

(No, just the heating element in the oven.  But, uh, the turkey just went in and . . . )

I have a small Alice-Brady-in-the-wall-four-feet-off-the-floor oven. I am not even sure a twenty-one pound turkey will fit into my oven, and I’m willing to bet I cannot lift it in and out of the oven to baste it because the stove is against the outside wall, which means I cannot reach in with both arms to lug the damn bird across the kitchen.

But Thanksgiving is now in triage. We must save Thanksgiving. We transfer the turkey to my house, change it into a smaller turkey pan so it fits into the smaller over, then realize the vented cover will not fit. We wrap the top of the turkey with foil and breathe collective sighs of relief.

Except now my oven is in use, and all I have left at my fingertips is a small toaster oven. Very small. I can cram the cornbread in, but there is no way I can pull off the pumpkin bread. We can supplement with crescent rolls after the turkey is out, though.

At the first turkey basting, I try to baste the giant bird without taking it out of the oven, which works until I attempt to replace the foil. I reach in a little too far and too high and catch the back of my left ring finger on the upper heating element in my oven. Apparently, heating elements are not our friends today. I slam the oven door shut and look at the half-inch hole in my finger, and I say “hole” because I have a chunk missing from my finger, and the burned area is pure white like ash. I have seen red burns, even purple ones. I’ve never seen a white burn with a chunk of flesh missing.

Now we have gone from turkey triage to finger triage. Cold water is fine except anyone who has ever burned himself will attest to the fact that once the burn leaves cold water, the pain is intense. So I run my wet finger from the kitchen faucet to the bathroom faucet and, while holding my hand in the bathroom sink under cold water, I rummage around under the sink with my right hand trying to find the medical cream and band-aids.

Meanwhile, the cornbread is in the toaster oven, and I almost forget about it because the timer is also for basting the turkey. The cornbread and my finger are saved, and then hours later, like magic: PERFECT TURKEY. This plus rolls and cornbread and squash and carrots and mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole = DISASTER AVERTED. Of course, it makes a great, if not completely typical story because what would Thanksgiving 2020 be without an oven fire, a burnt finger, and magnificent success!

I HATE SHOPPING BUT I NEED STUFF

 

I despise shopping. I especially detest shopping on weekends along with every schmoe in the world. However, my new work hours make getting anywhere after school impossible. So, Saturday morning finds me trying to beat the weekend crowds to two places: Home Depot and Michaels.

All I need at Home Depot are lightbulbs. Yes, lightbulbs. I probably could buy them at the local hardware store, but if I go to Home Depot, I can spend more money on stuff I don’t need. And, I do. I buy batteries for Christmas toys (like the barking/singing stuffed dog and the walking penguin), and I buy battery-operated lights to put outside on the porch, like I really need to do that since I am inside and the lights are outside. But, hey, I just bought batteries, so why not, right?

As for Michaels, the only things I really need are those small “fairy” lights for some mini trees. I get there early because Home Depot self-checkout goes faster than I expect and I beat the crowds. There is a woman pacing back and forth outside Michaels, obviously distressed that she cannot get inside. I laugh at her, thinking perhaps she is an anxious crafter. I am wrong. Turns out that she is an employee who is dangerously close to being late for work. After she is let in, I watch the door, waiting another ten minutes for the store to officially unlock.

Turns out I am not the only one watching for the opening of doors. At exactly 8:58, a dozen people joust for first place in the socially-distant but impatient waiting game. Still sitting in my car, I don’t get it. This isn’t a fire sale; it’s the tail end of a sale that’s been going on all week. I don’t imagine many things will be left on the sale shelves. No matter. I am after “fairy” lights. Except, I also see the lights with snowmen, and Santa, and mini trucks with Christmas trees in the beds. These are all battery operated lights. And, what do you know, I just bought a crap-load of batteries.

I buy way too much at Michaels, way more excess stuff than I do at Home Depot. I could probably overbuy anywhere: auto supply store, paint store, computer store … you put me there, I’ll find something to buy, which is shockingly against all of my principles. Remember: I despise shopping.

The only problem is that shopping doesn’t detest me back.

 

FEELING FRUITY

 I am exhausted. Truly exhausted. Say what you want about teachers (just don’t say anything within my earshot), but we are working our asses off. The shortest workday I’ve had has been twelve hours, and my weekends don’t fare much better. Sixteen hours a day is my current average.

 Self-care time, right?

 Unfortunately, self-care time is at the expense of sleep because the school work still needs to get done, prepped, scheduled, and executed. Weighing my sanity against sleep, sleep usually loses. So why … why would I buy fruit at the store knowing damn well I will never have time to eat it because I am sitting rooms away from the kitchen, chained to computers (plural – you read that correctly).

 I have this idea that fruit will help me to stay healthy. Sleep would actually do that, but fruit is easier to manage and far more plentiful. Anyway, I end up with a perfectly fine batch of browning bananas plus a pint of absolutely lovely blueberries. I must decide: throw out the fruit or throw out a couple of hours of work.

 Thank goodness I choose to sacrifice work.

 Even the warm, summery temperatures don’t deter me. I get up early on a Sunday morning, ignore my school laptop, and bake banana muffins and banana bread from scratch. This actually makes me happier than I thought. Oh, sure, it catches up to me Sunday night when I am falling asleep at the computer, but I have banana bread to keep me company.

 On Thursday I come home from work after a day of only two meetings plus live (meaning teaching kids at school and at home all at the same time) classes all day. Should I be prepping for the next day? Should I be posting grades? Should I be fielding emails? Of course I should, but I’m not. I am baking lemon blueberry muffins and bread.

 The only bad results of my baking self-care workshops are these: I lose time doing school stuff, I lose sleep, and I eat way too much melted butter. Truth be told, though, I really do feel better.  Exhausted . . . but fruitier.

WEATHER OR NOT . . . SIXTY DEGREES OF SEPARATION

 Last weekend we are under a thick blanket of early snow, sub-freezing temperatures,

and leaves still falling off the trees and collecting on the snow-crusted ground. Seven days later we are outside in short sleeves and shorts enjoying sunny temperatures in the mid-seventies. 

This scenario is why people who live in New England laugh at weenies who claim "drastic temperature changes make (them) sick." Like people who fly from Florida to anywhere in the North and then claim their sudden onset of pneumonia is because of the sixty-degree temperature change in mere hours. Suck it up, Buttercup. We often do this on a daily basis.

That's right. We have mastered the art of blasting the heat in the morning and countering it by blasting the air conditioners in the afternoon. I never take the ac unit out until whatever weekend is closest to Halloween. Not going to lie -- two of the three ac unit are still sitting directly under the windows in which they had been resting since May, and I briefly considered tossing at least one of them right back into the window around noontime today.

The New England weather is its own kind of psychopath. We never know what it's going to be. We can have snow in May and October, and it can be nearly one hundred degrees in early April. It's crazy . . . crazy wonderful. If I had to wake up every day to the same damn weather, be it hot or cold, I'd be out of my bloody mind in no time.

Suffice it to say that the Christmas decorations did not come out today. It seemed too much like Californian weather to put out Santa's sleigh, which is how I know I'll never survive if I am forced to retire somewhere perpetually "pleasant." I'm far, far too ornery for that shit.

Besides, the NE weather, like me, can go from hot to cold and right back again faster than Reagan's head spins in The ExorcistI. Except for the sudden spewing eruption of pea soup, that seems reasonably fitting to me.

HALLMARK STRIKES AGAIN!

 Well, it’s official. Hallmark channel says it’s Christmas.

 Not going to lie: I’m a sucker for a decent romance movie. I have no real preference on movie genres, so, to be frank, I’m a sucker for any kind of movie. I don’t go to the movie theater, though. I like movies on my own terms with free food, excellent beverages, and no line at the bathroom.

Hallmark isn’t the only Christmas movie channel. Lifetime has deviated from their typical slasher-hacker genre to the holiday season, as well, and there are others. However, if I’m going to turn on mindlessly sappy entertainment with no concerns about missing chunks of the plot to do real-world things (like shower or eat dinner or grade papers), Hallmark is my go-to. With the exception of one Hallmark movie I’ve watched, the current relationship always loses out to the rekindled or brand new relationship. Go figure! Honestly, I didn’t know there were that many people in the world willing to settle for idiots in the first place, but what do I know.

Anyway, the best way to plan my movie watching spree is to check the television listings. I can usually do this with my naked eyes because the channel listings on the TV are large. I can also use my distance glasses for clarity, but even my reading glasses will work across the room.

 In other words, I can see the damn listings.

Last weekend I turned on the television, hoping to plan my channel-hopping Christmas movie watching (yes, I get three different Hallmark channels on my telly). I browsed through the on-set guide without my glasses.

All of a sudden, the listing was gobblygook.

I strained my eyes to see the title of the movie, but apparently my vision was having none of it. Fearing the onset of a migraine (blurred vision is a common symptom), I quickly reached for the first set of glasses and came up with the readers. Okay, so these are excellent for up-close but sometimes blur a little at a distance, but they’re still functional.

Still nothing but letter jumbles. What. The. Hell.

I scrambled around to find my distance glasses, also known as my driving glasses, also known to my students as my “Oh, NOW I can see you” glasses. These glasses would solve my problem and tell me exactly what movie title it was that I could not decipher. I gallantly placed my distance glasses on my nose, looked across the room, and read:

dekhckhkcvgkufghewhjdoqiwjeohbkwhebcdkx

Turns out my panic was for naught. Hallmark had messed up their own line-up and written two different Christmas movie titles in the same time slot for the same channel. Part of me was relieved that I wasn’t having a stroke, but the other part was totally enraged. How could I possibly be expected to plan my viewing if I had no idea the title of the movie playing at that time?

Oh, wait. Never mind. I’ll watch anything Christmas-related because I know how it ends. Happily. And ever after, at that, gobblygook be damned.