EPIC (POWER) FAIL

What do you get when you mix the following ...?

• No kids home for Thanksgiving
• A chance to eat out at a nice restaurant with good friends
• Multiple impromptu invitations, just in case
• Wednesday afternoon spent baking for drop-in guests prior to dinner reservations
• an unexpected snow/sleet Nor'Easter
• my terrible karma

As noted in yesterday's blog, I decide not to cook this year for Thanksgiving.  My kids will all be elsewhere, and I also decide not to go to Maine to my sister's house, partly because she'll have her hands full with her in-laws and their families and partly because I'm driving up there Saturday, anyway, for a 5k (which I will walk because my Achilles tendonitis still hasn't recovered yet).

I have some friends (I know, right?  Shocking -- I have friends who aren't afraid to be seen in public with me) who invite me to a restaurant, a really nice place up in New Hampshire near where I used to live.  It's all very exciting, and I'm looking forward to the strange experience that so many people have mastered: Dining out for Thanksgiving dinner.

I'll have Child #3 here in the morning, Child #1 plans to stop by at some point, and Child #2 may stop by on her way home from work.  I figure I'll do the semi-Thanksgiving thing and make some pumpkin, banana, and cinnamon bread along with apple and pumpkin pies and some brownies, just in case.  You know, a little before and after Thanksgiving fare.  I mean, might as well have some holiday cheer going on.  I also invest in some cranberry beer and some table wines.  I spend all of Wednesday afternoon and early evening baking and running the dishwasher. 

Meanwhile, Mother Nature has decided to shit all over the Northeast and dump snow, sleet, rain, and black ice all over us.  By the time the snow starts where I live, just after the noon news, it has already been snowing steadily in Maine and New Hampshire.  By suppertime, thousands upon thousands of homes are without electricity.  People are planning on cooking their turkeys on their grills and trying to make other arrangements. 

Thanksgiving morning, I check the posted power-grid map -- Child #2 lives in southern New Hampshire.  By this time of the morning, she has been without power for about nineteen hours.

Child #3 and I dig out the cars, which isn't too bad except the snow-sleet-rain-snow crap is heavy.  Very heavy.  I check the power-grid map again because the restaurant is very near to Child #2's house.  There is still a 60% power outage near the restaurant.  I inform my friends.  They counter back that the restaurant is closed due to the weather and have cancelled Thanksgiving reservations.  Then comes the brief but mad attempt to find another restaurant within equal distance to all of us that has electricity and is still able to take reservations. 

This is when I opt out.  Once Thanksgiving without the fuss becomes Thanksgiving with even more fuss, it's time to cut the losses.  My friends have other places to go, too, so it's all good.  But it's so typical.  It's the kind of shit that happens to me.  IT'S THE AWFUL THINGS I ENDURE ON ACCOUNT OF BEING ME.  It's karma, biting me squarely in the ass.

In the end, I dive into my car and haul-ass up to Maine, where I enjoy yet another fun extended-family event.  The kids behave; the grown-ups behave; I behave.  We put a little wine in our non-alcoholic sangria when no one is looking.  It may not be the recipe for a successful Thanksgiving that I had originally planned, but it's still a recipe that works.

Happy Day After Turkey Day to all.  Don't get crushed in the Black Friday rush, and remember that changes in plans can be wonderful and fun.  Be spontaneous and go with it.