(no subject)
Thanksgiving has become thoroughly enjoyable since the Solomon family discovered that Tommy was, in Dick’s words: “A damn gourmet.” It’s very hard for Dick and Tommy to argue when Tommy spends the vast majority of the holiday in the kitchen, after all. The food is better, too.
This Thanksgiving is a particularly grand event. The Solomon family has expanded quite a bit, after all. Dick had finally married Mary and the two had a baby together - Joey. Tommy had gotten married too, to a particularly lovely blond called Lily. This would be Lily’s first major holiday with the Solomon family. She has every right to be wary.
And so, Dick, Mary, Joseph, Sally, Tommy, Lily and Harry all gather in the tiny attic apartment. Lily’s parents, Mike and Gwen Morningstar, are expected to join them (much to Dick’s displeasure - he and Mike don’t get along very well at all.) In retrospect maybe they should have had the celebrations at Mary’s house, but the Solomons are not particularly concerned: they’ve managed to fit more people into the attic than a measly nine dinner guests before.
“Will we have enough room?” Lily frets. She’s trying so desperately to be a good hostess, like she was taught growing up.
“Oh, please!” Dick laughs. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
The mismatched living room set has been pushed to the sides of the room, up against the walls, to make way for several folding tables. Lily has taken it upon herself to set the table and Harry has taken it upon himself to assist. Lily really wishes he wouldn’t. The sounds of breaking glass do not concern Dick in the slightest even though Lily seems distraught at the carelessness displayed by her in-laws as Harry drops a stack of bread & butter plates.
Mary opens one of the bottles of wine meant to go with dinner a little early and muses to herself that she hates the holidays. Dick is shooed out of the kitchen three times in fifteen minutes and Sally is screaming over the noise to anyone that will listen to announce that the baby needs to be changed and that she did it last time.
“Nose goes!” Dick announces and he sets a fingertip to his nose. Sally, Mary and Harry all follow suit. Lily is the last to catch on but she doesn’t really mind. She scoops Joey out of Sally’s arms and takes him to the alcove to change the baby’s diaper.
The Solomons practice a certain “it takes a village” method in raising Joseph; in addition to Dick and Mary’s fulltime parenting, Tommy and Lily are both active in Joey’s life as his “grandparents” - it’s a very odd family dynamic.
“Well, I should go to the airport to pick up the Morningstars,” Dick says. He doesn’t look the least bit pleased about this as he takes the keys to the Rambler and heads out the door.
The Morningstar family could not be more different from the Solomons. Or, rather, Mike and Dick could not be more different. Gwen is kind-hearted and quite pretty and Dick has no problem at all with her. Mike is a smug, arrogant jerk and he isn’t nearly as pretty as his wife is. Lily’s parents have had a long flight, but long flights are made more bearable by first-class seating. Gwen smiles, gratefully, as Dick takes her bag.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Dr. Solomon,” she says, warmly.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Morningstar,” Dick returns. He lifts his chin high and regards Mike with all of the smugness he can muster (so: quite a bit.) “Hello, Mr. Morningstar. How was your flight?”
“Lovely, thank you.” Mike says and he can’t resist the instinct to puff himself up some.
Gwen resists the urge to roll her eyes at the two men attempting to assert their dominance over the other. She combs a bit of her red hair behind her ear. “Should we get going?”
Dick concedes and leads his daughter-in-law’s parents out of the airport and to the Rambler. Ohio is much colder than Gwen and Mike are used to. Mike helps his wife into her coat once they are outside and he allows her into the backseat of the old car before he reluctantly rides shotgun beside Dick. As they drive, Dick and Gwen make conversation. They compare the places in the universe they have seen and the heavyset, silver-haired man stays mostly quiet, sulking.
This is not his idea of a proper Thanksgiving holiday.
Back in Rutherford, Lily has joined her husband in the kitchen. He has relented and allowed Lily to assist him. Well, sort of. He has her making garnishes by using cooker cutters to shape cranberry jelly into festive shapes. Tommy figures there is no possible way that Lily can screw that up (he’s found out that she’s capable of ruining even break-and-bake cookie dough.) Luckily, Lily knows that Tommy is not to be disturbed when he is cooking and she mostly just leaves him to it.
“Taste this,” Tommy orders as he moves behind her. He loops one arm around her waist and the other offers her a bit of bread.
Lily opens her mouth and allows her husband to feed her the hors d'oeuvre. She nods, eagerly, while she chews to let Tommy know that she likes it. He beams but doesn’t seem overly surprised that she enjoys it. “Brie cheese and sun-dried tomato crostini.”
“It’s wonderful.”
“I know,” he tells her. “Now, get back to those garnishes.”
“LILY!” Dick calls as he takes the stairs three at a time. “Lily, your parents are here!”
Harry rises up and turns to Gwen. He practically purrs when he speaks. “Well, hello there.”
Mike looms, menacingly.
Gwen pays her husband no mind and pretends that Harry wasn’t just hitting on her. “Hello, Harry.”
Lily seems almost childlike when she rushes out of the kitchen to embrace her parents. She laughs in delight and her parents both hug her back. “Hey! How are you? How was the flight?”
“How is Rutherford? What have you been up to? How’s Tommy?”
Parents and child exchange questions and greetings in a way that makes it unclear to the Solomons what is going on. Harry, Sally and Dick all stare on in confusion. Tommy moves out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel and he awkwardly greets his in-laws with the terror and discomfort that is usually associated with being in the same room with one’s in-laws.
Gwen and Tommy have no problem with one another but Mike…Well, Tommy isn’t the sort of man Michael Morningstar expected his sparkle princess to marry.
“I hope you left me something to do in the kitchen,” Gwen tells her son-in-law as she hugs him.
“I’m sure we could find something for you to do,” Tommy promises. “I used your recipe for French Onion Soup.”
Gwen and Tommy sweep off to the kitchen leaving the rest of the family behind. Mike looks around the attic-apartment with a look of abject horror. He’s almost certain that his office is bigger than this and the mismatched furniture puts him on edge. How does fashion-savvy Lily with an eye for everything stylish allow for things to stay like this?
He can’t possibly know how the apartment grows on you.
Like a fungus.
Lily sits with her father and tries to kindle conversation but Harry, Sally, and Dick are all on edge because of Mike’s presence. He reminds them all of Jell-O. This is not a good thing. Luckily, between Lily and Mary there is polite small-talk among the group until someone has the brilliant idea to turn on the football game.
“Dinner’s ready!” Tommy announces, coming in from the kitchen. The odd-family all oohs and ahhs over the beautiful turkey that Tommy carries into the living-room and places on the table, except Harry who screeches and calls his “nephew” a murderer. Dishes are laid out up and down the table; mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, homemade macaroni and cheese, stuffing, cranberry sauce, bowls of French onion soup…It is truly a feast to be reckoned with.
Wine is poured and passed around and the family scrambles to arrange themselves at the table. Dick takes the position at the head of the table and raises his glass, smiling, with a hand in his pocket. He looks positively charming as he prepares to give thanks for the meal and his family but instead of something heart-warming he merely announces. “Let’s eat!”
The original four Solomons do not waste any time. Mary, Lily, Mike and Gwen, however, stare on in mild confusion. Mary muses that she should be used to this and joins the fray.
During dinner, Mike glares across the table as Tommy and Lily play disgustingly cute and feed one another from their forks and lean in for kisses in between bites. Gwen just pretends that she doesn’t see it as she and Sally talk weaponry.
Somewhere between after-dinner coffee and dessert a fight breaks out between Mike and Dick. No one can say for certain why it happened, but the two men exchange blows and scramble to get at one while the rest of the family hurries to separate them. Gwen moves to put a layer of pink mana between them and glares, firmly, at her husband.
“He started it,” Mike excused as he straightened his tie.
The rest of the meal is finished without much incident and when the dishes are cleared, Mike decides that it is high-time to retire to the hotel. Wisely, Mary decides to drive this time. She passes Joey onto his father and whispers for Tommy to keep an eye on him. Gwen and Mike exchange hugs with their daughter who is still wide-eyed over her first Solomon-style Thanksgiving.
“I think it went well!” Dick says as he flops into the nearest chair, pants unbuttoned.
“You punched my wife’s dad,” Tommy says, exasperated, as he pulls his wife into his lap and sets his chin on her shoulder.
“That was just gravy.”
In a month, they’ll do it all over again. Christmas is coming, after all, and maybe they can celebrate at the Moringstar estate…
This Thanksgiving is a particularly grand event. The Solomon family has expanded quite a bit, after all. Dick had finally married Mary and the two had a baby together - Joey. Tommy had gotten married too, to a particularly lovely blond called Lily. This would be Lily’s first major holiday with the Solomon family. She has every right to be wary.
And so, Dick, Mary, Joseph, Sally, Tommy, Lily and Harry all gather in the tiny attic apartment. Lily’s parents, Mike and Gwen Morningstar, are expected to join them (much to Dick’s displeasure - he and Mike don’t get along very well at all.) In retrospect maybe they should have had the celebrations at Mary’s house, but the Solomons are not particularly concerned: they’ve managed to fit more people into the attic than a measly nine dinner guests before.
“Will we have enough room?” Lily frets. She’s trying so desperately to be a good hostess, like she was taught growing up.
“Oh, please!” Dick laughs. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
The mismatched living room set has been pushed to the sides of the room, up against the walls, to make way for several folding tables. Lily has taken it upon herself to set the table and Harry has taken it upon himself to assist. Lily really wishes he wouldn’t. The sounds of breaking glass do not concern Dick in the slightest even though Lily seems distraught at the carelessness displayed by her in-laws as Harry drops a stack of bread & butter plates.
Mary opens one of the bottles of wine meant to go with dinner a little early and muses to herself that she hates the holidays. Dick is shooed out of the kitchen three times in fifteen minutes and Sally is screaming over the noise to anyone that will listen to announce that the baby needs to be changed and that she did it last time.
“Nose goes!” Dick announces and he sets a fingertip to his nose. Sally, Mary and Harry all follow suit. Lily is the last to catch on but she doesn’t really mind. She scoops Joey out of Sally’s arms and takes him to the alcove to change the baby’s diaper.
The Solomons practice a certain “it takes a village” method in raising Joseph; in addition to Dick and Mary’s fulltime parenting, Tommy and Lily are both active in Joey’s life as his “grandparents” - it’s a very odd family dynamic.
“Well, I should go to the airport to pick up the Morningstars,” Dick says. He doesn’t look the least bit pleased about this as he takes the keys to the Rambler and heads out the door.
The Morningstar family could not be more different from the Solomons. Or, rather, Mike and Dick could not be more different. Gwen is kind-hearted and quite pretty and Dick has no problem at all with her. Mike is a smug, arrogant jerk and he isn’t nearly as pretty as his wife is. Lily’s parents have had a long flight, but long flights are made more bearable by first-class seating. Gwen smiles, gratefully, as Dick takes her bag.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Dr. Solomon,” she says, warmly.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. Morningstar,” Dick returns. He lifts his chin high and regards Mike with all of the smugness he can muster (so: quite a bit.) “Hello, Mr. Morningstar. How was your flight?”
“Lovely, thank you.” Mike says and he can’t resist the instinct to puff himself up some.
Gwen resists the urge to roll her eyes at the two men attempting to assert their dominance over the other. She combs a bit of her red hair behind her ear. “Should we get going?”
Dick concedes and leads his daughter-in-law’s parents out of the airport and to the Rambler. Ohio is much colder than Gwen and Mike are used to. Mike helps his wife into her coat once they are outside and he allows her into the backseat of the old car before he reluctantly rides shotgun beside Dick. As they drive, Dick and Gwen make conversation. They compare the places in the universe they have seen and the heavyset, silver-haired man stays mostly quiet, sulking.
This is not his idea of a proper Thanksgiving holiday.
Back in Rutherford, Lily has joined her husband in the kitchen. He has relented and allowed Lily to assist him. Well, sort of. He has her making garnishes by using cooker cutters to shape cranberry jelly into festive shapes. Tommy figures there is no possible way that Lily can screw that up (he’s found out that she’s capable of ruining even break-and-bake cookie dough.) Luckily, Lily knows that Tommy is not to be disturbed when he is cooking and she mostly just leaves him to it.
“Taste this,” Tommy orders as he moves behind her. He loops one arm around her waist and the other offers her a bit of bread.
Lily opens her mouth and allows her husband to feed her the hors d'oeuvre. She nods, eagerly, while she chews to let Tommy know that she likes it. He beams but doesn’t seem overly surprised that she enjoys it. “Brie cheese and sun-dried tomato crostini.”
“It’s wonderful.”
“I know,” he tells her. “Now, get back to those garnishes.”
“LILY!” Dick calls as he takes the stairs three at a time. “Lily, your parents are here!”
Harry rises up and turns to Gwen. He practically purrs when he speaks. “Well, hello there.”
Mike looms, menacingly.
Gwen pays her husband no mind and pretends that Harry wasn’t just hitting on her. “Hello, Harry.”
Lily seems almost childlike when she rushes out of the kitchen to embrace her parents. She laughs in delight and her parents both hug her back. “Hey! How are you? How was the flight?”
“How is Rutherford? What have you been up to? How’s Tommy?”
Parents and child exchange questions and greetings in a way that makes it unclear to the Solomons what is going on. Harry, Sally and Dick all stare on in confusion. Tommy moves out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel and he awkwardly greets his in-laws with the terror and discomfort that is usually associated with being in the same room with one’s in-laws.
Gwen and Tommy have no problem with one another but Mike…Well, Tommy isn’t the sort of man Michael Morningstar expected his sparkle princess to marry.
“I hope you left me something to do in the kitchen,” Gwen tells her son-in-law as she hugs him.
“I’m sure we could find something for you to do,” Tommy promises. “I used your recipe for French Onion Soup.”
Gwen and Tommy sweep off to the kitchen leaving the rest of the family behind. Mike looks around the attic-apartment with a look of abject horror. He’s almost certain that his office is bigger than this and the mismatched furniture puts him on edge. How does fashion-savvy Lily with an eye for everything stylish allow for things to stay like this?
He can’t possibly know how the apartment grows on you.
Like a fungus.
Lily sits with her father and tries to kindle conversation but Harry, Sally, and Dick are all on edge because of Mike’s presence. He reminds them all of Jell-O. This is not a good thing. Luckily, between Lily and Mary there is polite small-talk among the group until someone has the brilliant idea to turn on the football game.
“Dinner’s ready!” Tommy announces, coming in from the kitchen. The odd-family all oohs and ahhs over the beautiful turkey that Tommy carries into the living-room and places on the table, except Harry who screeches and calls his “nephew” a murderer. Dishes are laid out up and down the table; mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, homemade macaroni and cheese, stuffing, cranberry sauce, bowls of French onion soup…It is truly a feast to be reckoned with.
Wine is poured and passed around and the family scrambles to arrange themselves at the table. Dick takes the position at the head of the table and raises his glass, smiling, with a hand in his pocket. He looks positively charming as he prepares to give thanks for the meal and his family but instead of something heart-warming he merely announces. “Let’s eat!”
The original four Solomons do not waste any time. Mary, Lily, Mike and Gwen, however, stare on in mild confusion. Mary muses that she should be used to this and joins the fray.
During dinner, Mike glares across the table as Tommy and Lily play disgustingly cute and feed one another from their forks and lean in for kisses in between bites. Gwen just pretends that she doesn’t see it as she and Sally talk weaponry.
Somewhere between after-dinner coffee and dessert a fight breaks out between Mike and Dick. No one can say for certain why it happened, but the two men exchange blows and scramble to get at one while the rest of the family hurries to separate them. Gwen moves to put a layer of pink mana between them and glares, firmly, at her husband.
“He started it,” Mike excused as he straightened his tie.
The rest of the meal is finished without much incident and when the dishes are cleared, Mike decides that it is high-time to retire to the hotel. Wisely, Mary decides to drive this time. She passes Joey onto his father and whispers for Tommy to keep an eye on him. Gwen and Mike exchange hugs with their daughter who is still wide-eyed over her first Solomon-style Thanksgiving.
“I think it went well!” Dick says as he flops into the nearest chair, pants unbuttoned.
“You punched my wife’s dad,” Tommy says, exasperated, as he pulls his wife into his lap and sets his chin on her shoulder.
“That was just gravy.”
In a month, they’ll do it all over again. Christmas is coming, after all, and maybe they can celebrate at the Moringstar estate…