turkey day turkey
I love Thanksgiving Day. I am grateful for a lot of things, too many to name, but if I had to give a brief list: my health, my family, and my friends, including all of you.
I started out the day desperately attempting to make my room presentable for guests, something I've been doing on and off for about a week now, which gives you an idea of my room's truly terrifying natural state (my parents have occasionally poked their heads in and made comments about contacting the Health Department). After that, I got dressed, made myself raisin bread toast and yelled at my brother and father that we had to come ON and GO ALREADY, all the while not ready myself (to get any of us out the door in a timely fashion it is necessary to create as much false urgency as possible), and then promptly got a huge dab of butter right smack dab in the middle of my nice white button-down dressy shirt.
I almost cried. Instead I desperately splashed water on it and pulled the shirt down a little more, adjusted the way the collar folded so that it cast a shadow somewhere in the area of the butter dab stain, and cursed myself for forgetting to do laundry earlier in the week, thereby creating a situation where there was no backup shirt to this one; it was the white dressy button-down or nothing.
I chose the former, as fetching as my cheap Walmart bra and pale, flabby tummy may be.
We left an hour later than we planned to and, more than that, we took my car, which has been making scary loud noises lately. I'm telling myself it's the muffler, but it could be anything, and every time I drive it, I say it to myself like a mantra, "It's just the muffler. Just the muffler. Just the muffler," while simultaneously entertaining morbid fantasies of my engine dropping out of the car while I'm careening down the highway at 70MPH.
(My commute this week has been interesting.)
We survived the trip to the nursing home with all car parts intact, and naturally could not find my grandfather anywhere. The staff directed us to the recreation room, but the three of us went in there, looked around, walked right through it and did not see him there.
"Maybe there's another recreation room," my father said.
My brother and I shrugged as if to say, yeah, that must be it.
"I mean, the parrot isn't here," my father said.
"Right, that's true," I said. "Wait, what?"
Turns out they have a parrot at my grandfather's nursing home. We found him a few minutes later in the dark, closed-off salon, sitting on top of his cage, squawking madly.
(The parrot, that is, not my grandfather.)
No sign of my grandfather anywhere else, and so we doubled back to the recreation room, where, of course, my grandfather had been sitting all along, at a table by the window. A few minutes later my aunt Chrissy showed up, along with my uncle, two cousins, and a pile of music books. The recreation room does not only host tables for eating and a little green parrot, but also a piano in the corner which my aunt, a music professor, had volunteered to play during the Thanksgiving Day meal. She sat down at the piano, pulled out some music, and started playing.
At first it was quite lovely. I sat next to my grandfather and talked to my cousins, smiled at my grandfather's nursing home compatriots, and enjoyed the music. Quite nice and festive.
And then my aunt started singing.
This wasn't, in and of itself, a bad thing - my aunt isn't a trained singer, but she can carry a tune, and more importantly, she sings in that cheerful, confident way some people have that masks any lack of talent. No, the problem wasn't Chrissy; the problem was that my father decided to get up and join her. He stood up next to her and started to sing, loudly and un-self-consciously, in a manner that involved:
-freestyling from the lyrics when he couldn't remember them (example: in The Twelve Days of Christmas, he received various numbers of bunny rabbits on different days);
-frequent hat flourishes; and
-at one point, singing "It Had to Be You" to a plush turkey.
I am not making this up. It was hilarious. My grandfather loved it. The problem was that it also cleared the rest of the room. EVERYONE else left, slowly but surely, hobbling out with their walkers, rolling in their wheelchairs, occasionally whispering, "oh, they're TERRIBLE" in that loud-enough-to-be-unintentionally-heard way all old people have.
It was mortifying, but somehow it added to the whole experience. Typing it up now, I feel kind of bad (did I ruin those people's holiday?), but the truth was, it was near the end of the meal, and also, I'm selfish. I mostly care about my grandfather, and he dug it, laughed and laughed more than I'd seen in a while.
Which made it brutal when we had to leave a little while later. We kissed him good-bye and told him we'd see him on Saturday, when my father's side of the family is having their big Thanksgiving dinner (delayed because two of my aunts decided to go out of town), but it took a while to leave the building because every few steps my father, brother, or I would stop, and start to go back, or call my mother, or just stare into space, wondering just how awful we were as people for leaving him there on Thanksgiving.
But the people arriving at our house were my mother's relatives, who my grandfather knows only vaguely, and it was going to be crowded, and loud, and my grandfather hates both of those things. He can't manage the stairs anymore and there would be no place for him to lie down on the first floor if he got tired.
We probably should have taken him home with us anyway. Judge us harshly, if you must. Some of us already have a head start.
Whatever! Either way, we three, we callous three, drove home the same way we drove there: terrified the car would fall apart beneath us, but ultimately safely. The big family shindig followed, and it was quite lovely, involving my grandmother's delicious stuffing and some of the best cranberry bread I've ever eaten. The party really got started with my cousin Emma's arrival, as most family parties do (such is the force of her personality). She burst through the door, ran over to me, hugged me around the belly and grinned huge, showing off the two front teeth she just lost, and said, "Jessie, your car is trashed! Happy Thanksgiving!"
And all I could do was hug her back and say, "It sure is. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Emmers."
And then, we ate.
I started out the day desperately attempting to make my room presentable for guests, something I've been doing on and off for about a week now, which gives you an idea of my room's truly terrifying natural state (my parents have occasionally poked their heads in and made comments about contacting the Health Department). After that, I got dressed, made myself raisin bread toast and yelled at my brother and father that we had to come ON and GO ALREADY, all the while not ready myself (to get any of us out the door in a timely fashion it is necessary to create as much false urgency as possible), and then promptly got a huge dab of butter right smack dab in the middle of my nice white button-down dressy shirt.
I almost cried. Instead I desperately splashed water on it and pulled the shirt down a little more, adjusted the way the collar folded so that it cast a shadow somewhere in the area of the butter dab stain, and cursed myself for forgetting to do laundry earlier in the week, thereby creating a situation where there was no backup shirt to this one; it was the white dressy button-down or nothing.
I chose the former, as fetching as my cheap Walmart bra and pale, flabby tummy may be.
We left an hour later than we planned to and, more than that, we took my car, which has been making scary loud noises lately. I'm telling myself it's the muffler, but it could be anything, and every time I drive it, I say it to myself like a mantra, "It's just the muffler. Just the muffler. Just the muffler," while simultaneously entertaining morbid fantasies of my engine dropping out of the car while I'm careening down the highway at 70MPH.
(My commute this week has been interesting.)
We survived the trip to the nursing home with all car parts intact, and naturally could not find my grandfather anywhere. The staff directed us to the recreation room, but the three of us went in there, looked around, walked right through it and did not see him there.
"Maybe there's another recreation room," my father said.
My brother and I shrugged as if to say, yeah, that must be it.
"I mean, the parrot isn't here," my father said.
"Right, that's true," I said. "Wait, what?"
Turns out they have a parrot at my grandfather's nursing home. We found him a few minutes later in the dark, closed-off salon, sitting on top of his cage, squawking madly.
(The parrot, that is, not my grandfather.)
No sign of my grandfather anywhere else, and so we doubled back to the recreation room, where, of course, my grandfather had been sitting all along, at a table by the window. A few minutes later my aunt Chrissy showed up, along with my uncle, two cousins, and a pile of music books. The recreation room does not only host tables for eating and a little green parrot, but also a piano in the corner which my aunt, a music professor, had volunteered to play during the Thanksgiving Day meal. She sat down at the piano, pulled out some music, and started playing.
At first it was quite lovely. I sat next to my grandfather and talked to my cousins, smiled at my grandfather's nursing home compatriots, and enjoyed the music. Quite nice and festive.
And then my aunt started singing.
This wasn't, in and of itself, a bad thing - my aunt isn't a trained singer, but she can carry a tune, and more importantly, she sings in that cheerful, confident way some people have that masks any lack of talent. No, the problem wasn't Chrissy; the problem was that my father decided to get up and join her. He stood up next to her and started to sing, loudly and un-self-consciously, in a manner that involved:
-freestyling from the lyrics when he couldn't remember them (example: in The Twelve Days of Christmas, he received various numbers of bunny rabbits on different days);
-frequent hat flourishes; and
-at one point, singing "It Had to Be You" to a plush turkey.
I am not making this up. It was hilarious. My grandfather loved it. The problem was that it also cleared the rest of the room. EVERYONE else left, slowly but surely, hobbling out with their walkers, rolling in their wheelchairs, occasionally whispering, "oh, they're TERRIBLE" in that loud-enough-to-be-unintentionally-heard way all old people have.
It was mortifying, but somehow it added to the whole experience. Typing it up now, I feel kind of bad (did I ruin those people's holiday?), but the truth was, it was near the end of the meal, and also, I'm selfish. I mostly care about my grandfather, and he dug it, laughed and laughed more than I'd seen in a while.
Which made it brutal when we had to leave a little while later. We kissed him good-bye and told him we'd see him on Saturday, when my father's side of the family is having their big Thanksgiving dinner (delayed because two of my aunts decided to go out of town), but it took a while to leave the building because every few steps my father, brother, or I would stop, and start to go back, or call my mother, or just stare into space, wondering just how awful we were as people for leaving him there on Thanksgiving.
But the people arriving at our house were my mother's relatives, who my grandfather knows only vaguely, and it was going to be crowded, and loud, and my grandfather hates both of those things. He can't manage the stairs anymore and there would be no place for him to lie down on the first floor if he got tired.
We probably should have taken him home with us anyway. Judge us harshly, if you must. Some of us already have a head start.
Whatever! Either way, we three, we callous three, drove home the same way we drove there: terrified the car would fall apart beneath us, but ultimately safely. The big family shindig followed, and it was quite lovely, involving my grandmother's delicious stuffing and some of the best cranberry bread I've ever eaten. The party really got started with my cousin Emma's arrival, as most family parties do (such is the force of her personality). She burst through the door, ran over to me, hugged me around the belly and grinned huge, showing off the two front teeth she just lost, and said, "Jessie, your car is trashed! Happy Thanksgiving!"
And all I could do was hug her back and say, "It sure is. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Emmers."
And then, we ate.