So it was an AWESOME Thanksgiving today!! It was bright and sunny and the most awesometastic thing of all??
I DIDN'T HAVE TO COOK!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG!!! So every year my mom and I discuss who's going to cook what for the holiday and no matter what, every year, I lose. It's not a fight nor is it a competition, but no matter what, I lose. Every year. I get to procure the turkey and the ham. I get to cook the rice and the vegetables. I might even get to bake a cake or make cookies. And I get to make the cornbread. And while some of you are sitting there wondering, "Well Damn, what does Mom cook?" Let me tell you. Mac n Cheese (the baked kinds because Kayla LOVES IT), and a sweet potato pie. She does however cook the ham. And when she burns it, I'm the poor shlub who has to get in the car and go find another ham because I didn't go with my gut and get two hams in the first place because she swore she wouldn't burn the ham this year like she does every year. EVERY YEAR. And I don't mean burn it like it's just a little well done, I mean burns it like it could probably substitute a bag of charcoal briquets in the grill burn.
Two years ago, we all went to Ocean City, Md for Thanksgiving. My neighbor gave me this HUGE turkey. Like over twenty pounds. We decided to forgo to ham because I put my foot down. I was not going to be roaming a strange town trying to find an open supermarket trying to and ending up fighting someone for the last ham in the store. Wasn't going to happen. I defrosted the turkey, I marinated the turkey, I put my foot into seasoning that bad boy and I cooked him for twenty two hours. The whole time share hotel was smelling good. We could get off the elevator and smell that bird just roasting away. People on the floor above us said that whatever we were cooking smelled awesome.
I woke up on Thanksgiving morning with a 105 degree temperature. Mom rushed me to the hospital only for us to find out that I had double lung pneumonia. On thanksgiving. On bleepity bleeping Thanksgiving day after I had put so much work into that turkey, I couldn't stay awake to eat it and when I did wake up, I couldn't taste it. I wanted to cry. But I was also dehydrated so I couldn't do that. So I slept. And just to add insult to injury, I brought the turkey back home and made turkey soup out of it but what I didn't can to eat later, my kids gobbled up not leaving me any, my girls gave jars of soup to my neighbor and their teachers and the last jar that I forbade anyone to touch got invaded by ants. So I tasted none of that glorious bird. After that, I was finished. No more, I wasn't cooking ever again. Last year was the ex's Thanksgiving with the kids so Mommy and I drove up to Cherokee and ate at the casino. We did the same for Christmas. Let me tell you, that Indian Reservation knows they can fry up some chicken...
This year, we had the same discussion about who was going to cook what with the added bonus of where we were going to eat it and just for shits and giggles we threw in a healthy bicker about why we never have holiday dinner at my house. "No mom, you have never eaten a holiday meal at my house. no mom, you haven't. I don't remember that mom. No mom, you haven't. Fine mom, you have, I just don't remember it. No, I;m not calling you a liar, I'm just saying I don't remember it. Yes, mom. Okay, mom. No, I am not patronizing you. Ow!! Why'd you hit me?? I was not being condescending, I really don't ever remember you eating a meal at my house! Yes mom. I'm sorry mom. No, I still don't remember that mom. OW!" That is how my end of that conversation went. And that was before deciding what to eat. And I lost that discussion. Just as I thought I would and I prepared to fight the late crowd at th store for my turkey because I didn't get my stamps until the 21st. And even though I had already tuned into what I was going to make for Christmas (Don't ask me why, but my brain totally skipped over cooking for THanksgiving.) I had to rewind and think about cooking a turkey. And lugging a turkey. Because even though she insisted she'd eaten at my house for a holiday dinner before, us coming over there with three kids and the meal was somehow easier than her sticking a chair in the back of her car so that she'd have something to sit on and coming over here.
I'm not shitting you. This is how my mom thinks. She would rather me put the food and the kids in the car and come over to her one bedroom (Technically two but her dining room is in the second bedroom) apartment than she put her barstool in the back of her SUV and come over to my house.
Do you see? Do you see now why half of my blogs are about me going batshit crazy?? The people in my life make me batshit crazy. I'm sane, I swear I try to be but it doesn't work. Circumstances dictate that in order to live my life I must be crazy train crazy.
But then something magical happened. My mom found coupons for buy one get one half off for Ruby Tuesdays. She launched into this whole big long schpeal about how it would be better for us, and no one had to buy the stuff for the day and yada yada yada, (I kinda tuned out because my inner me was already singing "no more cooking!!") and then she said "So what d'ya think?" and I had to shake my head and ask "About what?" And she said "Going to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner?" I looked the woman dead in the eye and said "You had me at, "You don't have to cook!"" To which she said, "I didn't say that." I just blinked. She smiled because she knew I was doing the happy dance in my head.
So yesterday afternoon, the ex dropped my son off here and OMG is that boy tall!! At his birthday, he had me by a good two inches but now, I think he has me by maybe three or four. HE's going to be tall. And I expected it because on my side of the family, there isn't a male under six foot two and in Randy's side of the family, there isn't a man shorter than six foot unless you count Randy at 5'9 and Uncle Momo (I shit you not that is his name) who just clears five two.
Of course I had to document this. It's not often my son comes to visit.
Can you tell that my son brings out my goofy side? He totally does. I thought once that he was driving me crazy, but as it turns out, that train was already speeding along the track and he just made the ride a little more fun. But just so that everyone is clear, no. I was not ducking down for that picture. AND NO, HE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE ME!!! you have to see his dad to understand when I tell you that this boy is ALL Henderson. There is no Wilson in him. But then, I'm mom and moms apparently never see when their kids look just like them. People swear I look like my mom and both my mother and I swear up and down that I look like my dad. In case you are wondering, my mom was chosen hands down as who I look like the most. I think even my dad agreed when you put their two pictures side by side.
And also, my mom thinks that everyone that answered that I looked like her is smoking crack. I still maintain that I am my fathers child.
So tomorrow, we're going for family pictures because in my last family picture, I was the tallest in the group. As you can see, that was a few years ago and Jovaughn was actually standing straight up for that one. I had him by almost a foot three years ago.
Damn that good old Henderson stock. Hell Damn the old country Wilson stock (Or whatever my dad's real father's last name actually was. Funny story, remind me to tell it sometime.) But anyways, as you can see, I was the tall one there. I am not the tall one anymore. Jovaughn towers over me, Kayla has me by an inch I think, and poor little Livy hasn't hit her home stretch yet and is still the little one. Her achievement this year was that she cleared five foot finally. And it only took her thirteen years.
God! Can you believe that as of the 19th of this month, I will have three teenagers? The boy is 15, Kay is 14, and Liv will be 13. I don't look that old do I?? Do I????? If your answer was yes, go away. Just go away now. If your answer was no, I love you.
And that's why I don't get it when guys tell me that my having kids means they have to think twice about dating me because they'd be stepping into a daddy role. Those kids, my kids are teenagers. What else can you teach them. They're pretty well raised.
Shrugs. I should go to bed. Eight am comes really early.
But I get pictures!!! yaya!!!
I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving! I know that I have thoroughly enjoyed mine to the fullest.
*Yawn* (Dammit that word made me yawn!)
Stay frosty bloggers!!!
