Thanksgiving Dinners

I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful. Our Thanksgiving fell into the category of “pretty good”. Not great, just “pretty good”.

There were some first times for us this Thanksgiving. First times that like it or not may become a tradition. Girl Twin brought a “friend”. Boy Twin asked what time we were eating because he had other opportunities to spend the day.

Since moving out of the city into the mountains, Elaine and I (and sometimes the kids) have gone for a walk/hike down the creek bed on our property. We have tried to make it a tradition but there have been a few times the November weather has prevented going for a hike. This year's hike was canceled before the weather was decided. Turns out the weather was fine if you don’t mind thirty-mile-an-hour winds. Walking in the grocery store (with crutches) is hard enough. While I am up for challenges, hiking the creek bed didn’t seem like the best idea. Hopefully, we can hike by Valentine’s Day. (More about crutches, shortly.)

Our hiking tradition was replaced (hopefully not permanently) with watching football. It couldn’t have been more painful. Three games on television! Football, the entire day. Elaine and I, watching football together. Kids, nowhere in sight. (They have no interest in football, either.)

Besides the fact, that I feel the players are thugs, I don’t favor any thugs over the other thugs. Elaine chooses her favorites by who has a matte finish on their helmets. (Compared to shiny helmets) I shouldn’t care how she picks her favorites, but do I need to agree with her? We spent the day discussing whether which stadiums have artificial turf and which have natural grass. We finish with those discussions and one of us will notice one or more teams has scored while we decided natural grass is green and artificial grass is also green.

Thankfully, we were able to switch back and forth from football to the start of a four-day marathon of that show about creative ways to kill or be killed in Montana. Elaine loves that show. I think I saw her taking notes.

Along with our new football obsession (which hopefully goes away), we started a new tradition that hopefully will continue. Girl Twin and her “friend” helped with the cooking. That’s never happened before. Cooking for Thanksgiving before this year was always done by Elaine. Ivy and myself. The recipes used were mostly from my mother. Ivy insists on that.

I have always enjoyed Thanksgiving. Just the word Thanksgiving brings back some great memories. When Elaine and I were newlyweds, Thanksgiving was celebrated with both our families. Not together, one after the other. At noon we would attend my mom’s celebration with all the old German-Russian recipes. Late afternoon/early evening we would head to Elaine’s parents for a more traditional feast.

One particular memory that always makes me smile from the early days happened at Elaine’s parents. Her parents had a friend that you could always count on to hit the scotch pretty hard. Jim was sitting across the table from me, happy to be dominating conversation at the table. I can’t say that anyone besides me noticed the one-and-a-half-inch diameter piece of turkey hanging precariously from his black horned rimmed military glasses. I thought I was going to die, he just kept talking. Now that’s a memory.

Another Thanksgiving memory I cannot forget, took place at our home. We had invited Elaine’s mother to celebrate at our house. Elaine’s mom (God Bless her) insisted on supplying the turkey. She purchased a frozen turkey from the local grocery store and told Elaine she would thaw it out and drop it by. It can be cold in late November in Colorado. Elaine’s Mom decided to thaw the turkey naturally outside, in the trunk of her car. It may be cold outside in November, but in the trunk sitting in the sun is a different story. The turkey was in the trunk for a week.

Thanksgiving morning Elaine started preparing the turkey. She took the wrapper off the turkey and calmly said to me, “Does this turkey smell to you?” When some says “Does this smell?” you have to assume it possibly does not smell. I prepared myself and took a giant whiff of the turkey. To this day that might have been my biggest regret. I’m telling you, that is a smell that can’t be duplicated. I’m lucky to be alive.

Just a quick crutches story. The doctors have suggested I keep my legs moving until surgery can be scheduled. I “ride” a stationary bike a couple of hours a day per the doctors' instructions. I can ‘ride” the bike without pain.

This past week, I/we were experiencing some technical issues with our satellite television. I was chatting on the phone with technical support when they asked me to go the television and press some buttons. I got up from my chair and WALKED (without crutches or canes) to the television. It hurt like (construction language) but I could do it. Three weeks ago, I would have fallen down. Things must be getting better.

Buy yarn. My construction career is on hold, but I still fill yarn orders. God Bless you guys. I hope your turkey didn’t smell.

Our crazy lives!

Monner