Twig and Berries

As is the tradition in my family, the member who just recently moved into a new place is required to host the next family holiday gathering. I actually like the pressure: it's just the motivation I need to actually get pictures hung, walls painted, and baseboards swept. (Really, if the dust wants to settle there, I see no reason to disturb it.) Plus, it's nice to have extended family over. Once a year. (I'm way too lazy for more than an annual event. Cleaning involves way too much cardio.)

Since I moved into Chateau Suano in mid-July, the first holiday to roll around is Thanksgiving. That is perfectly fine with me: fall is my favorite season and Thanksgiving is actually my favorite holiday. No pressure to come up with Christmas presents for relatives with undecipherable tastes, no church service to wedge in that morning or the night before. Just a good old-fashioned American holiday with distant, glossed-over connections to crimes against an entire race of indigenous people. But, despite those contradictions of ideals, I love Thanksgiving. Well, the cartoon version. I fall for the kitsch of the holiday every year.

Exhibit A:

I make my mom spend two hours Wednesday night cutting out a flock of hand turkeys, decorating each one for a specific family member and nestling something the person was grateful for under its wing. Which leads to a very insightful conversation between us about whether my sister's item of thanks (she's expecting her first kid in spring) should be drawn as an egg (me) or a miniature turkey (mom). My mom wins, despite my multiple attempts to point out that an egg HAS a miniature turkey inside it. I'm still not sure if my mom knows where baby turkeys come from.

Get the flock out of here!

Exhibit B:

Dad, upon returning from a bag-of-ice run: "Hey, I was walking into UDF and I saw a guy in a hat loading-"

Me, completely serious: "A pilgrim hat?! Like with a buckle?"

Dad, staring at me with a mixture of bewilderment and pity: "Um, no. Just a regular baseball hat."


The one downside to Thanksgiving: while other holidays can have a bounty of different food options, Thanksgiving has just one item on the menu: turkey. An entire bird: bones, gizzards and all.

Tom: you can try but you can't hide. We have a date at eight.

We always call ours Tom the Turkey. Since I only recently developed the ability to touch raw chicken without shivering, the prospect of attacking an entire fowl is terrifying. Especially a bird with a name. Adding to the pressure is the fact that I will be hosting a dinner of thirteen, which includes one current and one former lineman. If the bird preparation run afoul  (I'm not above using that joke), I don't think a back-up plan of Skillet Sensations and Pop-Tarts will work. And if you think I'm exaggerating (I'm not above that either), here's photographic evidence of who I'm going to have to feed:

That's not some Peter Jacksonian magic. He literally has to look DOWN to see the top of my fridge.

So, very graciously, my parents volunteer to come down the night before and help me with Operation Feast 2011.

Thanksgiving Day. 0800 hours. It is just Tom versus my mom and me. Tom, defrosted and sitting in the sink, has assumed the position. I have my Turkey socks up and my game face on.



Suited Up. Turkeybowl 2011 has begun.

I have steeled myself to remove the giblets myself. We never use them in the stuffing or gravy anyway. All I have to do is reach in and pull out the bag of innards and immediately throw them into the trash. I even see the corner of the organ sack-o-gold peeking out. I pinch the tiny tab of plastic between my fingers, put the trash can at the ready, and fling poor Tom's guts into the garbage.

Boom! Tom, you just got served! Let's drop this motherfowler into a pan, sling it into the oven, and kick back for the next 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Little do I know, the giblets are just the start of the crimes against aviary I am about to witness. Seriously, someone should have told me how far we would have to violate this bird. Now I understand why so many mothers spend the holidays crying into their wine glasses.



I'm sure there are other, more culinary ways to describe what we do to Tom, but here's my crude attempt:

• Remove innards.
• Also remove neck, which is conveniently packed inside his body cavity. (I immediately think of how I flip socks together when folding them. I'll never look at laundry day the same way again.)
• Hang him upside-down and rightside-up, making sure the water running through his dead carcass is clear.
• Pluck any last remaining feather quills off of him. (Very poor shaving job, he should invest in one of those Venus Divine razors, they have three blades for a silky smooth finish. Well, should have. Too late now.)
• Castrate him. It might have been something else but, given its location, I can only assume what we are cutting off is at least partially twig-and-berries. I immediately text my cousin, who is also preparing her first full turkey feast. Her response: "No directions say to do that! Why would they leave that part out??"
• Break his shoulders so his wings prop up behind his would-be head. It gives him the appearance of working it for a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit catalog.
• Shove a celery stick up his ass. On second thought, add an onion as well for good measure.
• Rub oil on his chest, which is also disturbingly connected to a bikini photo shoot.

I would have taken a picture, but I figured the images might come back to haunt me if I ever decide to run for political office or Petland sales rep. Although, to be honest, most of the pictures wouldn't be incriminating. They would just show me jumping from foot to foot, hands wringing from the ickiness while my mom patiently works on the bird, all the while smiling in amusement at my lack of kitchen street smarts.

Tom, catching a few rays before his close-up.

The rest of the feast preparation goes off without a hitch. The stuffing bubbles happily in the crock pot. The mashed potatoes fluff up into creamy peaks. Even Tom is ready to go ahead of schedule, so there is plenty of time to cut up the meat. I again opt to act as photographer instead of carver, although I do help to clean some scraps off the bones. I sneak a taste, prying a morsel of meat right off of Tom's sternum. It tastes good. While I'm chewing I think, hmmm. I bet this is what it feels like to be Republican. Like the way sipping Snowville Creamery organic nonhomogenized whole milk makes me feel Democratic. (Equal Time Rule satisfied.)

Geneva Conventions Be Damned

Three hours later, everyone has pigged out on three courses: appetizers, the feast, and dessert. Everyone  has ate, drank, and been sarcastically merry. And, as is our own family tradition, pillows come out, floor areas are claimed, and the siestas begin.

How the mighty have fallen.

 

By seven, leftovers are stowed away, hugs are given, and centerpieces (ironically, vases filled with twigs and berries) are tossed. A quiet sense of peace drifts back into my home. Another day of lovely memories to razz each other about at the next holiday: the chocolate pie none of us could take down, the copious amounts of cheese left over, the barbs exchanged between cousin and uncle. All wonderful things to  remember and bring up later. Come to think of it, there was one thing my mom told me to not forget or I would regret it. Hmm. What was it? Something about the oven? The crockpot?

Wait, what's that smell ... the turkey bones! Put them in the garbage can outside!

And, in one last act of insult, I unceremoniously dump Tom's remains into the trash, wishbone and all. No wish would be worth facing that assault on the senses.

Happy Thanksgiving To All, And To All A Good Night!

Turkey Day 2011

By Their Powers Combined...

In this time of Thanksgiving, it seems like the perfect opportunity to give thanks to an amazing superhero in my life. A superhero that has rescued me in my time of need and transformed me from Scared Home Owner to Empowered Home Dominator: Captain Plan-It.

The Planiteers? My mom and dad.

Sure, they may seem like mere mortals. But ... when their powers combine ...  They! Are! Captain Plan-It! A whirlwind of weekend warrior productivity!

And, as a newbie homeowner, I am in desperate need of a saving grace. I was the dream apartment dweller. I was quiet. I didn't take up extra parking spaces. I left cookies and chilled water out for the maintenance man. But as a homeowner? I'm a disaster. I have no instincts for it. Take mowing the lawn. I must have left my spatial capacities back in my apartment because I wind up mowing parts of the yard twice while leaving little grass mohawks spiking up in my wake. The metallic grinding sound rattling out of the lawn mower? I deduce that the sound means the mower is thirsty for more oil, not gas. (Wrong.)

But my parents? They are seasoned professionals. And together they make an unstoppable team.

Any weekend my mom comes down, I know I'm going to have to either carbo-load or Red Bull to keep up with her. She is a homemaking machine with a solution for any domestic problem. For example: almost any home issue / medical ailment can be cured with either Carmex or a Magic Eraser. Chapped lips? Of course. But did you know that Carmex also cures gummy wall reside and zits? And Magic Erasers can be used both as a cleaner for your shower and a pumice for your feet?

In one 36-hour marathon session, we accomplished the following:

• bedroom painted (2 coats)
• groceries stocked
• front window sheers made
• blinds installed
• lawn mowed
• hedges whacked
• German chocolate torte cake baked
• floors swept and mopped
• six paintings hung
• mass attended
• 8 hours slept

That list would have taken a month to do in Suano Time.

My dad wields his powers in the workshop. He makes amazing furniture. Seriously. All of those childhood yawns and tantrums I used to throw in the concrete aisles of Furrows and Ace Hardware? Totally take them back. All of those road trips from the lumber store, desperately clinging to a trio of two-by-fours in the backseat of the Firebird, the boards stretching precariously out the opened trunk? Totally worth it.

My dad has literally furnished half of my new home. And the pieces are stunning! We're not talking Target-DIY-furniture-kits from the Ye Ol' Dad Workshop here. Believe me, I have some of my attempts at Some  Assembly Requireds  sprinkled throughout the house. They creak threateningly each time I walk by, daring me to rest even a coaster on their tops.

Not the ones built Dad Tough. They are solid, sturdy, and beautifully crafted. Certainly better than those macaroni-noodled Christmas ornaments I made for him in kindergarten.

Here are just a few of his pieces of handiwork...

Bookcase Masterpiece

Spice Cabinet and Granite Table

(you know, because he just had a slab laying around the house)

Bulletin Board and Writing Desk

Cabinet

As you can see, my parents are supernatural. They are clearly the Planiteers, while I am -- at best -- Suchi, that annoying side chimp sitting on their shoulder and chirping side comments while they take on the real home remedy enemies. Without them, I would be sitting in my new home. On the floor, boxes everywhere. Picking nits off myself and crying into an haggard carpet. They've helped me make my house into a home, right in time for Thanksgiving. And that is definitely worth giving thanks for.

So thank you, Mom and Dad, for being the superhero to my sidekick monkey!

Pil-Low and Behold

Since I can't sleep, I have decided to do something productive and provide the public with the valuable information of the 14 pillow combinations I have tested. For optimal sinus drainage, I recommend #11. For Eustachian tube support, #12 or #13 works best. Also keep in mind that results may be influenced by other external factors, such as thread count, moon phase, and the amount of recording space currently available on your DVR.

#1: The Continental

#2: The Lounger



#3: The Old Zinn's Wagon Shed

#4: The Half-In-Half

#5: The Catapult

#6: The Double Down

#7: The Cinnabon

#8: The Tree Mill Log Roll

#9: That's So Raven!

#10: The Inverse

#11: The Downhill Skier

#12: A La Derecha

#1: The Spork

#13: The Ostrich

#14: The Pierre

(This is used only when you have given up on the idea of ever winning the pillow war.

All restless nights lead to The Pierre.)

Phoebe Buffay Is A Lying Son-Of-A-Bitch

Remember that Friends episode, the one where Phoebe comes down with a cold? (This is Pre-Awkward-Joey-and-Rachel-Love-Digression and Pre-As-Well-As-Post-Bloated-Chandler-Bing.) Well, she gets all phlegmy and germlike right before a singing gig at Central Perk. This spells disaster, right? WRONG! In one of the show's most unexpected plot twists - seriously, it is - surprise! Her rendition of "Smelly Cat" unexpectedly takes on a smoky, alluring tone. She croons! She sidles! She knocks it out of the amateur performer park!

The illness has such a delightful effect on her voice that, after she's recovered, Phoebe goes around frenching Monica's coffee cup to lap up some of her friend's sweet, sweet streptococcus. (I love that word. Every time I hear it, I always picture all these bacterial cells wearing campaign buttons and floating into a convention center in Iowa, all the while chatting about who they think will win the straw poll.)

Well, you know that lovely Phoebe? That quirky character who mercifully stayed the hell away from any love triangle involving Ross and/or Rachel?

She was a lying son of a bitch.

For the last eight days I've had a bastard love child of a cold for, which could only have been created in a devil's three-way of Bacteria, Virus, and the jacuzzi water from the house on Jersey Shore. I've coughed. I've gagged. I've tried fourteen pillow formations to find the optimal angle for sinus drainage. I have even resorted to seeing an actual medical professional, my general physician, and tolerated his Mommy Dearest bedside manner just to get my hands on some sweet, sweet azythromacin. And the one shining beacon of light? The tattered silver lining I am desperately clingling to? That I will temporarily speak in a tone that makes men, and certain women, weak at the knees. What with all the hacking, I am sure that I'll have at least two days of sexy huskiness.

*****
Public Service Announcement: the voice is the only feature of a woman that can be described as "husky" without fear of soul-shattering retaliation. And make sure to start with the word "voice," e.g. "Wow, babe, your voice is so husky as you describe in intimate detail the argument you just had with your sister on the phone." NEVER throw Husky out there without Voice going forward first for reconnaissance.

For example: "Wow babe, you've gotten so husky in your--" This sentence has never been completed in recorded human history, due to the fact that it is always interrupted by the female ripping the male's heart out of his chest, slathering it in Nutella, and feeding it to the male's loyal dog which, as desired by the female, dies of chocolate toxic poisoning. Why kill the dog, you ask? I told you it would get all passive aggressive up in this piece.

*****

Eight days of violently hawking up mucous which, slowly sliding down the side of my sink, reminds me of Gak. Eight days. My sides are sore from the diaphragm clean and jerks. (Note to self: start using Wii Fit again.) Standing over the sink after the most recent lung assault, my reflection de-hunches into mirrored view. Hair wilted, eyes glassy, a gossamer of spit stretching from my chapped lips to my rumpled sweatshirt. I look at myself. I only have one thought.

I'm going to sound so effing hot tomorrow.

I don't. I sound like a squeak toy going through puberty. I don't even give off the the satisfying main note a squeak toy makes. I sound like the before and after: the inhalation right before the toy trumpets its shrill cry, and the exhalation once the cry has run its course. The most unsatisfying part of that generally unsatisfying toy.

What's worse, I can't even determine my level of sexy huskiness, or lack thereof. Due to my hilariously constructed sinus cavity, traffic from my nose is taking up all the drainage lanes. Now the caravan of infection in my ear can't merge. So it just sits there, parked on the Eustachian on-ramp. Nowhere to go. Traffic is backing up, eventually lining up all the way up the canal. In the past, I've had instance where these pathogen passengers have grown so frustrated  that they've gone rogue, essentially pulling a U-turn and speeding backwards up the canal, busting through my eardrum like a car chase in a Michael Bay joint.
While the release of painful pressure was nice, the screeching and ripping that accompanied it didn't seem worth it.

Then there's the fact that I'm essentially hearing impaired for the next six weeks. Well, hearing impaired to any outside sounds, that is. Any sounds from outside my head are muffled like I've stuffed my head between two sonic pillows. But everything coming from INSIDE my head sounds OBNOXIOUSLY loud and oafish. My voice, my breathing, my chewing. All of these sounds trombone their way over any meek squeak from the other side of the tympanic membrane. I interrupt people constantly. This horrifies me enough in normal social interactions. But now, with my faulty eardrums, it could take me agonizing seconds to realize that the other person has started talking. As I chat long, I look at them, and think how odd it is that this person is moving their lips around so much.

And don't get me started on phones: I can't hear them ring in the first place. I have to literally hold my breath so I can tell if that faint chime I sensed was actually the phone. Then, on the rare occasions when I catch the incoming call before it rolls to voicemail, I trip all over the conversation, never settling into that organic conversation rhythm. Eventually I just give up and start talking over the caller:

"Yeah, sure no problem okay well I'm going to go sorry I've been so awkward on the phone but it's just because I've lost some of  my hearing and even though it's just temporary I'm really struggling to hear anything but oddly my own voice sounds really loud sort of like when you're on an airplane and you can just hear yourself you know it's so weird and I've talked to my doctor but he's all Yeah I See a Tiny Little Tear It's No Big Deal but to me it feels like a huge effing deal but I don't want to complain to him because I don't want him to think I'm a wuss but I can't help but think that if his kid had a perforated eardrum on multiple occasions he would say something a hell of a lot more concerned than It's No Big Deal but that's what I get for sticking with a doctor I don't really like It just seems easier to stay with him than try to find a new provider and he does give me Z-pack prescriptions when I ask him to oh that reminds me I have to go pick up that prescription from CVS so I gotta run it was great talking to you I'll definitely work on that thing okay well talk to you later bye!"

Needless to say, the day at work does not go as planned. I allure absolutely no one with my gravelly pipes. The best I get is a faculty member stopping by to see how I'm doing. "I heard you earlier and you sounded like death."

After choking my way through my requisite eight hours at the office, I climb into my car and steer my sniffly ass onto the highway. Merging with traffic, I crank the volume knob to vibration levels just so I can actually hear the music on the radio. I fiddle with the balance, trying to calculate my hearing loss with the amount of sound I have to shift into the left speakers so the sound balances in my head. Finally I find the sweet spot and  Adele's "Someone Like You" settles between my ears. Sure, Adele. You keep your luscious pipes to yourself. Go hang out with Phoebe at open mic night.

Wait a sec ... Phoebe never claimed that her sickness and phlegm made her speech improve ... the phlegm sexified her SINGING. That's it! I bet my hoarseness will transform me from warbly church soprano to Motown crooner. I take a deep breath, wait for the piano to strike, and belt out the chorus the husky (no offense) English songbird.

Instead of smouldering, my voice cracks, breaks, and shatters all over the beginning notes. I try to push through, adding in that hand flutter I always see divas like Mariah Carey do, like they need to conduct themselves through their arpeggios. It does nothing. As I crash and burn my way to the last notes, I realize that a car to my left has pulled even with mine. The driver, a sunglassed TDH (Tall, Dark, Handsome) is staring at me, his brow furrowed. I pause, take a mental step back, and realize he's probably trying to figure out why the hell this crazy woman is shouting and shaking her hand all over the place.

Well, that settles it. I'm feverish, I'm congested, and I have a solid 25% of a hot guy's attention before he has to merge in 25% of a mile. Screw you, Phoebe, I'll take it.

My First Boy Friend

I’m not sure how Max wound up in my life. Our family didn’t drape cobwebs across the porch railings or set up fog machines in the foyer. Jack-o-lantern trash bags were as spooky as we got. So the fact that my mom gave my older sister and me a six-foot inflatable skeleton when we were in grade school seems peculiar now. But, back then, it didn't matter how he got there. He was there to stay.

Max was everything I dreamt of in a romantic lead: tall (72 inches, according to the packaging), dark, and handsome. Trim build, perfect teeth, permanent smile, quiet demeanor, easily portable.

Max wound up hanging around long after the piles of fallen leaves had been jumped in and swept away. He donned Santa Hats and clown costumes. During lazy summer months he would come with us to the pool, showing off his impeccable dead man's float. And, if the other mothers were any indication, I wasn't the only one who had my eye on him. Max was prime cougar bait. Lounging in vinyl-strapped chaises, they couldn’t take their eyes off him. That was my first taste of the primal joy one feels when one's mate is coveted by others. The perfect boy pool toy.

After a few months it occurred to me that it was a bit indecent for Max to wander around all day in his eternal birthday suit. I decided to dress him in some play clothes I had long since found too childish for my sophisticated seven-year-old palate. Propped in a chair, scooted so close that the edge of the table pressed against his inflated sternum, Max would join my sister and me for lunch. Six legs dangling down towards the sparkling laminate floor. Four limbs tanned dark from the summer months. Two limbs blazing white with neon-colored hems reaching halfway down puffed out shinbones.

Most women have difficulty identifying exactly what brought about their body image issues. Normally it’s a complicated cocktail of blame: side comments from adult figures, peer pressure from - well -  peers, and societal expectations glossily staring back from magazine covers. Mine wasn’t. It started with my skeletal best friend, straight up. If Max could fit into my Osh Koshes, I clearly needed to grow about twenty-four inches taller and no more than two inches wider. Oh, and weigh approximately half a pound. No more. After all, his name is Max.  

But Max had his own insecurities. He was clearly very self-conscious about his lack of hair, if not his lack of skin. I didn't mind at all, but I could see it bothered him. And I wanted him to feel good about himself. One day I took a blond wig, a remnant from my sister's former days as a mermaid, and Scotch taped the frizzy bleached hairpiece to Max’s skull. Despite his neck snapping back from the weight, he loved his new look. Long, ratty hair. Gaunt cheeks. Pure hair band bad boy.

Shortly after I began dressing Max, I discovered how much easier it was to put him in dresses than pants. No safety pinning of the waist (a dangerous endeavor around Max’s delicate constitution), no fishing up a pant leg for a collapsed femur. Eventually Max wound up cross dressing more and more. It was just simpler. I remember my mom recommending that we switch his name from Max to Maxine. Ridiculous, I thought. That’s a girl’s name, and Max is clearly a BOY.

Over time, though, Max started to show his age. A few months in he wasn’t as perky as he used to be. He’d feel fine in the morning, but by early afternoon, sitting at the table, he’d start to slouch. His shoulders slumped with the weight of the pastel-colored overall jumper I had wrestled him into after breakfast. When riding in the car, his chest would surrender to the seat belt, effectively folding him in half. At first I thought it was just a phase. A mid-after-life crisis. He'd eventually snap out of it. But when he didn’t even have the conviction to wear his blond hairpiece anymore, his cranium caving in from the burden, I knew it wasn’t good.

My mom tried to perform emergency surgery on him. We laid him out in the family room, his whiteness standing out in clinical contrast to the dark tan carpet. My mom pushed down on his chest while I lowered my ear close to his joints, listening for that malignant hisssss. Every time we located a puncture, my mom would apply a makeshift bone graft using a patch from a raft repair kit.  After each session Max would recover for a little while. But, eventually, we had used up an entire repair kit and Max still struggled. The patches hardened into callouses that snagged his skirts and caught his hair, strands ripping out of his damaged mane.

My mom knew it was time, even though I denied it. I was certain that another surgery would make him right as rain again. More and more often, though, I would just leave Max in my room, slouched between the toy chest and the closet door. It took too much effort to clothe him every day. It grew depressing, being around his deflated state. Eventually I moved on to other friends, Barbie and Breyer Horses and Skip-It. All fun and carefree. It wasn’t until after a few weeks that I even noticed he was gone. One day, while cleaning, my mom had deflated Max and rolled him up, wedging him into a crevice in the toy chest. A few years later, our family moved into a new house. I don’t think Max made the cut.

For the first Halloween in our new home, my mom went to the store and bough another inflatable skeleton, this one just 48 inches tall. I tried dressing him up, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe it was a matter of scale, the fact that Max was a good head and shoulders taller than me, that made him seem real. On this smaller, squatter skeleton, the wig looked ridiculous and out of place. It was like putting lipstick on a bike. It didn’t make any sense. We hung up the skeleton by our front door to welcome the Trick-or-Treaters and them promptly stowed the flattened bones away with the pumpkin baskets and orange trash bags.

It has been years since I last saw Max. Looking back, I’m actually pretty impressed that my mom was so accepting of my imaginary life with him. A twelve-year-old playing with a full-sized skeleton? That scene would definitely raise some eyebrows in most nosy neighborhoods. But I never remember my mom saying a word about what the people down the street or around the pool would think. She didn't care why I cared about him. She just let me play, let me take care of this other being. And then, when I felt burdened being around him, when I felt guilty about abandoning him, she let me off the hook.

This October was the first Halloween of my adult life where trick-or-treating preparations were in order. I had moved into a new home, my first house, on a suburban street streaming with children. A few days before the night of begging was to take place, I stopped by a store on my way home from work to pick up some bags of chocolate-covered charity. Wandering the aisles of FUN SIZED! and PAKS A PUNCH! and SWEET TREATS!, doing borderline calculus to figure out the best deal, I spied Halloween decorations peeking out from an end display. I couldn’t resist.  

I walked over, scanning the shelves of plastic cauldrons and preposterously hairy spiders. I thumbed through costumes of Sexy Nurse! and Sexy Bumble Bee! and Sexy Nun! (Halloween is about zombies and vampires. When did slutty replace scabby, may I ask?) Eventually, I came across what I had been searching for:  strung up above the bottom-shelf fog machines, a row of skeletons of all shapes and sizes. Glow-in-the dark ones, glittery ones, ones with red eyes and motion detection.

I don’t know if it was their lecherous stares or the fact that they were molded out of polyurethane, but none of them seemed worth taking home. None were like Max, with his open smile and vulnerable softness. None of them came alive. None of them needed me.

I picked up my shopping basket, heavy with Kit Kats and Butterfingers, and headed toward the check-out counter. I could try to search for him on the store's website. Heck, I could Google him. But that somehow feels cheap. I've always been a little queasy about the idea of internet dating. I'd rather just wait for fate to bring us back together. If it's meant to be, it'll happen. Maybe next October we'll meet again.