jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

I’m home alone. So nice.

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. And that’s saying something, as the odds were against me. I worked until about 7 on Wednesday, with the intention of coming home and doing kitchen prep work until Damon’s little brother and his girlfriend showed up. That was the plan until I got home and got the message that Fresh Direct had a scheduling software malfunction and the groceries that were supposed to arrive between 3 and 6 were still hours away. I do not envy them the evening they must have had, but I was still screwed on the schedule.

The food finally came around 10, followed a few minutes later by the guests. I tried to do a little socializing and chore doing at the same time. I didn’t get as far as I would have liked, but I did:
— parboil a zillion pearl onions
— wash potatoes
— peel, wash and score brussels sprouts
— assemble a standard green bean casserole and stick it in the oven. (It made Ashley laugh that this was the only thing on the menu that I didn’t actually know how to make. She talked me through it. “Dump the can into the baking dish. Dump the other can into the baking dish. Etc. Etc.)
By then I was pretty sleepy, so I retired to the couch and shortly after to the bedroom.

Because I am a bad hostess I was hellbent on going to the Macy’s parade this year. So even when Jeremy and Ashley said they were too tired to wake up at 7, I dragged Damon out the door and down to my office. It was a nice bit of luck that our office windows look out onto the parade route. So Damon and I sat comfortably over the fray, working the coffee/tea machine liberally. I got a sick pleasure of seeing all the people on the street huddling under the umbrellas, shivering. My karma came back to bite me, though. As the parade wrapped I suddenly remembered that David Blaine was doing a stunt at Times Square. So we headed over there and, since we got a great place to watch, stood around for about two hours watching him hang 50 feet above the ground in a gyroscope. He finally wiggled out of his shackles and leapt to the ground. It was marginally exciting, and his escape was our cue to get home and get dinner done.

It was about 2pm when we got back and I hit the kitchen, finally producing:

— creamed pearl onions
— mustard-glazed brussels sprouts
— corn stuffing
— horseradish mashed potatoes
— green salad (my homemade vinaigrette is the best you’ve ever had)
— traditional cranberry sauce
— green bean casserole
— custard sweet potato pie (I confess that this was from the bakery. I don’t bake.)
I feel like there was one other dish, but I can’t recall.

Everyone seemed happy and plenty of seconds were had, so I think the turkey was not missed. We were seriously dedicated to eating. The best illustration of that I can provide is that we were so tired from eating that we accidentally left the half-eaten pie sitting out all night. I felt it was unwise to try to keep it, and we threw it away. Then Damon and I walked down to the bakery and bought a new pie, so we could start over and do it right.

For the rest of the visit we did a lot of standard tourist stuff, as Ashley had never been to NY. Most of the time we are smart enough to allow our visitors to go see Times Square without us, but Jeremy gets special treatment so we got dragged along. It was fine. We also took them to do some stuff we like a lot, mostly going to our favorite restaurants. We sent them to the New Leaf Cafe for a date, and then all four of us went to Popover Cafe and Pana II.

Oh, and let me not forget the video games. We got a Wii a while ago and it sat in the box awaiting Jeremy, who is a video game nut and knew exactly how to set it up. After that there was a lot of monster truck racing and elvin (elvish?) sword fighting. I am quite handy on the drift. Who knew?

In 24 hours, my dad will be here. I’m sure it will be wonderful. But pray for me anyway.