The Marathon Begins

Thanksgiving is in three days. Am I ready? No. Oh, no, I am so far from ready that it might as well be July around here. I always think of Thanksgiving dinner as running a marathon: it's rewarding and kind of fun, but a helluva lot of work for all that. It's worse nowadays because my mother - yeah, that's my mother, as in Mrs. Clean. The Dowager Empress. The woman who makes Martha Stewart look like the sorry slacker trash she really is - has Thanksgiving at my house these days. We have forced this issue despite her well known distaste for my house since the year she decided to be killingly efficient and make Thanksgiving dinner ahead of time. Like, a week ahead of time and possibly more: I still can't believe we lived through that one. She gets a bit obsessive, you see, and wants to get things done. Efficiently. And granted it's a pain to make sausage stuffing and turkey on Thanksgiving day, but doing it 10 days ahead and reheating is, uh, not the ideal solution.

The other problem with my mother's house is that she has far, far too much stemware and she believes that everyone should have an appropriate glass (let's not even mention the silver, god) at all times. So, for each person that's a cocktail glass, a water goblet, a red wine glass, a white wine glass and a coffee cup and saucer. Possibly more - remember that we are, after all, Irish. None of these things go into the dishwasher, and neither does the thrice benighted silver - shrimp fork, salad fork, dinner fork, dessert fork, teaspoon, tablespoon, butter knife and assorted serving pieces, all with attractive curlicues and my grandmother's initials. After the year I was there until 2:30 washing and drying crystal, I put my foot down.

So I do it now. And mostly, I like it, but this year for whatever reason I'm kind of behind the eight ball. To put it mildly, since, given the assorted characters who live here plus one puppy who is into everything (everything includes the trash, goddamn it,) my house looks like it should be condemned by the health department and burned to the ground for the good of the community. And it all has to be spotless by Thursday. Even though I have to work every day.

Keep your fingers crossed. It will happen. It always does, through some miracle or other. And you're still invited and I guarantee the food will be delicious and, you never know, I may even live blog the preparation proceedings - good times, good times! Dinner's at 4-ish. The heavy drinking, leftover & pie eating begins around 6-ish. It's an open house - see you here!