The Un-Thanksgiving......

It's Thanksgiving eve and something is amiss. I did not spend hours in a frenzied store. I have not spent the evening baking pies. I will not get up early to put a turkey in the oven. You see, the offspring will be spending Thanksgiving at their other parents' houses. For the first time, Mountain Man and I will be spending Thanksgiving alone, and it's not as terrible as it sounds.

For one thing, it was my idea. Arlie has not been to see her mom since April so I booked her a ticket earlier this month so she could spend the long weekend visiting her Spokane family. I had a mild panic this evening when I could not only NOT find the email confirmation of her reservations, but also no record of ever paying for it. I began to question whether I'd lost my fool mind and never booked the ticket at all. A long day of driving over the pass in snow loomed ahead. But, joy! I found the reservation and she's checked in. The only downside is she leaves at 8 a.m. so there will be a VERY early morning trip to the airport.

The other kids will go to their dad's new house to celebrate their first Thanksgiving there. And so, that leaves Jeff and I with no plans. We entertained the idea of going to a restaurant - letting someone else cook sounded like a pretty great idea! But we delayed making reservations and so now, I'm afraid, everything is booked. We were also invited to a dear friend's mom's house, but Mountain Man is still holding out for a restaurant. I guess we could always walk in somewhere.

The other caveat is that two of the kids have barfed multiple times in the past 24 hours so we're still on barf watch. As in, who's next? The distinct possibility that one or more of us will wake up tomorrow feeling decidedly NOT like partaking in Thanksgiving dinner is high. So, better to lay low and not spread our potential germs anywhere (except maybe a restaurant? Sorry.)

Additionally, we've unexpectedly had house guests with an uncertain future and no timeline for checking out, so we have been strategizing how to handle that.

And, honestly, I'm completely fine with not cooking a big dinner. Or even eating one. We did "Friendsgiving" last weekend and that was MY kind of Thanksgiving. Yeah, it was work - we cooked a turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, a veggie dish......but the guests all brought contributions, everyone had a good time and we got to visit with people we don't see as often as we'd like. I feel like I got my Thanksgiving fix so I kept forgetting that tomorrow is the actual holiday.

The only thing I'm truly bummed about is all the desserts I'll miss. Pumpkin pie, cookies, pecan pie...but those aren't on my diet plan anyway. But, let's be honest, if I had some, I'd eat it.

It feels weird to not have any plans at all; weirder still that I orchestrated it. There was a time,  not long ago, that I could not imagine not seeing my kids on a holiday. I do not enjoy sharing my kids. But life has a funny way of marching on, and they get older and busier and this will just be the first of many Thanksgivings that Mountain Man and I will be spending alone. Might as well get used to it! Heck, I'm falling asleep as I type this at 9 p.m. so a day full of peace, quiet and rest sounds pretty good to me. I'm officially old.

What's for dinner?

Last night my sister and I were having a conversation about making dinner. Ok, it was more about how we hate to cook and making dinner for ungrateful people day in and day out is a pain in the ass and don't you tell me otherwise. But I digress. The point is, she brought up an idea for a dinner delivery service and then we started talking about those places that are cropping up all over now, where for the price of one month's mortgage, you and twelve of your closest friends can go and stand around in a commercial kitchen for an evening, churning out a dozen or so "dinners" that you can pop in your freezer and take out conveniently on any given evening so that your family enjoys a piping hot, "homemade" meal instead of the usual slop you normally serve. Oh the joys! And you can drink wine while doing it, which means that come about recipe number five, you're reading the ingredient list and "1 cup cheese" turns into "1 fuck sheesh" and you end up dumping the whole bucket in. Because, hey, cheese is good! And so is this wine. Anyway.

The thing is, you create these dinners that you "just" have to add salad and bread to make a complete meal. JUST? Do you know how freakin' time consuming it is to make a salad? I love it when people say "Oh, I'll just throw together a salad and call it dinner". Whatever! You have to wash and tear the lettuce, probably breaking at least one nail on your turbo charged salad spinner, wash, chop and add other brightly colored veggies, and then toss it all with a wee bit of low cal dressing. And, hello, that's WORK and isn't the point of have prepackaged meals supposed to be cutting down on the work that is making dinner?

Then, there's the whole freezer thing. These dinner places suggest you take your meal out the day before so it can properly and safely thaw in the fridge while you go about your business. HELLO? More work, and if I could remember to take anything out of the freezer, we'd have food ready to cook every night and I've have no need for the stupid prepackaged meal service in the first place! Who remembers to thaw their meal two days before? I don't even know what I'm having for lunch at breakfast time. I can't plan that far ahead!!!

Dinner is the biggest meal of the day, prepared at the end of the day, when people are at their worst. We're tired, starving and some kid just got on our last nerve. The last thing I want to do is realize my stupid dinner is stuck in the freezer. I want to eat NOW! Never mind that the ravenous pack of kids around me can't wait one single minute and thus are chewing and slobbering their way through snacks so that by the time I've prepared a meal, they've already eaten a meal of crappy snacks. And I'm supposed to feel guilty now because  I didn't provide a nutritionally balanced dinner? Because it was stuck in the freezer and I'm so tired that even tearing a piece of lettuce requires a muscle set I'm sure has been exhausted by noon that day? Uh-uh!

So, I say, be warned, my friends! Do not be fooled by the wine and the "girls' night out" at those make-your-own-dinner places. Sure, you'll have fun assembling ingredients and chatting it up with your friends. You will exclaim over adding oregano to a chicken recipe like you just found the freaking holy grail, and a little light will go on inside you saying "oh, I could totally make this at home". But do not be fooled! You will go home with twelve large-sized ziploc bags full of delicious meals for four (except there's six people in your family, stupid) and those meals will mock you in the freezer for months until, one day, very far in the future, you will pull out a mysterious rectangular lump completely encased in ice and say "what the hell is this?" and dump it in the trash. Dinner's Ready? No it fucking isn't! Just open a can of Spaghetti-o's for the kids and take that bottle of wine into the bathtub with you. You'll save money AND feed your family and what's not to love about that?