Thanksgiving Oatmeal

WARNING!!  This is a complete downer.


I have these pictures when Fran was about three and it is my dining room on Elmwood and this long dining table and this huge turkey and this beautiful tablecloth and Lou and Fran and me.  My parents were in Florida having their Turkey dinner at the rec hall and enjoying the hell out of it and you didn't have to wash dishes unless your state was on the social committee that month which happened every 52 plus months because a lot of the people lived in Canada. And everyone else in my family and in Louie's family had something better do to.  Actually, they don't like us.

So this year I took the leaf out of the table and the dining room is a little smaller on Hazelwood and it will be Lou and me and my dad, because after my mom died, my dad didn't have anyone to have Thanksgiving dinner with and Fran married into this huge close knit family and we are like the wrinkly old people that scare the little kids.   I bought the smallest Turkey in the case and I was invited somewhere by someone nice, but I got this terrible haircut and kind of didn't know what to do with my dad, and Cassie doesn't know if she will be home in  time to sit with us and I thought Louie had to work, but he doesn't, so at least he will be there, otherwise it would be me and my dad.  How fucking pitiful is  that?

But the one that sticks in my mind as the quintessential Thanksgiving day celebration was the year that I gave birth to a six pound stillborn baby boy on November eighteenth and was told I had to buck up and go to auntie's in Glenview for Thanksgiving dinner.  And in those days no one acknowledged that you might be feeling grief or sadness and God forbid you should show it and it was cold and drizzly and we are driving out there, me bleeding and breasts aching, and we see this horrible seven car pile up on the Interstate and they are shoveling bodies into ambulances and we get to Auntie's and I get a big hug and "How are you?"  Seriously, auntie, what the fuck do you think?  I commented that I wasn't feeling too well yet (faux pas in those days) and we saw this horrible accident on the highway and she says, "Oh, today, you have to remember all that you are thankful for."  No.  I don't want to.  And I really should get over it but that is the clincher, like the only parade you will ever remember is when the huge balloon broke free and killed that little boy.

So, you know Google Plus and how it is a huge pain in the neck?  Well, I think it saved my life today.  They had this riff from The Oatmeal about Thanksgiving and I laughed out loud about four times. Thank you Francesca for cluing me into The Oatmeal.  And , everyone, have a happy Holiday.  I love turkey and I make the best gravy in the whole fucking world.  Your loss.