Well this has been quiet a week, but I won’t bother you with the details. Instead I’ll tell you what’s on tap for the next few days. Tomorrow morning Paula and I will be heading out to New Mexico for our 2nd annual Thanksgiving visit to see our parents. Now our visits to see the folks are kinda like driving through a small town, if you blink while driving through you might miss it. We are going to Portales to see Paula’s folks first, and that is where we will spend the most time, I’d say maybe thirty hours. We are extending our visit there because we plan to paint the inside of their house for them. This may sound like a daunting task to some of you, but unlike the monstrosities people live in around here this house is a small two bedroom with eight-foot ceilings. We figure to get there tomorrow a little after noon and get to painting. Whatever we lack we will do after church on Sunday morning. Once we have wrapped it up we’ll head north to my parents house outside of Texico, NM.
We will spend Monday with mom, dad and my little sister and her family. I’ll probably go to the cotton gin my sister Deon runs just to get a whiff of some good ole gin dust. That will give me quick reminder as to why I left the ginning industry after more than twenty years. Tuesday morning we will head back home. There is work to do here on Wednesday, and then our kids and their families will be here for Thanksgiving.
Now about Thanksgiving, seems to me the whole thing was started by a bunch of turkey farmers who had to invent a reason for people to eat turkey. In my humble, yet correct opinion turkey is one of the greatest diet foods God ever created. Anything that dry and tasteless should be eaten for medical reasons only. And then there’s the dressing. What can I say about the dressing….ok, here it is. Dressing is good providing a body doesn’t need to drink a half-gallon of tea with every bite in order to swallow it. I mean dressing should not be flaky; it shouldn’t fall apart when you put it on the plate. Wait a minute…I just realized, I can’t have wheat products, and bread is a wheat product, and dressing is mostly bread, so go ahead and make the dumb dressing dry enough to blow away in a decent West Texas wind, I don’t care. Anyway, Paula has already bought a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey. I like that better. I’ll take a slice or two and soak it with some raspberry chipotle sauce. That way I can actually give the turkey some flavor, and after the first bite my mouth will be burning which will make the subsequent bites doable.
As for Thanksgiving Day, the kids will get here that morning and start snacking, and then we will eat, and follow that up with some more snacking. The guys will watch some football, and the girls will clean up the mess from all the eating. Late in the day the grown up kids will suddenly disappear leaving Nonnie and I with the four little ratonies they have produced. Two of which are still in diapers, so Nonnie will have plenty work to do in that department. I’ll hug on them, and call them love names like buffalo breath, and silly milly. All too soon the day will come to an end and the kids will be headed out to visit with the in-law side of family. Nonnie and I will hug when they leave and tell each other how blessed we are. As many of you well know, there is nothing like family. I think I’ll start giving thanks for mine early.
(Disclaimer: The above-mentioned comments pertaining to turkey and dressing have nothing to do with “the hands that prepared it.” It’s all the turkeys fault! Paula’s mom, Nema, our sister in-law Rhonda, my mom, grandmother, my sister Deon ,and her daughter Brittney, and her daughter in-law Mindy, Nonnie, aka Paula, Goob, our daughter Miranda, Amber, or Skinny Minnie our daughter in-law, and since I know Mary Alice our eight year old granddaughter will help cook too, I want to add her to this list, are all GREAT cooks! So in closing I want to say again, IT’S All THE TURKEYS FAULT!)
May you and yours have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I’ll see you in about a week.
Till next time,
Grump