The Kitten

Carla had a playdate this past snow day with a friend. “Just be warned,” Friend’s mom texted me, “We haven’t shoveled the driveway!” Neither had I, and the snow had fallen fast and furious the night before, so I could definitely relate. 

I plugged Friend’s address into my navigator and drove there, very, very slowly. I’d been to Friend’s house once before, and as we got close, I noticed Friend’s dad outside shoveling the driveway, all bundled up against the cold. I felt a little panicky – like maybe he was doing it on my behalf? But I’d texted Friend’s Mom that it was no big deal, I could pause on the street and send Carla to fetch Friend from the house. 

But no. He had completely shoveled the driveway. As I pulled up, he turned away from the street, getting out of the way so I could drive up the driveway to the house. 

He turned and looked at me as I pulled up. His hat was pulled down so low, and his gaiter was pulled up so high, all you could see was a narrow band of flesh around his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was smiling, and instantly fretted that he was annoyed he’d had to interrupt his work day to  clear the driveway for me. 

I rolled down my window. The snow and cold swirled in, fogging my glasses. “Hi! How are you?”

“Good. How are you?”

“Great! You did a great job on the driveway!” Why did I say that? He didn’t need my praise. I just felt awkward that I was the cause of the shoveling. Although, probably not everything is about me, and maybe he needed some exercise/a break from work/to shovel the driveway anyway.

He wasn’t making any moves toward the house, so I figured his wife hadn’t told him we were coming to pick up his daughter. Maybe he didn’t recognize me; I’d put on a mask because we were going to have Friend in the car with us. I pulled down my mask and smiled at him.

Still nothing. Several long seconds of nothing.

“Well, we’re just here to pick up Friend!” 

That’s when he told me, in a very amused voice, that Friend lives next door. 

“Haha!” I giggled in semi-hysteria, the blowing snow melting instantly on my shame-fired cheeks. “You are so bundled up, I couldn’t tell you weren’t Friend’s dad!”

I backed down the driveway. Carla was APPALLED. “That wasn’t Friend’s HOUSE, Mommy!” she said in a low, horrorstruck voice. 

“Haha!” I said. “I know! Whoops! No harm done!”

Except that as I backed into the street, there was Friend’s dad, at the bottom of the very next driveway, holding a shovel and trying valiantly not to laugh at me. 

So I think you and I both need a good dose of kitten, today. Don’t you agree?

Carla, as you know, likes to make friends with the neighbors for the sole purpose of getting access to their pets. 

Apparently – and if I’ve told you this story before, I apologize; I did search through my blog but couldn’t find it, which, alas, doesn’t mean it isn’t there – Carla had spotted one neighbor’s kitten through the neighbor’s glass door several months ago, and had asked the neighbor about it. I swear I’ve told you this: I spent an excruciating half hour in this neighbor’s foyer once, because she’d invited Carla to come play with the kitten and I’d never met her before and that sounded pretty murdery. 

She is NOT a murderer, she is a lovely woman. And she had a short work trip that would take her out of town overnight. So she asked Carla to cat sit the kitten. 

I mean. Carla almost passed out from joy. This is her goal, you know. To be a pet sitter. 

When it came time to pet sit, Carla lost a little bit of her nerve. She had all her instructions and a key and a code to the garage. But she was a little anxious about doing it alone, so she asked me to come with her. I had been planning to walk her to the neighbor’s house anyway – our street is positively choked with snow, and all the plows have made the sidewalks inaccessible and backing out of driveways very treacherous. So I didn’t want her to walk down the street by herself. 

But then I went in – and stood respectfully in the entryway – while Carla fed and watered the kitten and played with him.

He is SO CUTE. So. Cute. And he was a little bit lonely, so he came right over to me and let me give him lots of scritches. 

He purred. A LOT. And he was extremely playful, which was cause for endless delight on Carla’s part (and mine, too). 

I wish I had more photos for you. But kittens are (un)surprisingly difficult to photograph, much in the way that eight-and-a-half-year-old future pet sitters are difficult to capture being still.

I have still not recovered from the Mistaken House Incident, but the kitten helps soothe the inflamed psyche. 

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New Tires and Kindness Misogyny

Do you remember, way back in May, when I vowed to change my car’s air filter?  Probably not. It may seem like an odd promise to make to oneself. But I grow weary of having to depend on others for things. (Funny that this is a completely mercurial feeling. I have no issue with having people come mow my lawn and clean my gutters.)

Anyway. My promise. My dad told me I needed a new air filter; fine, I needed a new one. And I was going to change that air filter all by myself, because I am A Capable Woman who can choose to do a menial automotive repair anytime she likes.

The first hitch took place online, in my search for the air filter. My father had directed me to one specific filter, available on Amazon, but instead of buying it without asking questions, I clicked on some sort of link that said “is this the right air filter for your car?” or maybe I read a review of the filter excoriating the product based on the reviewer’s failure to determine whether it was the correct filter for his/her car.  However I got there, it seemed like the filter my father had recommended was not, in fact, appropriate for my car.

But then I couldn’t find the right one. I found something that SEEMED right. But my dad (the person with Actual Car Knowledge) was skeptical. And my car manual was NO HELP AT ALL. The only thing it had to offer was a single rather poorly-rendered drawing of the air filter with no specs or anything.

I was stumped.

My dad suggested that I go to my local auto parts store and ask someone there; they’d have some sort of computer database to consult. Which was a good suggestion. But I, Serious Introvert, would have preferred ordering my air filter online without ever having to interact with another human.

So I did nothing.

Time passed.

A couple of weeks ago, Carla and I went to buy new tires for my car. The tread was worn down to nearly nothing and it was time for new tires, and my local Tire Place had a good deal running. So we set out for an Exciting Excursion together and sat in the Tire Place waiting room while the tires were installed.

The Tire Guys – the two gentlemen working the front desk – were very, very nice. They seemed delighted by Carla, who is, objectively, delightful. They told us, proudly, that their waiting area had a large selection of toys and books. (I was glad I’d thought to bring my own books and a matching game for Carla AND my Lysol wipes because the entire waiting area, including the books and toys, was FILTHY. You have never seen a dirtier waiting area in all your life.) (They had a tiny coffee table in the center of the room, probably two feet by three feet, if that, and it took scrubbing roughly with FOUR antibacterial wipes to get it to a level of cleanliness that I was okay with.) They kept coming into the waiting area and offering us juice and water and coffee (the latter not directed to Carla), and one of them whisper-asked me if he could give Carla a yo-yo, and they just in general thought she was the bees knees.

When I was checking out, a process that seemed like Tire Guy had sent my credit card via courier turtle to the home office, I noticed that one of the services offered by the establishment was “change air filter.” So I asked if he could look up what kind of air filter my particular car required.

He looked at me curiously and said that no, he couldn’t. But there was an auto parts store right next door and they would be able to do it for me.

“We offer an air filter change service,” he noted. And I nodded.

“You’re just trying to save money?” he asked, implying that I should have just had them take care of it.

I could have said that I really wanted to do it myself. That I wanted the satisfaction of doing something on my own, of proving to myself that I could do it. But I didn’t know him, and he didn’t really care, and Carla was running back and forth across the showroom (is that what you call it, when what’s being “shown” is stacks of various brands of tires?) and flinging herself – with no regard for bodily safety – against one of two armchairs on the far side of the room, much to the consternation of the only other customer, who was sitting in the other armchair, so I simply nodded.

“Sometimes the auto parts guys will just put it in for you,” he mentioned in an offhand way, returning to whatever turtle coaxing he had to do to get my credit card processed.

I nodded politely. The checkout process dragged on interminably. I encouraged Carla to find an alternate way to amuse herself. She busied herself by climbing onto a very high stool and coloring in the book I’d brought her in the most precarious way possible.

Finally I signed my bill, collected my child, and left. We admired the new tires on my car, and then hoofed it over to the auto parts store which was, indeed, right next door. There, I purchased an air filter. We headed back to our car. Very easy.

As I buckled Carla into her car seat, the Tire Guy strode toward us.

“Did they have what you needed?” he asked. I nodded and smiled and thanked him for directing me to the auto parts store.

“We can put that in for you,” he said.

“Oh, that’s so nice of you!” I said, “but that’s not necessary!”

He ignored me and walked around the to the front door of my car, which he opened. He reached inside and pulled the lever to unlatch my hood. He opened the hood, looked inside at my engine, and then closed it without latching it. Then he grabbed my new air filter off of the passenger seat and opened the box, carrying it with him as he walked back toward the tire center.

“Pull it up here,” he called, pointing me toward the garage.

I laughed uncomfortably. But at this point, he had the air filter and… he was being kind, I thought. What was I supposed to do? Demand he hand it back to me?

I got in the car and drove into the garage. Carla caught on to my discomfort and asked what was happening, what were we doing? I told her that the man was being very nice and had offered to change our air filter to help us out. The Tire Guy handed our air filter over to a younger man – a boy, really; he couldn’t have been more than twelve, although I am probably wrong – and went over to a desk on the side of the garage.

I unhooked Carla from her carseat and held her up as we watched the young man change the air filter. (Which is, in my car at least, the EASIEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. He literally unscrewed three or four screws, lifted off the filter cover, lifted out the old air filter, dropped the new filter in, replaced the cover, replaced the screws. I definitely could have done it myself.) Then I tipped the boy $5 and we were on our way.

The whole thing left me feeling so conflicted.

On the one hand, what an act of kindness! Generosity in action! Great customer service! What a thoughtful thing for the Tire Guy to do. It saved me time, it saved me money (probably; he asked what I paid for the air filter and shrugged and said he would have charged me $6 more to do the whole thing, so I came out $1 ahead). Maybe it was an act designed to give me warm fuzzy feelings about that tire center, and make it my tire center for life. Or maybe it wasn’t about me, at all, but about the Tire Guy: maybe I reminded him of his wife or sister or daughter or niece and he treated me with the same kindness he’d want for her; maybe he remembered what life was like with an active child Carla’s age and decided to spare me the time and exasperation of trying to make an automotive repair with her in tow; maybe he likes to do random acts of kindness; who knows?!

But I also felt… deflated, I guess, about not getting to do the thing I wanted to do myself. And anxious, because I was unsure how to assert myself in that situation. (Why did I get so flustered? I should have donned one of those breezy confident smiles of the kind that are so easy to imagine and so difficult to execute and said in a breezy confident voice, “Oh no thanks! I’ve got it under control!” Or “I’ll take care of it – thanks!” Or “no need! I’ve got it!”) And frustrated with myself, for not being able to assert myself and for feeling more concerned about a stranger’s feelings than my own. And worried about what that meant for what I was modeling for Carla. I also had an overall feeling of ickiness, that I wasn’t sure how to attribute. Was it a result of the combination of deflation, anxiety, and frustration? Or the nagging feeling that I’d just been “rescued” when… I was not in need of being rescued? (I mean, if my husband had been there instead of me… he almost certainly would have purchased the air filter and been on his way, right?)

Most of all, I felt confused about what impression the whole experience would leave on Carla. I don’t want her to feel like she has to depend on other people. But of course I want her to feel like she can. I want her to feel warmly about society, and community, and to grow up wanting to help others and to not be afraid to ask for help if she needs it.

And do I want to begrudge the tire center man his small act of generosity? Certainly not. Do I want other women, who might feel wholly, unadulteratedly grateful and relieved about this unexpected gift from the automotive gods, to feel guilty or ashamed for accepting this kind of help? HELL TO THE NO.

But I am also weary of this kind of thing – kind hearted, well-intentioned or not – that gradually chips away at a woman’s sense of capability, of strength, of self-worth. The automatic assumption that I would need or want help. I don’t want Carla to feel like she can pull a damsel in distress act anytime she feels like it and A Man will swoop in and save her. Moreso, I don’t want her to feel like that’s what she SHOULD do. That she shouldn’t try things, because men can do it better/more easily. (Is it different, that I let my father tell me when to get new tires and when to change my air filter? I hope it is. I hope that is the non-action of a lazy child rather than the helpless spinning of a delicate girl.)

Ugh. I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. Am I doing that? Maybe that’s what I’m doing.

Would I feel the same sort of conflicted confusion if the whole situation were the same, but the Tire Guy had been a Tire Woman?

And I don’t want to see misogyny where there is (probably) only kindness. I mean, if the Tire Guy had been my dad, well, he might have done the same thing. (Or not. My dad at least would have walked me through how to do it myself, for next time. Possibly he would have even made me do it, while he stood there and offered instructions. I like to think he would have done the same for a stranger, too.) I don’t want to be so hyper-aware of potential discrimination that I find it in places where it isn’t. I don’t want to project bias onto situations where it isn’t.

But I can’t help feeling unsettled about the whole experience, including — maybe especially — my reaction.

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More Evidence That I Should Never Leave the House

Is it weird that I envy other shoppers’ relationships with the cashiers at my grocery store? It’s probably a little weird, right? Sometimes I am waiting there with my items on the belt as the person ahead of me pays for her groceries, and I catch little clips of her conversation with the cashier… and some people seem to know so! much! about each other! Like they’re old friends, talking about their aging mothers or their new babies or a college-age child coming home for the weekend.

How does a person get to be that familiar with a person she sees for five minutes once a week? (Or more. My in laws are in town and that plus Extra Birthday Baking I’ve been doing for Carla means that I’ve been to the grocery store A Lot lately.) There are members of the grocery store staff that I recognize – like Dan the fish guy, who gave Carla about 50 samples of fish one Saturday before very kindly telling her that this was the last one, okay?, because he needs to save some for other people (I should have stopped her after sample 1, but it was a food that she liked that didn’t come in a package and end in ­–able, so I kept my mouth shut). Or the super nice lady behind the prepared foods counter, with whom I once in a fit of bravery exchanged names, but whose name I then promptly forgot and have never remembered because she doesn’t wear a name tag and obviously I am not brave enough to ask her again. Or the cashier who is really terrific at fitting every single thing into the exact number of bags I have no matter how much junk I’ve loaded into my cart. Or the guys who load my bags into my car, and who are always super nice to Carla (seriously, they have been so kind to her I have sent positive comments to the store manager). But I barely know their names, let alone any details of their personal lives.

(My grocery store is pretty great. I have only ever had three negative experiences with the staff there. One is with a different, non-Dan fish guy who has NO IDEA how to butcher a fish properly and leaves scales all over the fish he cuts for me. Yuck. And ALSO, probably because he is not a good fish butcher, he made a snide comment about how lucky I was that he was removing the skin from my salmon because most stores charge for that. No one had ever once told me that wasn’t a thing a could ask for at the fish counter! And yes, I DO appreciate that they do it, and do it for free! Blah! Thanks for making me feel guilty about something I have asked for literally hundreds of times!!! This is the most privileged paragraph in history! My Coping Mechanism has been to refuse to buy fish when he is on duty. The other was with a cashier who kept insisting that I could – and should – get Carla a free cookie one afternoon because Carla was crying. Crying because she was not allowed to have the free cookie, the eating of which had been contingent on her good behavior during the shopping trip. “Awww! She wants a cookie!” * heaving sobs * “I know she does, but we’re not getting a cookie today.”  * pitiful sniffles * “You can get one right over there!” * wailing *  “Yes, I know, but we’re not getting a cookie today.” * enormous tears * “But they’re free!” “She can’t have a cookie.” * louder wailing *)

Whatever. Maybe more in-depth relationships with my local grocery store staff will come, after I’ve been shopping there for a few decades. Or maybe my relationship level is perfect as is. I don’t know – it can go too far the other way, I suppose.  There’s a checker at my Target who is WAY too overfriendly. She could be the inspiration for that old Kristen Wiig Target Lady sketch on SNL. She’s always commenting on my purchases and asking me where I got them and what I’m going to do with them. And while I am not averse to the occasional curious question or comment – I mean, if you just bought the exact brand of nail polish I am buying, I would love to hear how it looks out of the bottle – this particular checker comments on Every. Single. Item. The last time I saw her, we had a long conversation about couscous and what to serve it with and she also praised my choice of wrapping paper and then asked me if I like the eye drops I was getting. It’s very tedious and I don’t think the people in line behind me appreciate it too much.

Worse than the running commentary is that she makes these vague upsetting references to her life that I don’t know what to do with. Like she’ll say, “How are you today?” and I’ll say, “Fine! How are you?” And she’ll say, “Well, as good as can be expected, I guess.” And then at the end of our transaction, I’ll say, “Have a great day!” and she’ll respond despondently, “I doubt that I will, but thanks anyway.” And she’s been even more gloomy than that, with broad sweeping comments about how life certainly isn’t fair for everyone is it. And I just don’t have any idea how to respond! Am I supposed to ask, while the line grows behind me, while Carla gets more and more antsy, what’s going on with her? Part of me wants to take her out for coffee and let her vent for an hour. And the other part of me wants to say, “We are not close enough for you to say things like that to me!”  My strategy so far has been to listen to whatever she is saying and nod empathetically and then say, “See you next time!” as I leave. On a human level, I want to be kind to her and help her in any way I can. But on a reality level, I don’t have the bandwidth to be a stranger’s support system. (Are there any little, low-bandwidth kindnesses I can extend to her… without being condescending or overly familiar?)

This whole long build up is all to say that I already have anxiety surrounding my interactions with the staff at my grocery store.

So the other day, I put the divider on the conveyor belt to separate my groceries from the person before me. The cashier was still scanning the items for the person ahead of me. But she smiled at me and said, “Hello!” And I smiled and said hello back. A minute or so later, as I was finishing unloading my cart, she handed the prior shopper her receipt and looked at me and said again, “Hello! How are you? Where’s the little one today?” in this super cheerful way. Everyone at the grocery store loves Carla. And so I smiled at her and said, “I’m good! Carla’s at camp today. How are you?” And reached into my cart for the last bag and in doing so saw the person behind me to whom the cashier was actually speaking.

Then of course I had to endure the shame and humiliation of THAT as she rang up my entire cart of groceries and asked me again — me, this time — how I was, and instead of responding — AGAIN — to her pity question, I kind of shrugged and smiled and said NOTHING.

And then I burst into flames.

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Social Ineptitude and Resulting Pity Party

Yesterday we had a Parent Appreciation Luncheon at Carla’s school and I am still reeling from the experience.  Reeling may not be the right word. Perhaps “steeped in self pity” is more accurate, I’m not sure, I am destined to fail at all things including appropriate word choice.

At the top of the luncheon, all the kids in the entire grade got up and did a little song and dance routine. It was very cute. And then they got to usher us to our seats in the cafeteria and then we all ate lunch(eon) together. There was a lot of down time at the beginning while the teachers corralled all the kiddos and got them pointed in the right direction. Which meant that there was plenty of time for me to be SUPER socially awkward and inept and anxious about it.

Let’s just get one frustrating thing out of the way right up front, which is that my husband wasn’t able to make it to the luncheon. And yes, he’s on call, and yes, I’m sure there were single parents in the mix, and even in the case of two-parent households, I’m sure that other parents weren’t able to make it, and/or they have been at their jobs longer than my husband has been at his and feel more comfortable taking off in the middle of the day and/or have spouses who were more persistent about reminding them to find some way to take the time off, but it SEEMED like every child there had two parents except Carla, including two other physicians, which at baseline made me a) feel guilty and b) feel lonely. If my husband had been there, I could have at least talked exclusively to him, instead of sitting there mentally rending my garments as I tried desperately to gather the courage to go talk to someone.

While we were waiting for the kids to set up, I saw another mom that I have been friendly with in the past. If I’m being honest, I wish she were my best friend: she’s so lovely and put together and smart and friendly and kind. She started talking to me, which was nice. But then one of her friends came up to us, and the two of them started talking, and I started to panic. Was I supposed to join in the conversation, about things they have in common and about which I know nothing? Was I supposed to excuse myself and go… stand in a corner? I ended up doing neither, and just stood there silently with what I hoped was a calm, friendly, I’m-a-good-listener smile plastered on my face and nodded along with them. They were nice about it, making eye contact with me occasionally as though I were part of the conversation. It’s not like I was entirely mute; I tried to make interested-sounding noises even though I was much too panicked to focus on what they were saying. And then another friend of theirs came up and joined in and I just kept standing there, my anxiety flinging itself against the inside of my brain like a fish trying to escape its tank, and I tried to ask questions where I could – but they were obviously “I am making conversation” questions and not “I’m part of the conversation” questions, you know? – and tried to laugh and continue to make “I’m totally taking part in this discussion” noises. And the cafeteria was super hot and I started sweating and I became uncomfortably aware of the inside of my mouth and how my breath could not be great even though I definitely brushed and flossed before I came. And I didn’t know the other moms at all, or who their kids were, and – as is always the case anyway – I couldn’t figure out the rhythm of the conversation well enough to interject with a new subject or a related anecdote or a pertinent question. Not that I could properly follow along with the conversation anyway; as I mentioned before, I was too focused on all the THINGS going on in my head to focus on what they were saying.

Finally, a teacher called us to attention and we got to watch the kids’ little performance, which was a nice break. The ladies I’d been “talking with” drifted off to find their spouses and I stood by myself, clutching my sweater (why had I brought a sweater when clearly I’d entered one of the flaming hottest circles of hell???) and my purse and my desire to leave immediately and/or melt into the floor.

And then it was “luncheon” time, and once again I had to navigate the extreme horror of talking to a parent I don’t know that well. This time, across the table. Unfortunately, this parent was either as shy/uncomfortable as I am, or she had already written me off as no use to her. So my lame attempts at conversation were met with single word answers and apparent disinterest. You’d think this would be a good thing! Lets me off the hook, right? But instead, I kept trying to make lame small talk because I wanted her to like me. Obviously she wasn’t talking to me because she’d written me off as Not Worthy of Her Time, right? Okay, okay, so possibly she was having her own inner freak out about having to talk to me and fending off similar worries. Either way, I don’t hold it against her.

Fortunately, Carla was with me at this point, so I could direct most of my attention to her. But as we lunched, I was very aware of all the other parents in the room, laughing and chatting and having a great time. I mean, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only person in the room who doesn’t like groups/crowds/forcible mingling. But it never FEELS like there are others. Instead, it feels like everyone else finds social interaction super easy, and, not only that, but fun, which I find incomprehensible. I long for “easy.” Fun is a pipe dream.

Finally, when I was able to escape, I ran into a couple of familiar couples on the way down the hall. They are all super nice and friendly, but they were in couples, and seemed to be talking to each other, and plus one of the women was the woman whose friend-group I’d horned in on earlier and she was almost certainly done with conversational babysitting, so I tried to smile and make nice friendly noises, but then I motored on past to leave the school and get in my car and go far far away. And as I was doing that, I was mentally chiding myself for avoiding them instead of trying to interact with them. You can’t make friends with people if you dart past them every time you see them! Friendships are not built on awkward smiles and waves and “have a great day”s tossed over your shoulder! (Why not, though?)

And I DO wish I were friends with more of the parents at Carla’s school. So many of them seem great! But the way you get to know people is by talking to them during these school events, and I get so flustered and self-conscious that I just can’t do it. It’s moderately okay one on one, but when there are two or more people, I stop being able to think. I have no idea how to join the flow of conversation. I have no idea what to say. I often walk past little clusters of moms in the hallway after drop off and wonder what in the hell are they talking about?!?! I have no clue, absolutely none.

And then I go home and feel horrible, as I did yesterday. And the bad feelings remain. I feel lonely and isolated, which are terrible feelings to begin with. But then I also feel culpable, because it’s my own fault I don’t have friends. It can’t be THAT hard! Other people do it all the time! There must be something wrong with me that I am always and forever on the outside.

Hence the pity party.

We have a big Parent Breakfast coming up, as part of the kids’ transition into kindergarten. (KINDERGARTEN. Let’s reserve that panic attack for another post.) So I anticipate more of the same sweaty awkwardness and wallflowering and self-loathing to follow in a few short days! Yay!

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A Manual for Dealing with People Who Come to Your House to Fix or Install Things

This week a nice gentleman from our security service come out to test the security system and replace all the batteries in the window and door sensors. As happens Every Single Time someone comes to my house to provide some sort of service, I spent the entire time he was here in a restless panic of What Is the Right Way to Deal with This?

It begins with the Time Window. I spend the hours before the Time Window fretting about the state of my house, like the air conditioning repairperson is going to care whether there are breakfast dishes in the sink or the cable person will give a second thought to the unwashed laundry on the floor of the closet. (It’s there because SORTING.)

Then, as the Time Window nears, I begin stressing about what I should be doing. I shouldn’t make anything to eat, lest the service person arrive as soon as I have food in my mouth. I shouldn’t start a project, lest I get interrupted. I shouldn’t make a phone call. I shouldn’t work out or take a shower. So I end up kind of pacing around my house, catching up on small housework or straightening things that will neither impress nor dismay the service person. I always have the TV on, to provide background noise.

Once the person arrives, I fret about what to DO while s/he is in my house. Do I follow her around, ostensibly to answer questions? Do I guide her to the appropriate area of the house and then… leave her alone?

If I go the following-around route, do I ask questions to appear as though I care and/or will remember anything about the reason the furnace is making a weird noise?  Do I make inane small talk about the weather or the basketball finals or how it’s summer already and doesn’t time go by so quickly? Do I lurk in the background, trying to assume a helpful air? Do I find something to occupy me near wherever she needs to be?

If I go the leaving-alone route, what do I DO? I have to be available, and I have to be interruptible. Do I pretend to watch TV, while really sitting on the edge of the couch, ready to leap up and address any questions or issues? Do I continue to find small items of housework to tackle, if I even have any left after my pre-appointment fussing?

What level of hospitality is required/expected/necessary/nice? For movers, I have offered water; for the people who recently removed a bunch of junk, I offered soda (which they left behind, presumably because it was diet soda). We have a lot of beer; should I offer beer?

When is a tip required/expected/necessary/nice? I mean, I know a tip is NEVER “required,” but… I think it’s more of a given in some situations than in others. Like, with movers. I automatically build in “get cash for a tip” to my moving preparations. But with the person who replaces your faucet? The person who delivers your mattress? The person who inspects your gutters? The person who sprays for silverfish?

The tipping thing gives me GREAT anxiety. Partly because (except in the instance of movers) I only ever THINK about the tip right before the service person is expected to arrive, so I never have cash on hand (or if I do, it is like, a $50 bill that seems a bit much or a single $1 which seems very stingy). Partly because I just don’t know when a tip would be appreciated-but-not-expected or whether the service person starts bad mouthing my lack of generosity the instant he leaves. Okay, that is uncharitable. It would be worse if the service person left, tipless, and began to worry about whether the lack of tip meant she hadn’t provided great service. UGH.

And yet, one time we had two faucets installed and I planned ahead and tried to tip the very nice, very efficient man who installed the faucets, and he rejected the tip, in a semi-repulsed way that almost seemed like I’d perpetrated a Major Faux Pas or maybe offered him a fistful of dog poo instead of a $10.

And THEN, if you decide a tip is a good idea, HOW MUCH DO YOU TIP? A percentage of the service? A flat $5 per person? Does it depend on the type of service rendered? And, if so, what is the scale?

SO MUCH ANXIETY.

I would appreciate a Handbook that clearly lays out guidelines for all of the above and more.  Once I heard that if the service person is the owner of the company, you don’t tip. But if the service person is an employee, you DO tip. Or maybe the guideline was that if the service person is a contractor, you DO tip, and if an employee, you DON’T. ARRRRGH.

All I know is that Any and Every Time we need some sort of service that requires a person to come to our home, I spend the entire day fretting and fussing and worrying that I am doing the wrong thing. And when the person is in my house, I wander around – following her sometimes, other times leaving her to her work in peace – alternately wondering whether this is the day when I am murdered by a psychopath and agonizing about the tip and using phrases like “everything looking ship-shape?” and “oh goodness, that’s a stumper” and making inane statements about the weather and offering too much information about myself just to fill the air.

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The Popcorn Incident

Oh Internet. As much as I love embarrassing myself for your entertainment, I didn’t really want to share this one. (Although YES, I acknowledge that it could have been MUCH worse and I’m glad it WASN’T.) But, despite writing hundreds of words on about seven alternative posts, it seems that THIS is the one that wants to be written.

I trust that you will read with the proper amount of sympathy and then excuse yourself to the restroom to laugh discreetly under cover of the sound of a running sink. And that you will share similar tales of humiliation in the comments. Or at least do that thing where you pretend it happens to everyone! All the time!

Because I have given up sweets, I have been craving carbs like whoa. Crackers. Bread. Pasta. Popcorn. Just pile it all up onto a plate and send it my way please.

(Good thing the sweets restriction is not for weight loss purposes!)

Saturday night, my husband is at the hospital overnight. As is my custom when he’s overnight, I cannot bear the thought of sleeping alone in our bed. So I stay up very very late watching a marathon of The Big Bang Theory.

At around 12:17, I decide I want popcorn.

Our pantry contains two types of popcorn:

Option 1: A 100-calorie pack of Pop Secret.

Option 2: A whole box of normal size packages of fake-butter-flavored Boy Scout popcorn.

I choose Option 1, read the instructions, and throw the bag in the microwave. Three minutes seems like a long time for such a small amount of popcorn, but hey – that’s what the instructions said. It’s not like I need to leave it in that long. A veteran popcorn maker, I know that you pay more attention to the pops than to the time remaining. And when the pops start spacing themselves two to three seconds apart, you remove the popcorn and start stuffing your face.

I peek into the microwave at some point and notice steam coming from the bag.

That’s odd, I think to myself. I didn’t realize popcorn steams like that.

A few seconds later, I peek again. The steam is thicker and more… insidious than normal steam. And it is pouring from the bag with great vigor. So I open the microwave and a big plume of burnt popcorn races for the ceiling.

I throw open the window.

That’s when the siren pierces the midnight calm with its furious wail.

Because, as is my custom, I’d turned on our burglar alarm as soon as my husband left. And opening any windows or doors triggers the alarm.

Fanning at the smoke with a dish towel, I run over to the alarm keypad and punch in our code. Then I fly back to shoo the smoke out the window into the icy January morning.

The security company is supposed to call us when the alarm goes off. When I don’t get a call right away, I realize they must have called my husband. Who will probably freak out. So I send him a text letting him know it was a mistake, nothing is wrong, I haven’t been murdered.

Then the phone rings. It’s the security company dispatcher. I babble at her, still shaky from the popcorn fire and the ear-splitting burglar alarm, telling her it was a mistake and I am so sorry and blah blah blah.

When she finally gets a word in edgewise, she asks me for my security code and then tells me that since I haven’t reset the alarm, she has called the cops.

O. M. G.

I don’t know how to reset the alarm! I tell her. I plugged in my code!

Plug it in again.

I do. Nothing.

Well, she says, trying for patient but succeeding at exasperated, you try it again and I’ll let the cops know it was a false alarm.

I get off the phone with her. I stab in the code a couple more times.

That’s when my husband calls.

Um, he says, I got a call from our security company that the alarm went off and they had to send the cops to our house. Are you okay?

He is very calm, Internet. Much more calm than I am, and I know I’m okay.

At top speed, I tell him what’s happened. He remains very calm, unconcerned, no trace of even mild bemusement or irritation, and then reminds me – kindly, mind you – that he has actual dying patients to tend to.

I am afraid the cops are going to show up. And I’m fresh out of the shower (don’t you shower at midnight on a Saturday?) wearing nothing but a white sleeping tank top and pajama pants. My house is fogged in with a thick layer of popcorn smoke.

I hightail it upstairs to grab a sweat shirt.

I’m halfway to the second floor when the phone rings. I race back into the kitchen, where, of course, I’ve left my phone.

It’s the security company again. I still haven’t managed to reset the alarm. We determine that the woman on the line could be dealing with ACTUAL emergencies, rather than helping me figure out how to reset the thing. We determine the reason it won’t reset is because I haven’t closed the kitchen window. I slam the window shut, rekey my passcode into the alarm panel, and dash back out of the kitchen.

As I’m skidding down the hallway, I see police lights striping my neighborhood with red and blue.

I am sure all my neighbors are rushing to their windows, ready to watch as the cop leaves his car and marches up my front steps. Perhaps his gun will be drawn. Perhaps his partner will go around the side of the house to scope out the situation from the side window. I imagine having to answer the door, baring my tank-top and still-wet hair to the biting January night as the entire neighborhood watches. Just another wife-beater-wearing weirdo for the next episode of COPS. (At least it’s a CLEAN tank top.)

Is she a meth cooker? A prostitute? A murderer? my neighbors will wonder. They’ll whisper about me at Super Bowl parties and barbecues. The rumors will get wilder and more outrageous, until I’m a sex-crazed asylum escapee who’s chopped 10 consecutive husbands into little bits and now makes popcorn-scented bombs in her basement. Their kids will peer in our windows and run away shrieking – half-terrified, half-delighted – every time I leave my house to empty the trash. The wives will stand across the street in clumps of three or five, speculating about my stringy hair and questionable fashion sense and how to run me out of town. The husbands will grouse about my effect on property values.

In the few seconds I pause to decide whether to open the door or sprint upstairs for the sweatshirt, the police car extinguishes its lights, pulls into my driveway, backs out, and speeds off down the street.

 

At least I know it only takes about 10 minutes for the police to respond to an emergency at my house.

 

I know you are dying to learn how the night ended. I stayed up until 3:00 watching The Big Bang Theory reruns. And, of course, I made another bag of popcorn. Successfully, this time.

(This is where you tell me about an equally mortifying thing that happened to you.)

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Ignore All the Ridiculous Parentheticals and Tell Me I’m Not the Only One Who Does It. If That Is, in Fact, True. And, If Not, I May Need to Drastically Rethink My Life Priorities.

Hey there Internet.

Seems like you maybe were a bit… erm… grossed out by my admission the other day.

You know. The one where I said RANCID BUTTER had been reclining behind my toaster oven for at least a week.

Listen, I get it. It was a poor choice of words. I know the word “rancid” is kind of barf-inducing. But let me tell you… Rancid butter doesn’t even have an aroma. And rest assured there were no bugs involved. Nor was there any mold or discoloration of any kind.

And that brings me to a question…

Isn’t butter that’s been sitting outside of a fridge always rancid?

I mean, as long as it’s been sitting outside of the fridge for a few days?

That was my impression, although ADMITTEDLY I might be mistaken, considering I couldn’t find anything to that effect on the Internets.

Although ADMITTEDLY I didn’t search for very long. Turns out I have limited patience for looking up facts about butter and its spoiling point.

My belief in the Rancidity of Non-Refrigerated Butter is rooted in a comment made by the bespectacled Christopher Kimball on either Cook’s Country or America’s Test Kitchen. (Which our DVR records every week, by the way. If you aren’t watching these shows, you are missing out on much deliciousness and mildly lame cookery-related banter!) If Christopher Kimball says something about food, I believe him. He could tell me that eggs are alien tracking devices and sugar is unicorn skin and I would be like, “Yes, I agree.” And if he told me that porpoise blubber was better than olive oil for sautéing mushrooms, I would immediately seek out my closest local porpoise blubber purveyor. (HUMANE porpoise blubber purveyor, people. I am not into senselessly hurting beautiful marine animals.)

Although… hmmm… Now that I think about it, maybe my belief in the Rancidity of Non-Refrigerated Butter comes from my mother-in-law, who refrigerates her butter with great vigor.  And is, I’m pretty sure, quite creeped out by the fact that my husband and I leave our butter out on the counter forever and ever amen. Or at least until all the butter is gone. (Note: It doesn’t last all that long around here. Because I like me some butter. Also, the other day I made macarons with butter cream and chocolate ganache filling [more on that to come if anyone cares] and I kept effing things up so I used LITERALLY a pound and a half of butter. I am not someone who uses the word “literally” liberally. So yeah.)

Okay, so I’m not 100% sure where my belief in the Rancidity of Non-Refrigerated Butter comes from. I could have dreamt it for all I remember.

But it matters not, for I have always been a butter-leaver-outer. I have little patience for cold slabs of butter that refuse to spread on toast or English muffins.

Rancid or not, that’s the way I like my butter. And I’m not dead yet.

P.S. Since I KNOW that my mother-in-law gets the heebie jeebies from the unrefrigerated butter, I make sure to serve her fresh, cold butter when she comes to visit. Just in case you were worried about her. I CARE, Internet.

 

P.P.S. Doubtless, some readers are feeling a little surprised that I would be so. very. picky. about so. many. things. and yet be perfectly fine with the Rancid Butter. To you I say, I am COMPLICATED. And also, I never pretended not to have Serious Double Standards That Make Little Sense to Anyone Not Inhabiting My Strange and Messed Up Brain Space.

 

P.P.P.S. I’m not the only one who does this, right? Not “has weird and cracked out double standards” – but “leaves the butter out on the counter.” I mean, that’s the sole reason butter dishes EXIST, right?

 

P.P.P.P.S. I am not really sure why I’m writing this post as though it’s a letter. I realize that, in reality, it’s just ME writing to MYSELF on the Internet. If someone chooses, out of the goodness of her heart, to RESPOND to my rantings, well then that only makes me LESS crazy, not NOT-crazy.

 

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P. Oh screw it.

I am suddenly realizing that MAYBE you were grossed out not by the Rancid Butter Factor, but by the fact that I didn’t clean behind my toaster oven in so long that there was BUTTER back there. UNNOTICED.

Well. I don’t really have a defense for that. BUT I actually DO clean behind the toaster oven more often than never. Otherwise I wouldn’t have FOUND the butter in the first place.

Other places I clean more often than never:

–          The DVDs on our TV stand

–          The wine glasses hanging upside-down in our wine “bar”

–          The little-used electric piano

–          The faucets

–          The floor under  the couches, dining table, and coffee table

–          The door handles

–          The wall adjacent to the stove

–          The inside of the freezer

–          The bathroom scale

Places I am (newly) afraid to clean:

–          The guest bathroom bathtub, which has become The Place Where Spiders Go to Die (I’m afraid to look behind the shower curtain. Mainly because the last time I looked behind it [usually, I check behind there periodically to make sure no murderers are waiting there to pounce on me] [I wish I were joking] there were two crispy spider corpses in the bathtub. At least, I assume they were crispy. The thing is, I can’t remember if I actually DISPOSED OF the spider corpses or if I just tried to nudge my husband into doing it for me by leaving the shower curtain open… And if I did the latter, which is more likely, I don’t know if he actually took the bait or just closed the shower curtain without even noticing the arachnid corpses. [Or if he DID spot them but decided to overlook them. Like I did.] So now I am afraid to open the shower curtain lest I come face-to-face with MORE spider corpses… Or, worse, LIVE spiders. I  mean, the dead ones have to come from SOMEWHERE, right? The thought of a Spider Death Trap in my guest bathroom gives me some serious willies. I never thought that “bathtub spider death trap” would trump “murderers,” but so be it.)

Well. That took an unexpected turn.

Anyway. Butter. Turns out to be a more convoluted subject than meets the eye.

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The Butter Dish Returneth

Oh Internet, you totally called it.

In case you are not fully caught up on the ridiculous minutiae of my life, our butter dish disappeared a few weeks ago. Cue the weeping.

Anyway, my husband and I finally caved this weekend and bought a replacement. We got it for $4.95 at Crate & Barrel.

According to several genius commenters, this was going to guarantee that my butter dish would magically appear.

And oh did it ever! On Monday, as I was cleaning the kitchen in preparation for my book club dinner.

It was behind the toaster oven. There was butter in it. Key word: WAS. It had since oozed out onto the wall, the counter, and the cords of both the toaster oven and the Keurig machine. Ever watched Ghostbusters 2: The Pink Ooze That Ate New York? Picture the butter version of that supernatural goo that took over the Statue of Liberty. That’s what the area behind my toaster looked like. (No Sigourney Weaver sightings though.)

I was *thisclose* to taking a photo of the whole mess. But then I figured I’d rather not give my (very clean) mother a heart attack.

Internet, how often do you clean behind your toaster oven?

If I might, I’d like to offer a little suggestion: Do it more than never.

Otherwise, your perfectly serviceable butter dish might languish forever amid a puddle of rancid butter, a scattering of crumbs, and a single generic-brand ibuprofen.

P.S. I did keep the Crate & Barrel receipt and, in fact, never managed to even take the new butter dish out of the bag. So I can still return it. PHEW.

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Mis-pronounce-iation

I read a lot, so my visual vocabulary is a good deal larger than my spoken vocabulary. (I’m sorry – I don’t find a lot of cause to use “crepuscule” in everyday speech.) (Also, what an ugly word for a lovely definition.)

Most frequently, I only have the chance to use these words during Jeopardy. (“Antediluvian” would have won me $4,000 in a Daily Double yesterday… And “caduceus” would have won me the whole thing – woot woot!)

But once in a while, a word I know – a word I’ve read a billion times, but never said aloud – pops out as the absolutely perfect term for something I’m discussing.

And that can cause some issues, Internet.

I was talking with a friend – H – the other day. She mentioned that she has a lot of friends who are pregnant, and she’d noticed that pregnancy made them very open about body talk. And H isn’t all that comfortable with discussions of fluids and noises and other bodily functions.

She and I had a mutual friend in college – B – who was all about the body talk. In fact, we’d had many a dinner-table conversation that most people would find absolutely disgusting. So I said something like, “Didn’t all those years of dining with B inure you to the body talk?”

I used the word “inure” correctly – at least, I’m pretty sure I had…

But I’d never said it out loud before. So, I admit, I wasn’t 100% sure that I’d pronounced it correctly. And apparently, H either didn’t hear me or I didn’t pronounce it right… So I had to repeat my sentence… And she gave me a kind of odd look and I had to say it again… And finally, H – who is both gracious and sweet beyond words – agreed with me and we moved on.

I spent the rest of the meal wondering if I’d made some kind of lexical faux pas…

I have basis for this (silly) fear, Internet.

You see, for many years I read the word “ravine” without ever hearing it spoken. (Or, at least, if I heard it spoken, I never associated the pronunciation with the word itself.)

So one day I said that word out loud in front of my now-husband:

Raah-VINE.

And he laughed at me.

Because, of course, it’s pronounced “ruh-VEEN.”

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I (98%) Nailed It

Y’all, Thanksgiving is exhausting.

I don’t know if it was the stress of having family over… Or the anxiety about cooking a perfect Thanksgiving meal all by myself… Or the physical exertion from standing on my feet in front of a hot stove all day (yes, I am THAT out of shape)…

But I am STILL tired.

Yet you, beloved Internet, deserve a full and detailed recap, bullets style. So I will persevere, for you!

Also, WARNING, there are a LOT of bullets. Seriously. There are so many I didn’t even count them.

Okay, my OCD won out. There are 20. Without even TRYING.

*Preparations began on Saturday, when I did my first round of Thanksgiving shopping. I wanted to buy the items on my list that wouldn’t spoil/grow moldy/otherwise decay before Thursday. As in NO VEGETABLES. However, when I saw some bagged celery hearts on sale, I surrendered and bought two, hoping mightily that they would not get brown and shrivelly before I had to serve them. Spoiler Alert: They turned out fine.

Shockingly, the grocery store was super busy. Everyone and their brother had a giant cart filled with canned pumpkin and bags of potatoes and turkeys. So I picked a lane and stood patiently in line for 20 minutes. Then I had a Super Awkward Encounter with the grocery store bagger when she looked directly at me and said “This lane is closed.” I think I may have almost fainted at the prospect of joining the end of another long line of 12,000 Thanksgiving shoppers. So I may have glared at her and said, “But my stuff is already on the belt!” And then avoided eye contact with her as I spitefully helped the wheelchair-bound woman behind me load all HER stuff onto the belt.

Turns out, Internet, the bagger was talking to someone behind the woman behind me. She told me this as she was bagging my groceries. AWKWARD. I promise I tried to make up for my grouchfacedness and spiteful conveyor-belt-loading by being extra nice and cheery.

*Sunday I made the stuff I felt wouldn’t go bad by Thursday. This included some spiced nuts.

Hmmm. The spiced nuts aren’t going to win any America’s Next Top Model competitions anytime soon.

Then I added some Lipton Recipe Secrets Savory Herb with Garlic soup mix to some sour cream. (By the way, I can NEVER find this soup mix at the grocery. NEVER. WTF, Internet?) Easy peasy. And super delicious. It’s equally good on veggies and chips.

*Monday, I did my second round of shopping after work. This is when I bought all the perishable stuff – veggies, cheese, bagels, lox, bread products. I’m sure the two extra days between my first round and second round made a world of difference in the freshness of my meal.

Whilst in the grocery, I may or may not have had to ask a Random Dude for advice about which lox to buy. Because seriously Internet? How is a non-lox eater supposed to determine the difference between Irish smoked salmon and Norwegian smoked salmon? Especially because the ingredients are IDENTICAL. Stop screwing with me, smoked salmon industry!

I may or may not have bought two entire bottles of Prosecco. Lesson of the day: Alcohol will not make you less of a control freak.

I also may or may not have purchased an entire small bag of real, full-fat Lays so I could “sample” my sour cream dip.

*My in-laws arrived on Tuesday. They kindly took my husband and me out to a delicious dinner. After dinner, I chopped up the bread for the stuffing.

My mom pointed out that bread comes PRE CHOPPED for stuffing! Did you guys know about that? And possibly tell me about it waaaaay back when I was doing my Fakesgiving extravaganza? That is awesome.

However… My husband really wanted cornbread in the stuffing per my earlier attempts. So, since chopping up bread takes about 5 minutes, I skipped the Easy Cheaper Option and went with the More Difficult One.

*Wednesday, I went to Whole Foods at 8:00 am to pick up my turkey breast, some gravy, and some fresh flowers. Then I had to go to ANOTHER grocery store to get Pepsi One for my mother-in-law. (She didn’t ask me to, but I know she drinks that because it doesn’t have nutrasweet or something, so I wanted to be sure to have some on hand.) (By the way, we now have 10 cans of Pepsi One. Anybody want it?)

When I got home, I cut the very minimum off the stems of the fresh flowers and shoved them haphazardly into vases. Here is what one of the vases looked like:

Then I may or may not have eaten the small bag of Lays chips and some sour cream dip for breakfast.

Then I put in a full day of work.

*After work ended, I made a quick batch of butternut squash soup and a side salad and welcomed my in-laws over for dinner. Keep in mind that this was the first time ever that my in-laws had eaten something I’d made for them. It was… nerve wracking. For all involved, I’m sure.

But my mother-in-law, bless her heart, liked the soup so much that she asked for the recipe! That’s a big compliment. And she helped me in the kitchen by tasting the soup until I’d added the proper level of salt. (My husband and I eat very little salt, so my homemade stuff often ends up being under-salted. It was helpful to have her there to taste test.)

Please keep in mind that my husband was on call. Which means he was at the hospital, where he stayed the entire night, not returning until 3:00 pm Thanksgiving Day.

*After dinner, we watched Letters from Juliet. Which had some beautiful scenery. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Then my in-laws headed back to their hotel, to return the next day at 11:30 am.

*After they left, I did the dishes, chopped all my veggies for the following day, and put everything into storage containers. Then I labeled them things like “veggies for turkey” or “veggies for stuffing” or “garlic for mashed potatoes.” You know, in case I died or was otherwise incapacitated and my mother-in-law had to take over. Yes. Labeling the veggies was absolutely critical

I made cranberry sauce. (See: Going with the More Difficult Option) Then I made my husband’s famous pumpkin bars.

I thought about vacuuming the apartment one more time, but considering it was 2:00 am, I decided against it. To my noisy upstairs neighbors: You’re welcome.

*When I woke up Thursday morning, I hauled my laptop into bed and wrote out my detailed Day-Of Timeline. (Yes, I am a Control Fah-reak.) (In Unsurprising Revelation of the Day, I also had an extensive day-of timeline for my wedding. Which NO ONE FOLLOWED.) (GAH.) I will share it with you if you are so inclined. (My Thanksgiving timeline. Not the wedding one.) (Although you can have that too if you are a masochist.)

While you may choose to roll your eyes at my analitude, the schedule was AWESOME. It kept me totally on track. But more than that, it forced me to read all of my recipes in great detail. Which I am not very good at. (Hmm… Does this shed any light on my past experiences with Crappy Cooking?)

Then I took a shower and got ready. (Yes, that was on the schedule.)

(Man this bullet has a lot of parentheses.)

I contemplated opening some Prosecco to make mimosas… but decided that spending two hours drinking before my in-laws arrived would be detrimental to my cooking skills.

*After NOT drinking a mimosa, I made some candied pecans for the salad.

(Yes, these are different than the spiced nuts I made for appetizers.)

I washed and peeled all the potatoes and sweet potatoes and put them in big pots of water to keep until I was ready to chop and cook them.

Admittedly, I was concerned about pre-peeling the potatoes and sweet potatoes. But, as you already know, I am Super Particular About Weird Stuff. And one of the things I am Super Particular About is peeling potatoes. So I really really really wanted that out of the way.

I’d heard that you could store peeled potatoes in water. So back during one of my Fakesgiving sessions, I peeled a lone potato and put it in a water-filled Tupperware overnight, as a test. The potato was totally fine – not a spot of brown anywhere!

But then I chickened out when it came to Real Thanksgiving. Not only would I be storing the peeled potatoes in a metal pot rather than a plastic Tupperware… But I’d also be storing ALL of my potatoes. I didn’t want to chance Massive Potato Browning of all my potatoes (hello Thanksgiving DISASTER), so I waited until the day of to throw them in water.

Are you getting the sense that I tend to over think things? Just a bit?

*After I’d done all this stuff, I looked around and realized I had nothing to do. I’d planned so well, I had a Big Lull in my day.

My in-laws were set to be there at 11:30, but they were running a little late.

After standing around going crazy with all the Doing Nothing, I decided to get the Washing of the Turkey out of the way. I figured I could wash it, put it in a bowl, cover it with a towel, and then it would be all set to dump into the roaster when I needed it.

So I opened up the turkey, gagged a little bit as I tried to squeeze out the bloody juice (???!?!) into the sink, and promptly had my first panic attack of the day.

When I did my first Fakesgiving practice meal, I bought two turkey breasts at Whole Foods. But they were basically like larger, skin-on versions of the boneless, skinless chicken breasts you can buy at any grocery store. They weighed about 2.5 pounds each and all I had to do with them was pat them with a paper towel and drop them in the roaster.

But for Real Thanksgiving, I’d allowed my husband to talk me into a 7-10 pound BONE-IN turkey breast from Whole Foods.

I don’t know what I expected, but I surely did NOT expect this giant thing that actually looked like a whole turkey. It even had a CAVITY, Internet, which was one of the things I was trying to avoid. (At least it didn’t have any giblets.) (Blech.)

So I called my mom and may or may not have awakened my father because they are in a different time zone and may or may not have hyperventilated a little bit asking what I should do with this stupid thing.

She was very calm and knowledgeable and walked me through it. Bless her heart… She even suggested multiple creative ways I could touch the turkey without touching it. (Making makeshift “gloves” with cling wrap was on the list.) Then I hung up and stabbed the breast on either side with the multi-pronged “turners” that came with my roaster and carefully washed it without a) touching it or b) dropping it.

*When I got The Call that my in-laws were on the move, I set the table and put out the lox, bagels, cream cheese, capers, onions, and lemon slices.

My in-laws got there, we ate some bagels etc. (By the way, I can’t stand lox but I do like an everything bagel slathered in cream cheese and dotted with capers and diced red onions.) Then I banished ushered them to the couch and gave them my wedding album to drool over.

Internet, I thought it would be a delightful distraction. It was… For all of 10 minutes.

However, that was enough time for me to do the dishes and set the table with my “good linen” and my beautiful china.

Then I moved on to the next step on my Day-Of Timeline, which was getting the turkey all set to go in the oven.

I tossed my “veggies for turkey” into the roaster. I melted some butter in the microwave. (Without exploding it! Whoo hoo!) Then I used my (freshly washed) multi-pronged turner thingabobs to lift the (freshly washed) turkey into the roaster. Shortly thereafter, the turkey was safely in the oven.

Once again, I had a Big Lull.

*Per my Mission to Make My Mother-in-Law Feel Useful without Driving Myself Crazy, I asked my MIL to turn my bouquet-o-flowers into some lovely centerpieces.

This is where I encountered Flaw 2 in my plan: My apartment is so small that the ONLY place where my MIL could do the flower arranging was in the kitchen.

She very kindly agreed to do the arrangements and then set up camp in the kitchen. She proceeded to make some lovely centerpieces….

While I sort of stood there and watched. (See above RE: Big Lull)

*After that, things went pretty much like clockwork. I made the mashed potatoes, then the sweet potatoes, then the stuffing.

There was only a slight Sweet Potato Mishap, due to the fact that sweet potatoes are HARD to cut, even with a giant knife. And I may have dropped two sweet potato halves on the floor. One of them I felt comfortable washing (with soap, which my mother-in-law found quite novel [read: Crazy town]) and then re-peeling. The other one, well, I just couldn’t do it. It was too small and my mother-in-law peeled it but only peeled the side that touched the floor instead of the whole thing and she didn’t wash it with soap and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to eat the sweet potatoes if it went in there.

(Side Note of Weirdness: My MIL asked me, straight out, if it would bother me to have that other fallen sweet potato in the casserole. She told me that if it would bother me, I should just throw it away. And she said it in a very calm and kind and totally understanding way. But I couldn’t admit to her that it bugged me! [Why? I do not know! Clearly I have no problem admitting it to YOU.] I let her rinse it and peel it and set it down on the counter… And then I threw it away when she wasn’t looking. And now that I told the Internet about it, she will know all about it. But I’m hoping she will forgive me because she already knows I am wackadoo.)

My husband got home. My mother-in-law helped me adjust levels of seasoning in my potatoes. Which involved many spoons for tasting because I do NOT use a tasting spoon twice until it has been through the dishwasher thank you very much. And my mother-in-law – god help her – was very patient with my weirdness even though we wasted used about 8 spoons in the whole Salting the Mashed Potatoes Escapade.

At some point, she made homemade whipped cream for her chocolate soufflé cake (which she somehow brought on the airplane!).

My father-in-law chilled the wine.

All was good in the world.

*At one point, all four of us were in the kitchen and I had to shoo the men out because it was too crowded, but I did so in a way that was cute and friendly rather than panicky. (At least, I HOPE it was cute and friendly!)

My timeline was keeping me right on track, my mother-in-law was hovering but clearly trying as hard as she could to stay out of my way.

So I asked if she thought we needed candles on the table and gave her free rein to poke through the Assorted Beautiful Candlesticks that we got for our wedding. She picked a pair of crystal beauties my husband’s grandmother got for us and I think the table looked quite fetching.

*And then I made the gravy.

Internet, making gravy is simple. You squish all the veggies from under the turkey through a sieve. You make a roux with butter and flour. You add the drippings plus some chicken stock plus some bay leaves and cook until thickened to the desired consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Bada bing, bada boom.

Easy. Super mind-numbingly easy.

(Do you hear the foreboding music yet?)

My directions said to cook the roux on high heat for five minutes. I’d done it BEFORE, following the EXACT SAME INSTRUCTIONS.

But I somehow got distracted. I think my mother-in-law was asking if there was anything she could do, and I was saying that no, I had it all under control, and I was trying to squeeze extra juice from the under-turkey-veggies while keeping an eye on the roux and my mother-in-law VERY KINDLY offered to do the dishes, which was very nice because who wouldn’t give up the dish washing part of Thanksgiving in a heartbeat? and I was looking at the counter which was crowded with Resting Turkey and Sieve with Under-Turkey Veggies and envisioning a scenario where little bits of scrubbed-off food particles were flung from the scrub brush and landing on the turkey or in the veggie mixture, and all of a sudden I turned around and the roux was smoking.

I grabbed it off the stove, in as nonchalant a way as anyone can whisk a pot full of acrid smoke off a stove, and plunged it into the sink and filled it with water.

Which, Internet, was DUMB with a capital D, because that just caused even MORE smoke to pour from the pot and completely take over the entire apartment.

Of course, the fire alarm – which hasn’t gone off EVER since we’ve lived here – started making its ear-splitting shriek of doom. And my father-in-law and husband started coughing and choking on all the smoke and we had to open all the windows and doors and allow the frigid air to come in and draw some of the smoke out.

I maintained my false aura of Intense Calm and Nonchalance and simply started a new roux in a new pot.

My MIL kindly and cheerfully recounted some tale of Entertainment Disasters Past when she burned a chicken or something. I can’t quite remember the story, but I do remember that it made me feel slightly better.

Because it is hard, Internet, to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner with only one little mistake and not feel like a Thanksgiving Failure.

*The turkey came out all golden brown and delicious smelling, and I put the dressing and the sweet potatoes in the oven. My husband carved the turkey, I set out serving dishes full of all the Thanksgiving goodness, and we all sat down to eat.

Yeah, that’s another view of the table. I didn’t include any time for picture taking in my Day-Of Timeline.

It was a big hit. My husband said the turkey was even better and more moist than it had been during Fakesgiving. My MIL praised everything, my FIL gave a very honest run down of everything – the potatoes were buttery, the turkey was delicious, the stuffing was rosemary-y, etc – and everyone had seconds. The only thing that anyone expressed real HATRED toward was the cranberry cheddar cheese I’d crumbled on the salad. And that person was my husband.

*After stuffing my face, I suddenly felt like I was going to fall asleep right there at the table. My in-laws left shortly after dinner and I went to bed and slept until 9:00 the next morning.

We spent the day with the in-laws, going to The Social Network (which I LOVED and my husband was meh about) and then doing a little shopping. My MIL praised my cooking to the proprietor of the store we went to (she’d known him for years).

Then we visited some friends of my in-laws and my MIL praised my cooking AGAIN and asked for the recipe for my turkey in front of her friend and I felt totally pleased and proud.

Also: Tired.

*After my in-laws left on Saturday, my husband had to work on his fellowship applications and I had to work on a big work project due Monday. Sunday, he went to the hospital all day and I worked on my big work project.

I am still tired.

And the good china is still sitting next to the sink. Unwashed.

DON’T JUDGE.

*Verdict? Cooking Thanksgiving dinner is not difficult but it is EXHAUSTING.

And there you have it, Internet. The big Thanksgiving dinner, for which I spent months preparing and stressing over, has come and gone.

I felt under control (for the most part). The food turned out well. I felt like I was doing justice to the proud Thanksgiving traditions my mom and my husband’s mom have always so admirably and effortlessly tackled.

Best of all, no one died or got food poisoning.

Overall, I’d say it was a success.

But man, I wish I hadn’t burned the gravy.

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