Thanksgiving Fail

SOMETIMES YOU SHOULDN'T COOK

My sister has invited us to Thanksgiving. I am to bring bread. I might as well have been asked to bring plastic plates and cups...I know that they asked me to bring something simple so I didn't wear myself out cooking.

I used to cook. Even did the entire Thanksgiving feast for the family several times, then my sister started hosting it, I got MS and didn't have the energy to cook anymore, and quit trying. Bill and I live in a suburban area in which you can get most any type of food in minutes. Good food, like fresh salad and 'real' home-style food. Why cook?

My dietician at Cleveland Clinic had suggested I bring green beans and a pumpkin pie with the clinic's recipes.

Sometimes you shouldn't cook. I forget I shouldn't cook under pressure. Thanksgiving qualifies. However, we didn't have much in the fridge and needed to do a shopping, plus my dietician at Cleveland Clinic has more diabolically odd items she wants me eating.

My husband took Frax and I to the grocery store. Bill gets tense at shopping times. He hates to shop. I'm not thrilled with it, but I will when I have to. He has a tendency to make me nervous as he stumps through the store, muttering under his breath when we can't find something, or a rude shopper cuts us off, or otherwise acts what I consider “normal-rude.” Garden variety, run of the mill rudeness.I let it flow off my back. Bill, a type “A” broods about it.

Bill darted to the back of the van, lowering the wheelchair lift. Got it halfway down. We left the wheelchair at home! He grunted and put the lift back in the van and asked me what we should do. I suggested taking one of the motorized carts the store provides.We should have gone home then.

Preservering, we went into the crowded store. It was busy, but folks were nice. We actually found a cart, right at the front, unplugged it and hopped in, Frax attached to the left side of the cart and heeling most handsomely. Frax wasn't thrilled with the automatic chair from the store, but he heeled just fine beside it, as he has many times before.

We spent some minutes searching for fresh green beans. They had everything but. A nice woman showed us the empty bins where the green beans had been...then suggested frozen ones! Great idea...had 'em at home!

I'm supposed to start back on eggs. Bill picked out some lovely brown ones. I'm not a huge egg fan, but these were pretty.

I had a list, and we zoomed through the store. Instead of plain almond milk I got chocolate almond milk. Not on the diet. I can throw that out. No one in my family would drink it.

At last, we got checked out fairly promptly, and motored on out to the front.

We darted out the front door. The automatic cart died.

I fiddled with it, and got it going. Bill had kept on walking! Bill was no where around...oh, there he was~ several ahead of me, pelting for the car! I looked both ways, zoomed (?) behind him in the loaded automatic shopping cart. We were losing ground! I was darned if I would yell for Bill! Frax was walking next to the cart and looking back and forth between us curiously. I couldn't catch up with Bill, and I didn't think he would hear me anyway at this rate.

Bill got in the van. We were gaining on him! Yes! I was right up on the van, called “Bill~ wait!” He never looked behind...instead drove through the parking space ahead of the van and turned left, to the back of the parking lot! “Bill! Bill!” I yelled. No good. Boy did I look foolish...driving the stupid cart, Frax heeling beside me, and us slowly, slowly motoring behind the quickly diminishing back of the van!

I muttered some not so nice Thanksgiving epithets under my breath, turned the cart towards the front of the store, and Frax and I slowly motored on “high” speed in the cart towards the front of the store, me bent over the handles, intently staring forward, Frax looking at me bemused, as he walked (walked!) nicely at heel beside the automatic shopping cart! (I think Frax was chuckling!) Meanwhile, Bill had zipped around the next row and was pulling up at the front, looking for me!

Muttering under my breath, we made it to the front of the store, just a minute or two after Bill had pulled up. I again chanced an exasperated “BILL!!!” He was looking into the store. Didn't see me. Didn't hear me. No matter, I would pull up beside him, and we would start to unpack.

I pulled up beside the van, ready to get up to open the door....and Bill started pulling off! I plopped down in the cart's seat with disbelief. Frax looked at me with his head tilted, as if to say “Why doesn't Dad want us to get in the van?” “Good question, I muttered, and clutched the handle on the automatic cart and goosed it....slowly giving chase to the #*@mn van!

“BILL!!! I roared. At this point I didn't care who stared. I was getting tired of chasing him, and Frax was too.

Bill finally stopped the #$#mn van. He looked astonished. I explained that I had given chase after him all across the parking lot. Then he looked horrified. “I told you I would bring the car up front when the shopping cart quit up front.” he said apologetically. “Didn't you hear me?” “Obviously not.” I said as we flung groceries in the back. “Sorry!” he said. “It's OK, Frax and I like making a spectacle of ourselves, zooming (?) around the parking lot yelling your name!” I said with some asperity. We both looked at each other, and snickered. It was pretty funny. Plus, I quit long ago worrying what people thought about me!

We returned home. Bill went into his work room to work as Frax and I unpacked the groceries. Exhausted, I unharnessed Frax and changed clothes, then lay down on the bed for about thirty minutesI got up to get a drink of water. I'd left the green beans and the eggs out on the counter. The beans were defrosted. The eggs were room temperature. I put them back in the fridge. Later on, I got to wondering if they would be OK to use after that. Checked online. Answer: no. I need to throw them out.

Frax and I stumped over to the 'perfect' pumpkin and picked it up. It was solid, no mushy handle or bottom....but the skin was mottled like a kid about to break out with a case of pimples! I feared it was bad. I asked Bill later, and he felt that it probably should be thrown out. Great.

So...throw out the pumpkin, eggs and green beans. All the things the dietician wanted me to eat. Obviously God wants me to eat a 'normal' Thanksgiving dinner.

And that, dear friends is what I will do. I'm throwing the eggs, pumpkin and green beans out. And eating a normal amount of food, not drawing any attention to myself.

We are bringing bread. It's from the Italian Pastry shop in Cleveland. Sometimes, you shouldn't cook!

Later...

LV, JT & FX

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

#ThanksgivingFlops #Foodsafetyl