The annual Thanksgiving Checklist: 10 people, my house

Time for the annual Thanksgiving post.  I print it an put it on my cupboard door and then, when my brain freezes over, I just do the next thing.




because proper preparation and planning prevents poor performance!


at least 1 week before
1. purchase free-range turkey
2. finalize menu

• pumpkin soup - Jamie & I
• green salad of some sort - Jamie and I 
• marshmallow salad - mom
• green bean casserole - mom
• mashed potatoes - Jamie & I
• Roast Butternut Squash  - mil
• turkey - Jamie & I
• dressing - Jamie & I
• gravy - Jamie & I
• bread/rolls - Jamie & I
• dessert: pecan pie, pumpkin pie, apple dumplings - Jamie & I
• beverages - brother
• Trader Joe's cranberry sauce - brother

2. make up grocery list
3. make and freeze pie crusts
4. timeline food prep
5. confirm that the food thermometer works

Monday
1. grocery shop


Tuesday
1. make mashed potatoes
2. roast pumpkins
3. make pumpkin soup
4. mix up brine


Wednesday
1. pick up turkey
2. brine big turkey
3. mix up turkey rub
4. make dressing
5. prep sweet potatoes
6. mix up pecan pie filling
7. stage apple dumplings

Thursday
1. remove potatoes from fridge
2. rub down turkey if you didn't brine
3. make bread rolls

4. run & empty dishwasher
5. confirm garbage can is empty
6. sweep front porch and walk
7. stage tea station


12:00
1. make a thermos of coffee & prep coffee maker for next round
2. make sure you have eaten something sustaining
3. check your clothes: are you bespattered?

12:45
1. confirm small lamps and candles are on/lit
2. confirm dishwasher is empty
3. turn on coffee pot

2:00
1. dine

3:00
1. rest whilst others clean up.

5:00

1. set out desserts

2. receive second wave of guests.

3. listen to bluegrass jam session and chatter in a happy daze.

warts and all

And I don't mean this figuratively.

Fifteen years ago I took a warty-looking mark on my foot to my (former) doctor who told me it was a pressure point. So I ignored it.  Then about five years ago my "pressure point" sprouted numerous warty-looking babies.  My new (and obviously superior) doctor confirmed that they were in fact warts, all off-spring from the now very well-established Mother of All Warts.

We froze.  We Compound-W-ed. We injected bug venom. We froze and Compound-W-ed some more.  Last spring, we cut them all out. I had FIVE huge wounds in my foot, which I will not describe in detail. Just use your imagination and then some.

They came back and brought some babies with them.  Apparently all that fresh tissue is the perfect thing in which to grow new warts.

You are wondering, about now, why I am sharing this obnoxious information with you.  I'm wondering this too.  But since we got this far . . .


Last week I saw a dermatologist who prescribed Fluorouracil -- a topical chemotherapy -- and duct tape.  Weird huh?

Guess who has 3 fewer warts this week? 

And I suppose that is why I am sharing it.  If you are anyone you know is suffering from persistent reoccurring warts and you are not afraid of a tube of chemotherapy and a roll of duct tape, this post is for you!

But you will want to know that you won't be able to walk properly, as instead of getting better each day, the pain gets worse, as the treatment is basically to put on your body some goopus that eats holes in whatever it touches.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens
 

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,   

The only moving thing   

Was the eye of the blackbird.   

II

I was of three minds,   

Like a tree   

In which there are three blackbirds.   

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.   

It was a small part of the pantomime.   

IV

A man and a woman   

Are one.   

A man and a woman and a blackbird   

Are one.   

V

I do not know which to prefer,   

The beauty of inflections   

Or the beauty of innuendoes,   

The blackbird whistling   

Or just after.   

VI

Icicles filled the long window   

With barbaric glass.   

The shadow of the blackbird   

Crossed it, to and fro.   

The mood   

Traced in the shadow   

An indecipherable cause.   

VII

O thin men of Haddam,   

Why do you imagine golden birds?   

Do you not see how the blackbird   

Walks around the feet   

Of the women about you?   

VIII

I know noble accents   

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;   

But I know, too,   

That the blackbird is involved   

In what I know.   

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,   

It marked the edge   

Of one of many circles.   

X

At the sight of blackbirds   

Flying in a green light,   

Even the bawds of euphony   

Would cry out sharply.   

XI

He rode over Connecticut   

In a glass coach.   

Once, a fear pierced him,   

In that he mistook   

The shadow of his equipage   

For blackbirds.   

XII

The river is moving.   

The blackbird must be flying.   

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.   

It was snowing   

And it was going to snow.   

The blackbird sat   

In the cedar-limbs.

Wallace Stevens, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” from The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens.