Thanksgiving: The Day Before
Sunday, November 26, 2006, 5:38 PM

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Wednesday this year because we are turkeys, hear us gobble. We’re doing Christmas tomorrow.

Actually, my sister had the idea that we’d spend Thanksgiving over the river and through the woods at grandma’s house, but then ended up having to work Thanksgiving Day because that’s what being the new kid at a restaurant means for a waitress. She suffered no serious injuries or brain damage from having to work on a holiday, though, plus she made some great tips.

This year Rhonda and I did all of the cooking at her house, something that drove Oogie, our mother, even more insane than she is already because she’s a control freak. At first, we were tolerant of Oogie’s well-meant nose picking. I mean nose poking.

“I’ll do the onion, you do the celery,” she’d said as I’d poised the knife over my victim. Never mind that my sister had the only available counter space and I the only available table space. The floor was wide open, though.

At this point, I should mention Harley’s presence, a Doberman-Dalmation-What’chamahcallit mix who was polite about crotch sniffing, but not about snorting up anything that fell on the floor.

I figured Oogie was still miffed about all of the expired condiments I’d found and thrown out of her refrigerator the night before. There’d been four containers of mustard, one dating all the way back to 1996. And mayonnaise, pickles, jams, salad dressing and, the worst travesty of all, two rolls of Pillsbury Dough chocolate chip cookies.

So I gave way to Oogie and the red onion, moving to the sink before I realized she’d appropriated my cutting board and knife.

“Where’s the baister?” Oogie wanted to know.

I stuck my head in one of the three sacks just outside of the pantry. “It was in the sack with the poultry rub and the spices,” Oogie cried (apparently because of the onion).

“I have a baister,” my sister huffed. “And plenty of mayonnaise.”

Now we had two baisters and enough mayo for a dozen half-dozen deviled eggs. We also had two turkeys, two different stuffing recipes, green bean casserole, potatoes, corn, Hawaiian bread with spinach dip, cheese, crackers, smoked sausage, three pies and a bundt cake. And a partridge in a pear tree.

Oogie was ejected when she asked when we thought we’d be doing the potatoes. Keeping her out of the kitchen turned out to be as much of a challenge as keeping Harley the dog out, but once we popped On Golden Pond into the DVD player, Oogie and grandma kept the 32” TV company. Oogie twitched through every minute, but she’d been banned and the queen of the household showed no signs of early reprieve.
2 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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