Thanksgiving Tales

The more astute among you will notice that this is posted on Friday, not on Thursday, as I had so blithely announced on Wed. Yeah, I had good intentions. I even had my laptop with me, and a cord for uploading pictures, so things really should have gone better than they actually did in the blogging department. So much for posting every day in November!

Someone had a very peaceful holiday, spent mostly snoozing in people's arms. Mom was lucky if she got to hold her long enough to feed her. Well, she's such a sweet little bundle!

The Gathering of the Clans took place at Audrey's house, as I may have mentioned in a previous post. Auntie D4 and I reversed the order of the usual trek, ie we went over the river (San Gabriel River) and through the woods (the "forest" is actually Forest Lawn, but they do have trees there!) to baby's house.

If you are arriving at someone's house just as the rooster is beginning to stir, it's polite to bring some breakfast with you.

If you are D4, that means baking. These are luscious cranberry-almond muffins, which got a drizzle of almond glaze before it was time to eat them.

There was pie. Apple pie, a la Cook's Illustrated's new version, where the apples are slightly precooked to avoid that hollow area under the crust when the apples shrink down during baking, as fresh apples tend to do.


This pie has ten lbs of apples in it: 5 each of Rome Beauty and Pippin.





The consensus? It was a great pie! The sour cream crust is another special touch. The recipe is here. I love this magazine--three people are getting a subscription for Christmas, since I know they will love it! It's not slick or fancy, but the information is clear and well-researched, and the recipes are YUMMM!







Then there are the traditional pumpkin pies. I need to find the pictures of D4, age 2 1/2, stirring the pumpkin filling for pies on Thanksgiving the year her baby sister was born. Anyway, she's been doing pies for a very long time, and I know she'd love to cook and bake a lot more, if her job was less demanding.



What happens when you try to take a picture of a 1 1/2 year old tornado?

You get a picture of part of his face. There is also a shot of the top of his head, and another of a corner of his jacket.

Takes some corralling before he can be in one place long enough to be more than a blur!
He loved his Thanksgiving dinner, ate lots of everything. Mom says she thinks he's heading for another growth spurt, since he eats and sleeps more than usual.


Tradition! Some of the great jobs are well worth inheriting. Daddy Scott got to carve his first turkey, and he did an excellent job. Then came the not-so-fun part of being the new patriarchs: cleaning the turkey carcass. My husband always did this, and it was quite a production. Newspaper on the table, stockpot for the bones, plastic containers for the meat. Well, the stockpot stayed home this year, but the dads did a great job of scavenging the last bits of yummy turkey.

Great-grandma Hortensia and her newest descendant bonded. I think it is love...

Then came the "fun" part and the reason this post is delayed. Apparently, when D5's house was added on to before they bought it, there were a few corners cut. The result? A plumbing malfunction as the kitchen sink backed up and, instead of actually backing up into itself, sent a gush out through the washer, flooding the family room and soaking the carpet. Roto-Rooter came to the rescue, and things were somewhat normalized, but it did put a damper on the celebration. Ironically, the situation might have gone unnoticed except that Garrett was running around in his stocking feet and got his socks all wet. Looking for the source of the water led to discovering the leaks, probably hours before it would have otherwise.

Audrey had her own opinion of the whole fuss.


Just to cap off the day, I managed to trip and fall on the stairs on my way to bed, landed on my right arm and hand, twisted my shoulder, and am spending the day with a very sore wing. I'm hoping that rest and ibuprofen will help it--haven't tried to knit yet, but I think I will try it a little later on. I'm looking at it as a preview of what shoulder surgery would be like, and I'm not liking it one little bit!