First off: News Anchor Hair. Think Katie Couric… or any of these blond News Sista’s.

Not the greatest shot in the world, but the closest I could come up with yesterday. I don’t know if you all are aware but almost-two year olds move around a LOT. And our living room isn’t exactly flooded with light so I have a ton of pictures with blurry kidlet. Alas!
Thanksgiving was good and enjoyable for a day where I spent all day working. Seriously, Andy and I stayed up the night before until 12:30 in the am doing dishes and putting the house together (well, Andy stayed up until 4am doing all the dishes but I am not so dedicated). And then we got up at ten am yesterday to start cooking and prepping and putting the house back together because our own little Tasmanian Jasbaz decided to undo all the work of the night before while I was trying to catch winks on the sofa. It’s a tricky business sleeping in when your partner stayed up later than you and can use that as an excuse to keep you from dreamland. Drat!
But we got everything cooked on time and even had dinner a bit early, although we let my Grandma cook the bird because we are so friendly about sharing the cooking.
I do have some bad news though: brownies the world over must not like me anymore because I’ve now burned two batches in less than a week. WTF? I’d blame the stove but everything else I cooked in the stove yesterday turned out just fine. The only thing that burned where the brownies! Son-of-a…
Still, I had another of those fuck-it moments and made a double batch of fudge, and poured half of the fudge over the slightly dry brownies hoping that some magic would occur and we’d have deliciously moist brownies. Delusion, I has it. But when I went to cut into them after dinner, I had to do some sawing and then I was just like, “Guys, I’ve ruined another batch of brownies. Fudge, anyone?” to which everyone was excited about. If all else fails, apply the same method you use for your toddler, distract DISTRACT distract. But with grownups, leave the shiny aluminum foil alone and head straight for the chocolate.
And this being our first year of hosting a Thanksgiving, I have no idea how the hosts are supposed to have energy and entertain everyone, provide conversation and all that. I was definitely tired and focused on eating my food, not to mention a little cranky about ruining some brownies. Heh. Oh well. It was a pleasantly disfunctional Thanksgiving.
I think the best part was that I had the radio on and the Alice’s Restaurant song came on, which Andy’s dad had me the turn volume up, so for 15 minutes Arlo Guthrie was chatting about some envelope being under a garbage bag, while the dad-in-law yacked about the song’s hilarity, Andy’s sister complained about whether this was actually music, my grandma talked about how she didn’t really know about that scene in the sixties, and the divorced mother-in-law tried to keep from slitting the dad-in-laws throat so that he’d stop talking. Meanwhile Jas was busy rubbing as much stuffing into her hair as possible and Andy and I were consuming all the turkey and gravy in sight. Priorities.
Still, it was a pleasant time. And I think we’ll have it at our house again next year if only because that means we automatically get all the leftovers.
