Recap

Thanksgiving at my parents' house. What can I say? I guess it's best described in a series of vignettes. Mainly because I'm really bad at stringing stories together...especially in any kind of way that makes sense with respect to space and time.
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Scene 1: In the kitchen. My mother (who literally cooks one day of the year) and my sister Jen (age 14) are attempting to figure out how they made such awesome dressing last year. (The answer, of course, is that my Dad made it.)
Mom: "I don't remember how I made it last year. Jen, look in one of the cookbooks and see if you can find a recipe."
Jen: "Okay."
Me: "Um...didn't Dad make it last year?"
Mom: "No! Did he? I can make dressing. Jen just has to find the recipe I use."
Me: "oookay."
Jen: "Here's one. It calls for breadcrumbs..."
Mom: "Good, that's the one."
Jen: "Eggs. Sage. And uncooked popcorn."
Mom: "Uncooked popcorn?"
Jen: "Uh huh. It says Mix all ingredients, then stuff turkey. Finished when bird reaches 180 degrees, and when the popcorn blows the ass out of the turkey. Ooh! I was just reading!"
Mom: "JENNY!"
Jen: "It says that! Samantha doesn't it say that!"
Me: "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't see anything about the A-word."
Mom: "You know better Jenny. Now find another recipe. That one's not good."
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Scene 2: Still in the kitchen. My mother, Aunt Jonnie (age 92), and I are standing around washing dishes. Suddenly Dad walks up behind my mother and kind of drums a couple of fingers on her shoulder.
Mom: "What did you just put on me! Get it off!"
Me: "Mom, chill out...he didn't put anything on you. Turn around, I'll look."
She turns
Me: "AUGHHH!! AAAAH!! MOM!!"
Mom: "OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT?!??"
And I'm still just shrieking.
Mom: "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!"
And my Dad is dying laughing. And I'm still shrieking. Mom is beating herself to death trying to get it off.
Mom: "AUGH!!"
Then she starts running. Runs to the door of the kitchen. And RIPS HER SHIRT OFF. And continues to shriek running topless through the house. Dad and I are doubled over laughing. She comes back five minutes later in a different shirt.
Mom: "I couldn't find it...it could be anywhere."
Me: "Um. There wasn't anything on you. We were just messing with you."
Still dying laughing.
Mom: "You guys are jerks."
But she's laughing too.
Aunt Jonnie: "I wish I'd had a video camera."
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Scene 3: The night before Thanksgiving. Bear (age 18), her boyfriend Kylie-poo (age 16), Jen (14), Jo (11), and I are in the den. I'm attempting to teach everyone some basic swing-dancing steps. Kind of hard to do when all you have is a Kelly Clarkson CD and a bootleg karaoke machine as your CD player.
Jen: "Do I have to dance with Jo?"
Me: "She's the closest to your height, so yes."
**Timeout: Jen and Bear are both 2 years apart from Kylie-poo. Jen has a huge crush on him, and is hoping that Bear will dump him when she leaves for college. Then she will swoop in and claim him as her own. She has it all planned out. Into phases. It's terrifying and brilliant. **
Jen: "Fine."
So they're dancing, I'm watching and trying to keep the CD player working.
Jen: "Jo, quit dipping! You're killing me!"
Jo is holding Jen's hands, hopping around, shaking Jen like crazy.
Jen: "Jo, let go! Quit! No! That's it! FREESTYLE!"
Jo lets go of her and starts dancing like a maniac around the room. Maybe that was their safe word?
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Scene 4: Thanksgiving Day. Bear has gone with Kylie-poo to his grandparents house in Auburn for an early Thanksgiving lunch. We're scheduled to have lunch at our house at 2 PM. At 11, the phone rings.
Mom: "Hello?"
Mom: "Okay, did you call the police?"
Mom: "Okay, where are you?"
At this point I'm getting my jacket and car keys.
Mom: "What street are you near? Okay, calm down. Call me back."
Mom: "Bear's car broke down in Auburn. She doesn't know where she is."
Me: "Okay. I've got the cell phone...I'll start heading down there and you can call me when you know where she is."
Mom: "Okay."
My sister Jess (20) and I hopped in the car to drive to Auburn (about a 30 minute drive.) 5 minutes down the road, Mom calls and says they got the car running and not to worry about it. We turn around, and 2 minutes after walking back into the house, they've broken down again. But this time they know where they are. So we go. We arrive to find them parked in someone's front yard. Apparently some guy had come out and screwed something to the battery to fix it earlier, but they made it a block before it died again. A policeman had stopped the first time they'd broken down. Watched them take off again, and then when they broke down again, came by with the helpful comment, "Ya'll didn't make it too far didja?" The car is a stick-shift, which only Jess and Bear know how to drive and Bear had washed her hands of it. We decided if we could get the car going fast enough, she could kick it into second and go. So it's Thanksgiving day, and I'm in someone's front yard pushing a car down a street. Jess kicks it into second, and it goes. We make it through most of Auburn...Jess just kept revving the car at the lights.

We make it to the railroad tracks, which are conveniently both on a hill and immediately followed by a light. So you have a hard time seeing the person in front of you, and might get stuck at the light and resultingly have to sit on the tracks. Of course, we get stuck at the light, and the car dies. With my parents' car (that I'm driving) right behind Jess...at the top of the hill...and virtually invisible to the people coming up behind me. We jump out of the car and immediately begin pushing the car again. Except this time we're pushing up a hill. And it's not happening. To make a really long story slightly abbreviated, the battery was dead. Very very dead. And the alternator was also in questionable shape. We ended up jumping the car approximately 7 times...and had a three car caravan going home cause we eventually were too scared to have to get out and push the car on the highway. Wussed out and called my Dad. But when we got home, it was 2 PM and Mom had the food on the table. Mmm Thanksgiving. Which leads us to....
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Scene 5: The kitchen. Aunt Jonnie's out with my Dad. We're figuring out where all the food is going to go. Jen pulls out the huge vat of marinated vegetables my Aunt brought.
Jen: "We have to serve the vegetables Aunt Jonnie brought."
Me: "Oh my God have you guys tasted those?"
Mom (who usually eats the disgusting food her relatives make with a smile on her face): "I'm pretty sure those vegetables are rotten."
Me: "Are you kidding me?! I ate some last night!"
Mom: "And you're still here...so it hasn't grown into botulism yet."
Me: "Ha. Ha. Seriously, I thinks he brought those specifically for me. Stupid vegetarianism."
Mom: "Good! You can eat them! Except you probably really shouldn't."
Me: "What are we going to do? She's going to notice that none of it's gone."
Mom: "Think we should get rid of some of it?"
Me: "Yes!"
So we had Jen go dump some of it in the woods. And then we put some of it in our napkins during the meal. I hate to say it, but as a trained public health professional, I will. In many cases, old people cooking is dangerous. Particularly in my Mom's family...where the women never die. They just get older and more forgetful of food safety. Seriously. My grandmother has a "utility room" that's pretty much made of concrete and stays about 2 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. In Alabama, that means about 75 as a low. She calls it her "cool room" and treats it as a giant refrigerator. Just sets a ham out on the table down there. For days. Then tries to feed it to you later. The room needs a skull and crossbones on the door.
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Scene 6: In the kitchen. Mom and Dad are walking in with groceries. Jo, Jen, Bear, Kylie-poo and I are unloading them. All of a sudden, Mom starts screaming.
Mom: "AUUGH!! GET IT OFF!! GET IT OFF!!"
At this point Dad is dying laughing, and Mom is on the verge of tears.
Me: "Mom, he's just messing wi- HOLY CRAP THAT IS A HUGE FREAKING BUG!!"
Mom: "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF OF MEEEE!!!"
She's succeeded in knocking the largest bug of all time from her shirt onto her hip. But she doesn't see it. I am still shrieking just for the hell of it. And she takes off running. Jo follows her. She gets to the kitchen door before RIPPING HER SHIRT OFF AGAIN. Lucky for Kylie-poo, she was out of his field of vision. :-p I follow her into the bedroom where she is looking (topless) for the bug. We find it in the blinds and let it out the window. I go back to the kitchen while Mom looks for a new shirt.
Dad: "Man when I saw that bug, I couldn't resist."
Me: "You put it on her?!?"
Dad: "Of course."
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Scene 6: On the way to church on Sunday. Somehow we've gotten into a discussion about Mexico? I'm not really sure how it happened.
Jo: "Jenny, you can't speak Mexican."
Jen: "Yes I can...I had to take a class."
Jo: "Fine, say something."
Jen: "Brainos dias."
Jo: "What does that mean?"
Jen: "It means have a good day."
We decided at that moment not to let Jen help Jo with her spanish homework later in life.
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So that's about it. I've got a family full of nuts, sadists, and streakers, but we have a good time.
Plus we went to see "Happy Feet" and can you find anything cuter than a tap-dancing baby penguin? I submit that you can not. So that's about it...you can go now. Seriously, go.

FREESTYLE!