Cauldron burn, and fire bubble...

So I'm cooking thanksgiving dinner this year.

Me. The woman with the number to Lizard's Thicket speed-dialed (number 6, thankyouverymuch; i enjoy the vegetable plate) into her cell, and who is very proud of the fact that she can cook mashed potatoes from scratch.

Rachel Ray I ain't. So why I presumed something so ambitious as cooking a holiday meal for five ( myself, my husband, my father, his wife, and my hairstylist).

Crap -- why did i invite her?! Didn't I forsee that this could mean the end of hair as I know it?! Great. Now I'll have nightmares of having to wear brightly colored skullcaps for the rest of the winter because Tanya has scalped me at my next appointment. But the hint that she didn't have anyhwere else to go (and she truly must be desperate to come to my place -- and she's heard my tales of kitchen woe at the shampoo bowl many a time) really got to me. I mean, it goes against everything TG stands for, to not invite someone when they say "Oh, I'll find somewhere to go...."

My mother is coming over tuesday and wednesday night to help me prepare. This, I feel, is a decent compromise to the trial run that C. suggested (did he really expect me to buy two of everything and then cook dinner TWICE? Testosterone must be a helluva drug).

This also proves just how desperate I am for help -- I am willing to endure over two hours of haranguing, nagging, direct insults to my housekeeping and looks, "helpful" suggestions on how to keep my husband from a)cheating on me and b)on a short leash, lest he get the idea that he is in charge, and c)how to make my life, home, and self more acceptable. Read: more like her(s).

That said, she can cook the hell out of some dressing, so yeah, I'll put up with it, and put on some happy music afterwards and work out or buy a new top. Besides, she got me an early christmas gift (the bag C. said was too expensive) after mentioning she was tired of seeing my old one "hang off my arm".

The menu:

• Potato salad
• collard greens
• green beans
• corn
• rice & gravy
• mashed potatoes (specialty of the house!)
• turkey
• ham
• cornbread
• apple pie (from the fresh market -- i'm no fool!)
  

I think that's it. Maybe when I get proficient sometime next decade, I'll be able to invite friends over. I'd love to ultimately be the house people can come to. But this....i think this is an okay start.

"'Fool', said my muse to me..."

Dear Sir Philip Sydney:

At least your muse is talking to you.

Love,
Gina

In what can only be called a masochistic attempt to torture myself by frustration alone, I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year. (Yay 642 words!)

the problem? The subject might be a little too close to home. How's a girl supposed to write about a frustrated muse when she's got writer's block, a level of Insaniquarium she can't get past, an entire 3-month plan of budgeting to work out due to a new car payment, and a muse that is not returning phone calls, emails, smoke signals...

I gotta get crackin'.

Or at least take insaniquarium off the start menu.