Chill

It's about 40 F with a windchill that makes it feel like 30 F. I know. I'm a wimp, but I could be freezing to death. Need some long johns. Monitor the hallways between classes? Uhm, Could I get a cup a coffee to warm myself afterward?

I signed my evaluation today. It's the best evaluation I've had since working in this district, but in my mind I'm thinking, "Okay whatever. That hoop's been jumped through this year." Funny, I didn't feel that way the last couple of years.

My students have been performing horribly lately, and not just in my class, I've realized with the daily parent conferences my team is having. Last week I gave out progress reports and assigned it as homework to bring it back signed. Could there be an easier grade? I encouraged those student who had D's or F's to "be men and women" and actually show their parents. Guess what? Maybe one or two did. So I did something I haven't done with this group of students, and that is I mailed the progress report home with a nice little note. Productivity is way up this week. Hmmm. Imagine that.

Made it over the hump this week...

When I Was a Student I Used to Procrastinate, Too

I have about an hour of life left in me tonight, and I don't know what I'm teaching tomorrow. We just finished a novel in class last week, and I told them we'd be digging in deeper to it this week. ACK! I HAVE NOTHING! Since I have never taught this particular novel before I don't even have anything to pull out of my files.

Well, actually I do. I do have a ton of different ideas and approaches. We need to focus on theme and conflict.

Discussion? Reflection questions? Small group? Hands-on? Using technology? A series of small assignments? A big project? Leave it open? Set exact guidelines?

What would be the most engaging, yet the highest impact?

Don't even ask why I didn't have this all planned out before we started the book.

I've been flying by the seat of my pants.

I'm so dead. My first class starts at 7:00 am.

Fffffffffffffffffuuuuuu

Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past: When It All Started

And I swear this is where it ends. I'm bored and depressed by all this talk of my worst holiday.

The first Thanksgiving I spent without my parents was when I was a student at Lewis-Clark State College. Like my current situation, I lived too far from my parents to make the trek home for a long weekend. I grew up a 100's of miles away from any extended family, so my small core family of my parents and brother were all I'd ever known for the holidays. Plus, if you're a college student and you've made it to November, isn't it common that homesickness should come along?

My extended family did live in northern Idaho, so it wasn't like I was going to be completely alone. In fact, the plan was that my aunt was going to pick me up on her way from Pasco, Washington, to my grandparents' house in Pierce, Idaho, which was about 90 miles from where I was attending college. I was looking forward to being with my grandparents because it was quiet and peaceful in their tiny little town, but most of the dinner guests who were going to be there were 2nd and 3rd cousins that I didn't know.

So, I had the morning to myself to hang out in the dorm and just relax. There were only a few girls left at the dorm for the holiday weekend--so few that we didn't even see each other. So, on Thanksgiving morning when I went down to the lobby to read the paper and then went up to the shower in the communal bathroom, it truly felt like I was all alone in the dorm. I tried not be a big boob about it, though.

The cafeteria was closed for the holiday, so meals would be whatever I could microwave or toast in the joke of a kitchenette we had. My breakfast that Thanksgiving morning was going to be Pop-Tarts. So, I put them in the toaster and stepped out into the hallway where there was a full-length mirror so I could primp a little. The next thing I knew, flames were shooting out of the toaster--my Pop-Tart had ignited! I ran back into the kitchenette and put out the fire, but the kitchen was full of smoke, so I open the window and hung the toaster out, lest the fire alarm go off. So just picture this chick frantically putting out a toaster fire and then trying to air out the room...and then picture her panic when the FIRE ALARM DOES GO OFF!

It was a handy dandy little thing at our ancient dormitory. When the fire alarm went off, the fire trucks came. And I actually knew this already because a friend of mine burned up the oven the month before while trying to roast pumpkin seeds for my Japanese roommate. Hey, it might have been our pumpkin, but we had nothing to do with the dense girl who tried to "roasted" the seeds unattended on BROIL. Same thing happened there. Fire. Alarm. Fire trucks came.

As the handful of girls and their boyfriend (who weren't suppose to be staying there because it was an all-girls dorm at that time) were evacuating the building into the chilly November morning, they just glared at me and could not see any humor at all. How did they even know it was me? Well, if you were homesick on Thanksgiving and you'd just caused the fire trucks to come because your Pop-Tart went up in flames, wouldn't you bawl hysterically, too?

Luckily the weekend didn't get any worse than that moment, but it wasn't the best either. I had to work the day after Thanksgiving at my sucky seasonal job at Shop-ko and the only thing that was good about it was that it also happened to be payday. Unfortunately, after my eternal shift when I went to cash my check at the bank, I locked my keys in my car. I did have an extra set in my room, so I walked up the hill a mile to retrieve them--that is if I could find an RA to let me into my room. Unfortunately, the main door to the dorm was locked since most of the girls were gone, and nobody would come when I knocked, and knocked, and knocked. I went to the campus security office, but nobody was there despite the fact that someone was on duty somewhere on campus.

And if you think I took that calmly, you just don't know me. It was getting dark and cold. I was trapped outside. I just wanted a bubble bath. It was hours before I was able to let Calgon take me away, too.

Since that weekend it seems like the dark clouds that formed in the sky that bleak afternoon have followed me for every Thanksgiving since. Am I being a dramatic? Perhaps. But I'm entitled. I made the freakin' fire trucks come because I couldn't make Pop-Tarts. That's something you can never live down.

(By the way, I only eat granola bars now.)

Thanksgiving 2006: Creating Ghosts

Several times in the past decade I have gone with my best friend to her parents' home which is just outside Twin Falls, Idaho. Originally, it probably started out of pity, and although Twin Falls was a good 5-6 drive from where we lived in northwestern Nevada, it was still a lot closer than going to my parents' home, which takes nearly 12 hours to reach. That's just too far for a 4-day weekend.

In subsequent years I've looked forward to a Twin Falls Thanksgiving. A big family dinner with some real folks. Early morning shopping for the good deals. Firework display on Friday night. Nightly domino games. Putting up Christmas lights outside. Well, the putting up the lights is not that enjoyable because it's usually "cold as a frog's nose," but we worry about my friend's parents trying to decorate outside when it's cold and slippery. Anyway, it's always a relaxing, enjoyable time.

It was in my plans to take the kids (computer tech hubby is on call for businesses that probably aren't even open this weekend) and go to Idaho for the weekend. The kids were excited because my friend has a dog and they are dog-crazy, and they were anticipating some snow on the ground that they could play in. We bought them new hats and gloves (the selection here in Las Vegas was terrible) and warned them that it would probably be cold. The kids, sick and twisted as they are, relished the idea.

And the plans were in place until Wednesday afternoon when I picked my stepson up from school and he looked like he'd been run over by Mack truck. I'd felt my holiday weekend--only the 2nd vacation I've taken out of town this year--slipping away throughout the week as I tried to nurse my stepson back from the dark side of a cold. I thought he was doing better, but you know how colds and oozy infectious 5-year-olds can be...a pain in my arse.

Not to mention, detrimental to my holiday fun.

So after a long wait at the urgent care clinic with a sniffing, oozy, swollen-eyed child, a quick trip to the local drugstore, and then the battle of the medicine spoon which resulted in us wearing $4.00 worth of medicine, I found myself at Albertson's in the 'hood at 9:00 pm with tons of other people trying to scrimp together a Thanksgiving dinner. Losers.

In my adult life I've rarely had to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner myself. I've helped. I've contributed to potluck. I've simply shown up to eat and then helped with clean-up later. Today, in a true miracle that I hope my family can appreciate, I put on the whole Thanksgiving dinner from cranberries (homemade) to pie (bakery) and set the table with fancy glasses and cloth napkins.

(No, I didn't cook a whole turkey because I may be with a legion of losers, but I'm not a damned fool who needed the hassle of thawing a 20 lb turkey overnight. We had a lovely breast roast of turkey.)

I complained to my mother on the phone how I hate this stupid holiday and how my Thanksgivings always had to flop, but for my family I put on my happy face and sucked it up. It seems like being a mom is just one bitter pill after another. I wonder if moms who actually give birth to the children they are raising ever feel this way, or if it's just that I was rather thrown into this life.

I do know that I'm giving it my all to put a positive spin on all these constant glitches. We had all the windows and doors open today for a nice meal and a relaxing afternoon. Napping, movie-watching, goofing off...It's not what we expected, but it wasn't terrible, either.

Yea, nothing caught on fire...

Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past: Life in the Geriatric Buffet Line

"Mom, I really don't like Thanksgiving. I don't care what people say. It's a stupid holiday about eating a lot of food--well that's what is about now, anyway-- AND it never goes my way."

She chuckled, "Yea, you're right. You never had much luck with it, but that one Thanksgiving when we came down was fun!"

I'm glad she mentioned that this morning because, as a matter of fact, that was exactly the next planned Thanksgiving post.

(Mom, have you been reading my blog? At least a comment so I know you've been here!)

The second Thanksgiving after I moved to Nevada my parents and brother came out for the holiday. By then my first marriage had broken up; we were back to the the orignal family unit for the holiday--something that hadn't happened in many years.

I was all ready to welcome my family to my cute little home and cook them a big Thanksgiving dinner, but my Dad had different ideas. He thought the effort was needless and was more excited about the idea of going to the Reno-Carson City area and spending a few days checking out the historic sites.

So, off we went 130 miles from my home to Carson City where we stayed in the The Carson Nugget, in what I believe may have been the motor lodge. I must have still been in that stage of newly Nevada-ness when I actually enjoyed going to Carson City because although a quaint capitol city, there isn't much to do. That's not even to mention that there aren't many nice places to stay or good casinos to play. It IS an easier drive to Virginia City (my favorite place in Nevada) and more accessible to historic things that my family enjoy like The Nevada State Museum and The Nevada State Railroad Museum, I'm thinking maybe that's why we stayed there. Trust me, I can think of half a dozen much nicer, yet affordable places to stay 20 minutes away in Reno.

Anyway, enough of the tourist plug...

But what ever did we do for our dinner? Are you kidding? Where there's a casino, there's a good Thanksgiving buffet just waiting for, well, mostly old people who've somehow escaped having dinner with their families. My around-50-year-old parents were young compared to the other diners, and my brother and I, in our mid 20's, were simply out of place. I don't want any hate mail about been an old person hater or anything because that is so far from the truth. It's just that as a family, we had never experienced the buffet as an alternative to Thanksgiving. It was weird and everyone was moving in slow motion. I know my brother and I probably seemed like insolent children giggling and whispering all throughout dinner.

Later in the day someone won big on the nickel slots, but I can't remember if it was my dad or bro. (It as probably something like $80 since we are obviously such high rollers.) In any case I remember we went to a little lounge and bought ourselves a good drink to celebrate.

My brother and I wanted to keep the party going after my parents went to bed, but we had great difficulty finding an open liquor store anywhere in downtown Carson City on Thanksgiving night. In fact, we couldn't find anything open but a scary little gas station where we bought mini bottles of whatever there was for an exorbitant price. Then we stayed up half the night catching up on old times, trying not to get too drunk, lest we be hung over for the next morning of touristing.

Over the years my family and I have shrugged off some of the great American traditions. Sometimes we do it together, but other things I've done on my own. I suppose that my mom and I remember that strange little Thanksgiving holiday in Carson City not because it was the first time we shrugged off the traditional way to do Thanksgiving, but we remember because what's most important to our family is that we have good times together. That can be Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, a birthday party celebrating three birthdays, or just a Sunday evening hanging out on the porch in July.

We're simple people. It doesn't take much to make a good memory for my family.

So, has Happychyck ever had any traditions that stuck for Thanksgiving, or has it just been a long weekend to fill year after year? Actually, I kind of have a tradition that I had done most years in the past decade, which I had planned on doing this holiday weekend, but...

Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past: Mom Commands a Tradition That Didn't Stick

My first marriage was to a hometown boy. When you marry a hometown boy, there's the potential for making yourself crazy trying to balance holidays. I think it might be a little easier when you don't have families living nearby. You see, now that my current husband (the one that stuck) and I live nowhere near family, nobody expects us for any holiday.

My family is pretty cool about not spending holidays with them because my own father rebelled against everyone in the early part of his and my mother's marriage and proclaimed that they would be spending holidays in their own home--not busting their butts going from family to family. He was pretty much talking about Christmas, but it applied to all holidays.

The problem was I didn't mind going from house to house because my first husband (further known now as Ex) and I never had children and the holidays were pretty boring with just the two of us. I wanted to spend the holidays with everyone, and I didn't want to choose. Christmas worked itself out pretty easily because each family had different times of the holiday that were the most important, and those times didn't conflict. My parents enjoyed Christmas Eve as a family, and Ex's family liked for us to all gather Christmas night, and then on New Year's Eve when all the extended family came to visit.

Thanksgiving was a different story. Since the whole day is about eating, it was always an uncomfortable one by the time it was all done, too. Thanksgiving wasn't a major holiday with my family, and it was usually just my parents and brother with an occasional bachelor co-worker of my dad's. When my brother moved to the city and got a McJob, he didn't come home for Thanksgiving, so it become an even smaller event.

Ex's family came to just rely on Ex and me to show up for a huge meal, and maybe other family members would show up for pie later on.

It seemed sad to not show up to both tiny Thanksgiving dinners with our respective parents. We were often the only guest they had.

After about 5 years of that, my parents came up with the big idea that Ex and I should host Thanksgiving at our house and invite both sets of parents. Logistically it was a great idea, but seriously, could both moms give up the power of the kitchen? What's your guess? Anyone? Anyone?

I was a little nervous because I'd never cooked a turkey before, but PEOPLE, IT'S NOT THAT HARD! On television "they" always make it seem challenging. So, the turkey was easy. Put it in the oven and wait many hours.

Now, how challenging do you think it would be to put together the rest of the meal for six people? Again, not as hard as some people would make it out to be. You know, I read entertaining books and magazines--this was during my Martha-wannabe phase--and I learned the key was really in the prep work. So, essentially, when the moms arrived, there was nothing to do because I had it under control!

But then here came The Moms, invading my kitchen, taking over, treating me like I didn't know what I was doing. From the time I was in middle school, I made dinner every night so it would be ready when my parents came home from work. Did my mom think she'd trained me so poorly? And my mother-in-law, well, she was the type of woman who would slave over the stove for hours for who-knows-what-reason while I could prepare the same meal in 30 minutes tops. So, did I deserve their harassment when they came into MY kitchen and started messing with my meal? The answer is NO!

And my dad only shook his head and told me it would be okay when I begged him to call off The Moms.

How bad was it really? Here's the straw: my mother-in-law brought her potato masher because she thought I didn't have one. And how right she was! We use a mixer in my family. Even better, since I was in my era of Martha, I had a potato ricer. And you know my mother-in-law, with her beehive hairdo, had no idea what a potato ricer could do for your life. They would have been beautiful mashed potatoes. Sigh.

And isn't that how many family functions end up in brawls? Fighting over how to make the damned mashed potatoes?

Only, it wasn't worth selling my gracious soul to the devil to get sucked into that war, so I bit my tongue. I bit my tongue over everything that day. (Had we not been a "dry" family, I would have turned to the wine to comfort.) So, I bit my tongue and let The Moms take over the Thanksgiving I had been coerced into hosting.

After the meal, I excused myself and went upstairs to collapse from the emotional exhaustion.

The Parents raved about what a wonderful holiday it had been.

Good for them.

I graduated college the following year and moved to another state. That tradition stopped at the stateline.

And that reminds me of the best non-traditional Thanksgiving ritual I thought my family might start, but that didn't work out either...

Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past: Do You Put Herbs on Your Turkey?

Thanks to the corrupt influence of the teens I've taught over the years, when my stepson brought this picture home from school, I could not contain my giggles. All through dinner, every time I thought of it, I started to laugh. I just told the darling child that I thought it was just soooo cute! My husband was not as amused as I was, and actually I'm not sure why I am so tickled. Inadvertant pictures of ole MaryJane usually don't amuse me at all.

Even worse though, this picture has triggered a sort of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Thanksgiving walk down memory lane...

If you give Happychyck a picture of a turkey with a pot leaf, she'll think about that Thanksgiving she spent with one of her friends around 1999. She lived too far away from her own family to go home, and her boyfriend wasn't ready for her to spend Thanksgiving with his family so...

Yea, I spent the day with one of my dear friends, who just happened to be a weekend imbiber of the herb. (Actually, come to think of it, so was my boyfriend of that time--and now, we aren't talking college boys, but professional, successful men.) I'd never actually seen him high, as it was something he'd do on the weekends, usually during a good hike. So, on that Thanksgiving, he'd taken off to go hiking, but he didn't return at the appointed time.

How long did I wait outside his house while the turkey was cooking unsupervised inside? Nearly two hours.

But no worries, when he did show up, all was well that the turkey wasn't too crispy, and we finished cooking dinner. Or rather, I helped him avoid injuring his high ass while he bumped around the kitchen preparing the meal. It was just bizarre. We were kind of hopeless losers with nobody else to spend the day with, going through the motions of trying to make it a decent holiday. Thank goodness for friends, which is the theme Thanksgiving has truly taken on in my life.

The best part of the day was how we spent the rest of the afternoon kicked back in recliners, drinking some fine microbrew ale, and watching The X-Files. That part of the day made me feel much better, and not quite so depressed because while I was waiting outside my friend's house, I'd had plenty of time to take in the beautiful, peaceful afternoon at his lakeview house and meditate on the condition my life.

That would be the life with a boyfriend who, after four months did not feel comfortable enough for me to meet his mother, thus leaving me all alone on Thanksgiving. Ouch. That would be the life where living away from my family was still a hard thing to do on holidays. That would be the life where memories of my previous life with my ex-husband, who shared the same first name as my current beau, would sometimes seep in.

And you know when memories of happy times seep in, even though your ex-husband is involved, another Thanksgiving memory is triggered...