Three Pies and Forty Days of Rain or so it seemed
Thanksgiving is past but we have leftovers in the refrigerator—-so no cooking or much thought about evening meals for several days.
Thanksgiving is always a time of excess—so much food, so many special treats, and cherished time with family.
My mother always made several pies–pumpkin, blueberry, apple. Olives were a special treat for us. And then there were the butter mints and Spanish peanuts served in a divided pressed glass dish—I have that dish and bring it out for special meals. My aunt made a cake–putting a cake made in an angel food cake pan on top of a regular cake—it was my grandparents’ birthday—no candles—but we all knew it was for them.
There was always the argument over who got the stuffing from inside the bird versus outside– and the long discussion about seating arrangements—several smaller people had to sit on the piano bench while chairs were brought from other rooms and put into use.
My husband’s family served up an elegant meal with my mother-in-law hand-washing the crystal chandelier. His father carved the turkey with great ceremony with elk horn knife and fork from Scotland; raw cranberry sauce made the day before was traditional. The molded lime green jello salad with cottage cheese and pineapple was stored on top of the car in the garage.
But that is all past—and now we are the older generation.
Thanksgiving day was really dreadful–rain, cold—and we opted to not drive in that weather. It is not unusual for us to alter the celebration of a holiday—my work usually involved working holidays.
We had made our pies and stored them in the oven–safe from Toby and Dora.
We had also been invited to youngest son’s in-laws—and thought we would deliver our pies and make new ones—–again we were deterred by rain—pouring rain of Tropical Storm Harvey/Imelda quality.
Rain, rain, rain!!!!! Cold and dreary!
Sunday was an absolute gorgeous day with sun and warm temperatures.
We made our way to middle son’s home where we got to spend time with grandsons.
If you think Oliver is a ham–the one on the far right–you are absolutely correct. Drama is his middle name but he is so adorable it is hard not to overlook some of his theatrics. Yes, that is a scrape on his face—he ran his motorcycle into a tree–thought it was a disaster until he realized it gave him some serious street cred at his school.
They were quite pleased to leave their homework assignments for fun with Grandpa.
Of course there was more than enough food, food to be packed into containers and brought home, pies to be split up.
We watched the final half of the soccer match between Germany and Spain–such cheering!!!
Driving home, husband decided to drive down I-45 instead of east on I-10. It took a bit for us (mostly me…as I have driven more in Houston) to figure out how to get back to I-10…the traffic designers did not think Houston would grow as it did–it is very congested and everyone drives 15 miles over the speed limit—with entries on the right and exits on the left. We made it back to I-10 and a welcome stop at Bucky’s SuperCharger.
Our dogs were thrilled to see us–checked us quite thoroughly to see if we had been unfaitherful to them and interacted with other dogs.
It was a good weekend.
Sylvia Weir Art 