Once my friend prepared a casserole dish of potatoes au gratin to bake at my house and it sloshed in her car and for weeks it smelled like baby puke, until she took it to a specialty cleaner…the kind that cleans up crime scenes. True story!
A long time ago, in the Eighties, the Mister and I lived in Beachwood Canyon. The house was big and sprawling, we threw lots of impromptu parties, and since I possessed cooking skills exceeding the realm of Top Ramen and Cup-a-Soup people tended to congregate at our house during the holidays. Usually, when our friends weren’t attempting to give each other STDs they were sitting home alone with a quart of ice cream, watching “thirtysomething” or “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (based on gender), and crying (not based on gender). They thought of the Mister and I as surrogate Mom and Dad since we’d been together…over six months. Thanksgiving in the hills was as close to home as I could make it, meaning I was an utter tyrant who ordered the well-meaning to get-the-hell-out-of-my-kitchen and go join the Mister for a drink on the patio.
CUT TO: 2013 — This Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and mine and the Mister’s twenty-sixth wedding anniversary. It’s an event that only happens once every 70,000 years, and if you think I’m cooking — you’re out of your sweet minds! We’re going to a restaurant with several friends from those days of yore, we’ll be toasting each other with champagne to the glow of candlelight, and yours truly will not be doing the dishes.
Have a glorious Thanksgiving week, and on the day:
May the hinges of friendship never rust, or the wings of luve lose a feather. Dean Ramsay (1793-1872)