Saw HP&GoF, Got Thanksgiving Dinner, In the Morning, I Become a Tornado of Cleaning

I will not be reviewing the Harry Potter movie - not like a real review anyway. I never thought I'd be more into a young person's book series than my children, but I haven't been able to infect them with my voracious appetite for reading. My daughter has one of the books upstairs, so *maybe* she's read or is reading it. I just like the story a lot.

I like the movies a lot, too. Could be that I adore Alan Rickman. At any rate the movie didn't disappoint. Darker, older, more intense, I think, than the previous ones. The audience tonight had very few children in it. I'd hesitate to take kids younger than 9 or 10. Dumbledore shows a much more angry and powerful side of himself in this one, too. I'd give it 3.5 sparkles out of 5 if I was doing that kind of thing...

At the theatre, during the scene where Harry is in the lake, my son calls. Twice. I've got the phone on vibrate but the second time I go out and take a bathroom break then call him back. He needed a ride home from work. Have I mentioned that my 20 year old son doesn't have a drivers license? Not for lack of taking the permit test (I told him I wouldn't let him drive my car until he passed the permit test). He wants to be a policeman. I think he'd better get that driver's license before he applies, don't you? "Well, I could be one of those cops on a bicycle, sir." Bet that would go over well.

After the movie I went to pick him up, and since he lives right behind the shopping center with our neighborhood grocery store, I decided it might be a good idea to just get my Thanksgiving shopping over with. Since most years we have had Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's home I haven't cooked many of my own. Sometimes I do a small one for just the SO and I due to the timing of the family gathering - and I usually order a pre-cooked meal and just add my own touches. The pre-cooked turkey is a life saver. You still have to put it in the oven for a while (3 hrs?) but no defrosting or basting. I'm just not domestic enough to want to go through all that.

I'm almost all set for our traditional feast. I even bought marshmallows for the yams. I really hate marshmallows on the yams but the SO and kids like them. I do need to go back and pick up a few little things I forgot, but at least this year I won't be picking up the pre-ordered meal *and* shopping for side dishes Thanksgiving morning. Yep, that's been done a couple times.

This year the thing we won't be doing on Thanksgiving is taking the traditional drive down to Southern California like we've done for the past 9 years. Up till now we've all packed up and gone down to Bakersfield the night before the family get together. Sometimes due to travel and sibling in-laws we have our meal the day after Thanksgiving. That means we arrive in Bakersfield Thanksgiving night and the town has rolled up the sidewalks.

Dinner is from whatever we can find open. If we're early enough it's MacDonald's. One year we got in pretty late and it was the AM/PM mini mart. We take a couple hotel rooms with an ajoining door and fall exhausted into bed. The next morning it's off to Mom and Dad's. Some years ago Dad used to cook the turkey in a Weber Kettle BBQ. I loved those turkeys. Especially the skin. My sister in law always brought the fixings for this great cranberry/whipped cream thing and everyone had a chore - the food prep was always delegated by my ex-miltary Dad. As the kids got older there were always a lot of busy hands. At least he'd make up a list and let us pick what we wanted to do. And the list had the times we had to do everything, too. The meal always came together precisely. Amazing guy, Dad.

My dad always had the place all decorated for Christmas - tree up, Dickens' Village displayed (that's an entire blog to itself - but 'village' is a misnomer - he had a real metropolis). After the meal we'd play a game or two that my brother would bring - those games that made you think, not board games. I can't remember the names but there was one that you got clues about a crime and had to solve it and other brain teaser type games like that. When it got late we'd head back to Bakersfield, fall exhausted into bed and then get up early for the drive home. The SO knows how to make time on the I-5 so we're typically home by lunch.

Like I said, this year with my son's job and my daughter's move, we're not going south. I will try to make it a nice occasion and hope that we don't miss the family too much. I know none of us will miss the drive or the hotel. I feel a bit sad that the first year without Mom, Dad will also be having Thanksgiving without me and mine, but since neither of my siblings bothered to ask what my plans were and if there was any way to accomodate them, I'm thinking that I won't be much missed.

I took today off so I could do a couple things. One is pick up the moving truck for my daughter. The other is clean. I'm not a great housekeeper so it will be less than Herculean but more than "just a little tiding up will do it"

I hope you all have wonderful Thanksgivings. Blessings on all of you, I'm very thankful we've had a chance to connect.



Dawno