Weekend Plans Post: Getting Ready for Thanksgiving
My sister and her husband will be going on a big old trip for their 25th anniversary. One of those places where they can wear bathing suits and enjoy boat drinks while they leave the kiddos and the grammas back here in the Mountain Time Zone. My sister apologized to us all as she told us that she would not be hosting Thanksgiving this year and so we’d have to do the heavy lifting.
So I turned to the nephews and asked them “Do you want Philly Cheese Steaks for Thanksgiving?”
Their eyes got as big as saucers and their jaws dropped for a moment before they yelled “YEAH!!!” The grammas both looked relieved for a moment and then started arguing among themselves about who’d get the ingredients for what and what desserts and sides we’d need.
My sister looked at us aghast and asked, sincerely, “are you guys *NOT* going to do Thanksgiving?”
“Of course we are. We’re going to have Philly Cheese Steaks!”
I mean, seriously. You’re going down to the Tropic of Cancer. You have given up the right on what to tell us what to eat.
“Fine. I’m going to do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for Christmas, then.”
“Fine.”
Anyway, this weekend, we’re going to start to do the shopping for Thanksgiving. While Steak-Um is usually a good choice, I discovered Gary’s Quick Steak during the lockdown during a period where the stores were inexplicably out of Steak-Ums. I, seriously, had a hankering for a cheese steak sandwich and so I made do and picked up a pack of Gary’s and HOLY COW AM I GLAD I DID.
It’s like Steak-Ums, but better. We’re going to be getting jalapeno poppers (put them underneath the steak), onions and sweet peppers, provelone slices and Cheez-Whiz. We want Ore-Ida fries as the side and pie and ice cream for dessert.
And it’s going to be a fine, fine Thanksgiving that the boys will remember for decades. (I hope!)
I’ll be bringing a board game of some sort for after the dinner and then it’s back home and checking to see if anybody is camped out in front of Best Buy on the way.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Mom’s Jacket”. Photo taken by Maribou.)
In a couple hours I leave here to go to a train station a couple hours away, then hop on an Amtrak to go to my mom’s. I get a few days with her before the whirlwind that is my brother’s family arrives. I packed yesterday afternoon so I should be ready to go once I’m out of class (and have eaten lunch, and put some lamps on timers, and made sure to turn off/unplug everything I can….)Report
That should be fun.
For the record, we always described our family of eight more as locusts than whirlwind when we descended upon relatives.Report
As long as the traditional Leg of Lamb is still being served, you can drop the Turkey. Mark Twain said that. Usually we have freshly harvested Venison… but we haven’t harvested any yet, so pressure’s on. Save us some Steakums just in case.
We have some of those friends who you raised your babies with before they had to move away for work coming ‘home’ for Thanksgiving; one of the babies now has babies… so we’ll have toddlers at the table for the first time in a while.
Tomorrow is opening day for Rifle season and, well, this side of the rapture the venison ain’t gonna present itself.Report
Mission accomplished, no steakums for us… got a medium sized 8-point buck. Probably a bachelor buck waiting to take down the lord of the forest… but not the king stag himself. That’s par for our neck of the woods — bachelor’s hall we call it.Report
We got skunked this year on craft fairs (rain moved in and stayed on a 7-day cycle that coincided with the weekend, so we had four shows cancelled in a row) so we found one up by my parents. It’ll be The Furthest From The Shire That We’ve Ever Been, but the little van ought to handle it OK.Report
…then it’s back home and checking to see if anybody is camped out in front of Best Buy on the way.
Since the beginning of the month, I have been inundated with Best Buy e-mails telling me I don’t have to wait in line, I can get prices at least as good as Black Friday online now.Report
I don’t know the extent to which the Pandemic messed up the whole Black Friday thing. I mean, it was a great opportunity to open at, like, human hours. 7AM or something.
I don’t know the extent to which the internet has changed things.
But there were people camping in 2019 and there weren’t in 2020 or 2021.
And last year we went to my sister’s instead of to one of the two gramma’s.
So this year is the first time that I’ll be able to check in what feels like forever.Report
I think the internet and COVID have conspired to kill this particular practice. Yesterday my MIL was over and we took the opportunity to buy here a new laptop and monitor off Best Buy’s website. They’re already offering “Black Friday” deals.
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At this point the people doing door busters and whatnot are in it for love of the game, not the deals.Report
There’s a great scene… well… maybe not a *GREAT* scene… a really *MEMORABLE* scene in Reservoir Dogs where we see Michael Masden’s character walk over to a radio and turn the radio up. We see him dance to the song as he interacts with the cop and then, he says something like “I’ll be right back” and he walks outside and the music changes. The music that we, the audience, hears is no longer the music on the radio. It’s the music in the movie. Then he walks back inside and the music changes again. It’s, once again, music that we’re hearing that Michael Masden’s character is also hearing.
The film studies terms are “Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Music”. Diagetic Music is music that the character in the movie hears. He gets into his car and turns on the radio. He gets back to his apartment and blows off an old record and puts it on the turntable. He turns up a radio and dances before he interacts with a cop.
Non-Diagetic Music is music that only we hear. The thrill of strings as the assassin looks through the sniper rifle’s scope. The jangling guitar as the two cowboys face off. The drums as the entrepreneurs walk down the hallway.
Well, sometimes music videos do this sort of thing too. My favorite example is Quarashi’s use of microphones in the first minute of their video “Stick Em Up”.
The moment where the boxer, being interviewed, grabs the mic and starts rapping? Where the referee grabs the mic and, instead of explaining the rules, starts rapping?
It’s a good joke and, as rock rap goes, better than Limp Biskit.Report
Yeesh I clicked the video and was immediately reminded how much I hated the rap rock thing. So much late 90s/early 2000s music is completely indefensible.
But it is definitely an amusing trick for a music video.Report
We are taking it as easy as possible this weekend after several packed weekends back to back. My older son has his last flag football game of the season Sunday, which should be the highlight. He’s demanding the move to tackle football next year which his mother and I are trying to find a way to get comfortable with.
Thanksgiving will be at my parents this year. My dad’s birthday falls on the day of and my mom asked to have it at her house for the occasion (usually it falls in such a way we do a smaller get together for him the Saturday after). I conceded on condition I get it back at my house next year, which I have been assured will be the case. Seeing as how we have a 4 month old if there was ever a year to do it somewhere else this is it. However I have been tasked with the turkey so I will take all my frying gear up thw road. Forecast is looking cold but clear which I hope holds, since unlike at my house there’s nowhere there with cover.Report
Personally never liked cooking in someone else’s home; but I’m sure it will be fun for you though….
4 mos is towards the end of peak portability… so good move on your part.Report
Yea I am not thrilled about cooking over there. The primary beneficiary of the switch up is my wife. But hey she deserves it.Report