As I'm sure I've mentioned once or twice or thirty times, I love Thanksgiving. And it has begun.First, today was the day of The Big Pep Rally! at school. It almost amazes me how much I totally loved this crap when I was junior class advisor. I was incredibly into it, let the kids spray my hair with school colors, and so forth. I did wear my football jersey today -- almost all of the teachers wear some kind of school shirt, whatever they have (although the SCM never has; he'll wear brown and say "Isn't this red?", but now he just doesn't come in because it's the day before a break) -- and I went to the pep rally because I had to. My "assignment" was to be in the senior bleachers, but really, I was there to take pictures for the website, which is the assignment I requested. It also lets me leave before the end, so I can go back up to the library and get them online.
School was over at 12:30, so I came home and had lunch and then K and I went to buy the last of the holiday foods, as well as stuff for her to eat while she's home. Most amazingly, I found everything on my list in one supermarket, a good omen if ever there was one. Now she's off to the mall and to get a haircut, and R, I think, is at motor vehicles getting her new car registered, so we'll go pick that up when she comes in. Cool.
Normally, I bake pumpkin pies on the day before Thanksgiving, since they have to chill overnight or for several hours. But I don't think I will today. There is just no place for the pies in the fridge until I take out all the veggies tomorrow. Since I wake up at the crack of dawn every day, it shouldn't be a problem to make them in the morning. I usually make two pies and promise the others in my house that I'll make a third one on Friday, but to tell the truth, I never do. So I'm going to make three this year. That's a lot of fridge space.
I expect to spend the day tomorrow in the kitchen, the only day of the year I do so, and I generally enjoy it. It would probably be more pleasant if I had more than two square feet of counter space to work with -- that is not an exaggeration -- but it's kind of like a choreographed day, do this, move here, wash that, dry this, start over. The Hubs makes the stuffing, often the night before, but that's out due to space restrictions, so we'll have to coordinate that tomorrow, too. The turkey is fairly small, about 11 pounds. We're not big turkey eaters. So it won't be out of the fridge super-early, which is too bad, because that's what's actually taking up all the space in there, of course. Even a little turkey needs a lot of room.
So, mammogram. The Sibs and I went to this new place, a small but very, very nice office called something like the Women's Imaging Center, a place which was incredibly patient-focused. It was so nice there, the place and the people. This place does digital mammography -- I didn't know how that would be functionally different -- and here's how it went. I went in first, to a room with trompe l'oeil art on the walls, a chintz couch, and a traditional looking mammogram machine. The technician put a pad on the machine, something like a mouse pad, and I stepped up. She took the traditional four shots, and let me tell you, the pain was absolutely minimal. It may have been the pad, it may have been her method. As she takes the shots, they come up on a computer screen, not on film, and go immediately to the radiologist, who is two rooms down the hall. She was reading my shots while my sister was getting hers done. I had to go back for one more, but I went right away, no scary waiting for hours while your films develop and a radiologist takes his sweet time looking at it. When the doctor had looked at all the shots for both of us, she came out, shook our hands and told us everything was fine. The people there were incredibly nice. We had gotten there at 9:00. By 10:00, we were back in the car. It was excellent, nothing like the last several years at the clinic we've been going to, which was once nice and cozy too, but always a clinic in a hospital. And never as nice as this place.
R just called; she's on her way home with the registration and then we're off to pick up her new baby. We may be going out to dinner tonight. It remains to be seen who will be driving.
Good Thanksgiving, all.
