11/27/2008 – Thanksgiving Day and my baby girl’s first birthday.

The family woke up at 8:00AM highly anticipating: Jaye’s pumpkin muffins, turkey, cranberries, Nana’s gourmet mashed potatoes with squash (and cream!), Nana’s traditional yam casserole with oatmeal and cranberries and marshmallows, (which let’s face it is a richer version of apple crisp that we pass off as a side dish) string beans, creamed onions (which never got made this year), two kinds of cranberry sauce which the kids dubbed cranberry relish and cranberry jel-ish, pumpkin, pecan and apple pie, and birthday cake.

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

We attempt to watch the parade with the kids, but they are too wound up. The baby goes down for a nap and Jaye takes the other 2 for a walk in the double jogger. I work on belching monkey while the baby zomps. Wife gets back from the walk, the baby wakes up from her nap and we furiously get ready (at the last minute) for overnight at Nana’s which is 45 minutes away.

The Call

Just as we are about to leave, Jaye’s phone rings. Why do we even say that phones ring anymore? Almost nobody’s phone rings. They usually sing or play a song to let us know that someone is calling. My tone for Gregory Ng is a digital sound. Jaye’s is boing-boing-boing. Anyway, I’m still popping a squat on the couch geeking away when I hear from the kitchen: “THE TURKEY IS ROTTEN!”.