November 27, 2007

Fires

Thanksgiving unfolded very nicely. This was memorable, and I hope Craig and I can always have this tucked away to remember. Our flight was scheduled for 6 sharp Thursday morning, the first flight out of LaGuardia. I will say this much for LGA: leave on the first flight out, always, if possible. Don't aim for a mid-day (which is what we've got scheduled for our trip to Mexico and that has me worried...) because by then, flights have had time to back up and become delayed and be a nuisance and overall not yield good travel scenarios. Regardless, we flew out only 10 minutes late, after cruising through security with our single bags and pre-printed boarding passes and so forth, and even after I awaited every vendor in the airport to open a little after 5 so that I could get coffee and magazines, two whole staple items for flying longer than 35 minutes, in my estimation. We landed in Chicago (Midway) around 7, and Ed was waiting for us at the cell phone lot, as always, always. Craig called him and he drove to retrieve us and we rode the half hour to Whiting, Indiana, and there his mom was building our Thanksgiving feast and Craig's younger sister was also there with her husband and amazing tiny baby boy who captured my heart immediately. He is such a precious little guy, almost unreal, how shiny his eyes are and alert and wide, how firm his little body is to hold! Oh, I am so happy to have spent time with him, even just a little. So then my parents were well on their way from Michigan (it will forever remain difficult for me to place them there, 25 miles west of where I met Craig in Ann Arbor in 2000, right outside where I considered myself to become an adult for the first time, post-college) and they arrived in Whiting around 11, I think, and we guided them to Craig's parents', and then there it happened, in a few beats of the heart, our parents met! It went rather well, really, all things considered. My parents were nervous, and possibly so were Craig's, but everything turned out just fine. My dad's elbow glided with the edge of the linen napkin and a flame from the tea candles we had at our individual place settings, which resulted in a 1" diameter hole in an heirloom linen napkin (not good) but Craig's parents very kindly smoothed out the discomfort of that moment. My poor dad! He was mortified. Anyway, the whole day went well, despite how long it felt due to the fact we had been awake since 3 E.S.T. My head grew heavy around mid-afternoon and I needed sleep seriously by 9 that night. Craig and I turned in early.*Friday morning we jumped in his dad's car and went to meet my parents and Aunt Claude and Uncle Jim for lunch. That went well, too. I haven't seen Jim and Claude for quite some time - they looked good and seemed happy. They live just outside of Chicago, so they met us over in the Northwest Indiana area. My parents gave Craig and I some cash for Cabos and my mom found a ridiculously great recipe organizer - a book with plastic dividers to hold recipe cards, et cetera. I'm overjoyed by it because not only is it cute, but it also serves my entire food fascination and organization obsession well. I have close to 100 or more cards to fill now, and that should not be a problem whatsoever.*Speaking of food, tonight I made a terribly perfect Asian peanut sauce with Chicken and Red Pepper served over Jasmine rice. The recipe calls to be served on Japanese noodles (which I mentioned at the time I made it last, I think) but those suck. I much prefer the light delight of Jasmine rice. Craig raved and raved, which I take as a great sign.*So, strange things are happening this week. Tonight Sharon is putting her old sick cat to sleep. Tomorrow we meet to discuss an old story (which I must work on soon to send to her tonight.) Thursday Craig and I are going to see a band I haven't thought of since I was a young toolish teenager, a band which sings weird lyrics about death and dying and killing, called My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. Friday, then, we are going to see Andrew Bird, whose song called "Lull" has me mesmerized beyond comprehension (I listened to it on repeat too many times to admit to flying over the thick fog of the Midwest on our way back home Saturday night, and it turned my head over and over again in ways a song hasn't done in a while.) I think Saturday belongs to us, hopefully a quiet day and night which finds us recovering from two school night functions back-to-back.*I'm off to wrap up some editing on the old story. I could go on and on, all about traveling and how it felt and how it feels radically perfect to have the right mate in my life, the most perfect best friend a girl could want, but I really do need to send Sharon something for tomorrow. I feel so bad about her cat. It's another reason for me to not invest in a pet (emotionally). They wind up in sad situations like tonight's/Sharon's.*More to come.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm SOO glad to hear that things went well for the first official meeting! :) Too bad about the linen napkin, but I'm sure it's one of those things you will laugh about with your grandkids! :) Did you guys save the napkin for safe keeping???

xoxo

10:18 PM  

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