Wendy's Wonderings

A Thanksgiving to Remember Part 2...

We all reached the bathroom and found a gut wrenching sight. Yes, my friends, the plumbing had backed up. The toilet was overflowing, “stuff” was backing up into the bathtub; it was a mess. My brother managed to get the toilet turned off, and we began throwing towels onto the floor, trying to get up all of the water. It took every towel under the sink and even the ones from the hamper to get all of the water. It was anarchy. Especially since there were so many of us trying to “help”, and only 2 people can fit in that bathroom, and not comfortably.

We, finally, got the floor cleaned up, mopped, bleached, and the towels in the washing machine. But, we still had one more problem; how do you get a plumber to your house on Thanksgiving morning, and HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST?!

Answer: You don't, and you don’t want to know. We had to use the second bathroom instead, and the plumber came the next day, and the next, and the next…. and the next. They dug up the yard. It wasn’t pretty.

But, back to Thanksgiving Day; with that situation ‘handled’ we began working on dinner, again. The turkey, finally, finished cooking and I prepared the ham to be cooked. I cook my ham the way my Momma cooks ham, and the way my Nana cooked her ham. With pineapple slices, cherries, brown sugar and whole cloves. I noticed the cloves were a lot harder to put in the ham this time though. Peculiar…

I put the ham in the oven and set the timer for about an hour. The timer went off I took the ham out and tried to cut it. The knife would NOT go into the ham. What’s up with that?! Then, I looked at it. REALLY looked at it. It looked kind of funny. I touched it, again. It felt funny, and cold.

In frustration I stabbed the ham, and then I realized… yes, friends, I still had the brown paper wrapped around the ham.

Go ahead, laugh… I’ll give you a moment….

SO, I unwrapped the ham, and discovered it was still cold. That brown paper makes really good insulation. I put new cherries, pineapple, brown sugar, and whole cloves on it. The cloves went in MUCH easier this time; and put it in the oven for another hour.

For those of you keeping track, yes it IS after 12:00 pm. The already cooked pineapple and cherries made a good snack. I may, or may not have licked the brown sugar from the brown paper.

So, with everyone STARVING, and dinner not nearly ready we made sandwiches. After an hour the ham was FINALLY ready. We made the rest of the sides. Then, we carved the turkey…. And guess what I found inside….

Yep, a nicely cooked bag of giblets. Guess the turkey company remembered to put them in after all. But, you know what? By this time I didn’t care! I took them out with a pair of tongs, threw them in the trash and I served that darn bird anyway!

Yes, it was a challenging morning; dinner was late, and it was a long day. But, it ended well and no one got sick. I call that a successful Thanksgiving meal and one I will NEVER forget. ;-)

This year my family is serving turkey roasts. I'm still doing the ham though, minus the brown paper. :-)

Love,

Wendy Darling