Anyway, here is a picture of my awesome Aunt Winnie, pictured here with my awesome nieces and their dog, Patches. Then, the Thanksgiving story circa 2006.
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| Aubrey, Winnie, Patches, & Elyse, 2009 |
So, Thanksgiving was yesterday, for us Americans anyway. I
went to my mom and dad’s house, enjoyed the family time, ate too much, and
brought home a load of leftovers. This is a good thing, because until the
leftovers entered the picture, my refrigerator had the following items in it: a
pitcher of water, ketchup, a half bottle of Sake, and ice cubes in the freezer
section. But alas! While I was putting away the leftovers, I noticed that
somehow, I’d ended up with a Tupperware container of dark meat turkey instead
of white meat turkey. I don’t like the dark meat. It tends to be gristly and
slimy, and I don’t like either of those adjectives for my animal byproducts. I immediately
called my mom to inform her of the horrible error. She calmly told me that my
great-aunt, Winnie, probably had the white meat in her possession, and it was a
simple mistake.
This is terrible! I thought to myself. How can I make delicious white meat sandwiches with gravy and tons of pepper if I don’t have white meat? Not nearly as upset about it as I’m making it seem, I went to bed, slept for 10 hours, and then called my dear Aunt Winnie this morning to see about making a trade. She, of course, was fine with that. Since she’d intended on taking home the dark meat anyway. She only lives about five miles from my place, so I told her I’d be right over.
It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Remember? People who own businesses call it “Black Friday” because they are assuming/hoping that all the After Thanksgiving Christmas Present Shoppers who have the day off work will put their accounting books in the black for the first time all year. Yay for them, no more debt! I don’t do shopping much (see aforementioned comment on refrigerator contents for an explanation), so this doesn’t concern me. No crowded parking lots. No long lines. No accrued debt. However, I live in an apartment building that has, within reasonable walking distance (if one was so inclined as to walk) about eight shopping centers—two of them quite large. It took me... oh... 10 minutes... to get out of my parking lot (it opens onto one of the main drags). It took me three light changes to turn onto the road I needed to get to for the 5-mile trip to Winnie’s. The light, by the way, is about 100 yards away from my parking lot. Traffic was obscene, to say the least.
Thirty minutes later, I was almost at the end of what should have been a 10-minute journey. As I turned the corner into my Aunt Winnie’s parking lot, I realized I’d forgotten a vital ingredient on this pilgrimage: the dark meat. Doh! With tears in my eyes, I turned around and headed back toward the madness of my neighborhood.
I returned, ran up the stairs, got the meat, ran back downstairs... and waited ten minutes for the cop car to move that was blocking my exit. Ugh. Got back onto the main drag, and another cop drove by, lights flashing. Which, of course, completely stops traffic for a good ten minutes. Once I was out of the rush of the mall section of the city, I relaxed a bit. The cop cars and shoppers were eerily replaced almost at an equal ratio by dog walkers. Chihuahuas in sweaters, Alaskan Malamutes wagging their Hulk-squirrel tails, Poodles (usually in pairs, oddly enough), English Springers prancing along like they were at a show, fluffy little mutts walking fast to keep up with the kids that seemed to always have THEM on the other end of the leash... they were everywhere. It was cute. Yes, I said cute.
I arrived at Winnie’s and made the trade. I know she wanted me to stay and visit, but this trip had already taken me an hour longer than anticipated, and I’d left my apartment with lights on, an icy cold Sprite on the computer desk (the cat probably knocked it over by now), and having just thrown on dirty clothes in order to get the job done. She commented on my hair (it’s short now, and I didn’t “do” it today, so it’s, like, major bed head style going every which way, stickin’ up mostly on one side, that sort of thing). She also gave me three newspaper articles to read (she clips them and sends them to everyone she knows). One on dogs—because I like dogs; one on homeless people—because I do volunteer work with them; and one on single women in their 30s—because that’s me. It’s nice that she’s thoughtful about specifics. I wouldn’t want to read articles on mating season inBangladesh .
Well, maybe I would. But that’s another topic.
Anyway, I left 15 minutes later. Saw more dog walkers on the drive home. Many of them. As I approached the ramp to get back ontoSnelling Avenue , I saw that the bridge I’d
soon be crossing had a lot of flashing lights. Then I saw that the ramp was
blocked off by two cop cars. So I had to take an EXTRA 15 minutes to drive down
to the next road that would get me going the right way (Saint Paul city streets were built by drunken Irishmen). On
this alternate route (Dale Street, if you must know), there were less dog
walkers (but still a few) and lots of cop cars. All of them parked alongside
the road, but with cops inside. It was almost creepy.
Back to my neighborhood. A fender bender happened about a minute before I arrived at the street before my apartment building. I had to take ANOTHER detour, through a Target parking lot, and wait at two more lights. Finally... finally... I got back to my apartment. I rolled up the window, turned off the ignition, got out of the car, lugged my butt up to the third floor, unlocked my apartment door, kicked off my shoes, noted that the Sprite had not been knocked over... and realized I’d left the Tupperware container full of white meat turkey in the car.
Forgetaboutit. It’s as cold as a refrigerator outside. It can stay there for a bit.
This is terrible! I thought to myself. How can I make delicious white meat sandwiches with gravy and tons of pepper if I don’t have white meat? Not nearly as upset about it as I’m making it seem, I went to bed, slept for 10 hours, and then called my dear Aunt Winnie this morning to see about making a trade. She, of course, was fine with that. Since she’d intended on taking home the dark meat anyway. She only lives about five miles from my place, so I told her I’d be right over.
It’s the day after Thanksgiving. Remember? People who own businesses call it “Black Friday” because they are assuming/hoping that all the After Thanksgiving Christmas Present Shoppers who have the day off work will put their accounting books in the black for the first time all year. Yay for them, no more debt! I don’t do shopping much (see aforementioned comment on refrigerator contents for an explanation), so this doesn’t concern me. No crowded parking lots. No long lines. No accrued debt. However, I live in an apartment building that has, within reasonable walking distance (if one was so inclined as to walk) about eight shopping centers—two of them quite large. It took me... oh... 10 minutes... to get out of my parking lot (it opens onto one of the main drags). It took me three light changes to turn onto the road I needed to get to for the 5-mile trip to Winnie’s. The light, by the way, is about 100 yards away from my parking lot. Traffic was obscene, to say the least.
Thirty minutes later, I was almost at the end of what should have been a 10-minute journey. As I turned the corner into my Aunt Winnie’s parking lot, I realized I’d forgotten a vital ingredient on this pilgrimage: the dark meat. Doh! With tears in my eyes, I turned around and headed back toward the madness of my neighborhood.
I returned, ran up the stairs, got the meat, ran back downstairs... and waited ten minutes for the cop car to move that was blocking my exit. Ugh. Got back onto the main drag, and another cop drove by, lights flashing. Which, of course, completely stops traffic for a good ten minutes. Once I was out of the rush of the mall section of the city, I relaxed a bit. The cop cars and shoppers were eerily replaced almost at an equal ratio by dog walkers. Chihuahuas in sweaters, Alaskan Malamutes wagging their Hulk-squirrel tails, Poodles (usually in pairs, oddly enough), English Springers prancing along like they were at a show, fluffy little mutts walking fast to keep up with the kids that seemed to always have THEM on the other end of the leash... they were everywhere. It was cute. Yes, I said cute.
I arrived at Winnie’s and made the trade. I know she wanted me to stay and visit, but this trip had already taken me an hour longer than anticipated, and I’d left my apartment with lights on, an icy cold Sprite on the computer desk (the cat probably knocked it over by now), and having just thrown on dirty clothes in order to get the job done. She commented on my hair (it’s short now, and I didn’t “do” it today, so it’s, like, major bed head style going every which way, stickin’ up mostly on one side, that sort of thing). She also gave me three newspaper articles to read (she clips them and sends them to everyone she knows). One on dogs—because I like dogs; one on homeless people—because I do volunteer work with them; and one on single women in their 30s—because that’s me. It’s nice that she’s thoughtful about specifics. I wouldn’t want to read articles on mating season in
Anyway, I left 15 minutes later. Saw more dog walkers on the drive home. Many of them. As I approached the ramp to get back onto
Back to my neighborhood. A fender bender happened about a minute before I arrived at the street before my apartment building. I had to take ANOTHER detour, through a Target parking lot, and wait at two more lights. Finally... finally... I got back to my apartment. I rolled up the window, turned off the ignition, got out of the car, lugged my butt up to the third floor, unlocked my apartment door, kicked off my shoes, noted that the Sprite had not been knocked over... and realized I’d left the Tupperware container full of white meat turkey in the car.
Forgetaboutit. It’s as cold as a refrigerator outside. It can stay there for a bit.
Happy Thanksgiving! And remember: Be grateful every day.
Crazy moments like that leave the best memories! So much better than the typical ran an errand and nothing exciting happened. Without the chaos, you might not have remembered it so well. I'm thankful for little moments.
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