Thanksgiving survivors

Happy Thanksgiving, All!

We were very exited to be close enough to drive up to my mother-in-law's for a weekend of fun and eating.  See, moving home is great, because you can get together and plan a big meal to share with you family in person, and then get together AGAIN and share it.  How cool!  Right?  I mean, that was kinda how it turned out.  Thanksgiving Eve, as it were, I started feeling not awesome- achey, sleepy, sore throat.  By the time Matt came home I was reduced to shivers on the couch under a pile of blankets.  In a brief moment of clear-minded-ness brought on by Tylenol, I remember 'Hey sometimes people don't like it when you bring them germs as hostess gifts.'  I tried to explain this to Matt, but I am pretty sure my pathetic muttering came off as much more "Please take me to your mom's, she'll take care of me." 

In the morning Matt confirmed, that yes, his saintly mother would still take us and all the germs we could carry for Thanksgiving AND put our entire, ambitious feast on the table.  Whadda Woman!  Picture this, I moved directly from the couch to the car, took a long nap in the car and arrived in slippers, sweats and a fleece blanket thrown over my head.  I gave a big hug Betty, who made me a cup of tea, which I immediately took to bed.  At some point, Matt poked his head in to ask how you make sausage cornbread stuffing.  I believe my exact recipe was "Sausage, Cornbread and more butter."  I woke up once thinking I might be energetic and asked "Are we having mashed potatoes?" and then went back to bed.  I don't know that I felt so terrible, but being awake and suffering just didn't seem in the cards.  During one of my brief peroids of awakefulness, Matt did say that he was feeling achey, maybe from his workout.  This is a literary device called forshadowing. After a couple more naps and mugs of tea, dinner happened! 

And let me just brag on this spread, because I optimistically committed us to it and then didn't lift a finger to get it on the table.  I thought surely, the two remaining chefs would decide chard AND Brussels sprouts is overkill, or that maybe a waldorf salad was redundant considering we had like 4 other vegetable dishes on the table- but no.  No pan was spared in the making of our Thanksgiving feast, which should come as no surprise given our turn-outs in the past.  The centerpiece was of course a beautiful, herbed and brined turkey.  Together, they made an amazing sausage and cornbread (that Betty baked fresh) stuffing, as well as Brussels sprouts with sopressetta, creamed chard, mashed potatoes and parsnips and a green casserole which I managed to muff up by giving him crunchy onions that expired 2 years ago (uh, yeah, we moved with that....).  There was also a heavenly sweet potatoe dish, an heirloom quality orange-cranberry relish and a divine pumpkin cheesecake.  AND a waldorf salad, which while I supposed Bety didn't grow the nuts, everything else in it was home grown AND my-mother-in-law's-best-recipe Deviled Eggs and a crazy good gravy to drown everything in.  It was amazing.  It took like and hour to move it all on to the table, and then on to each of our plates.  And now is a good time to clarify, that yes, it was just the three of us eating.  We of course ate ourselves silly, and then retired the feast to the fridge until we could consider cheesecake.  I believe I had another nap.  And about the time I got up to eating cheesecake, Matt said that, no, he didn't want any, he would just go to bed.  Which I thought was weird- especially when I tasted how good the cheesecake was!  By my bed time, my throat was just feeling bruised from swelling and I was tired, but Matt had mumbled a goodbye, and then curled up on the bed, fully clothed and passed out.  Uh-oh.

He spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and feeling awful.  He woke up in the morning sort of confused about it, like he often is about when his body does not respond as directed.  After some discussion, we concluded that maybe you don't only need to take medicine when you are SICK, if you use a narrow definition of SICK that requires hospitalization, maybe sometimes you can take some medicine when you don't feel good.  Having some aleve in him made it easier to get him interested in drinking juice, but unfortunately, his interest in food was completely off.  Betty and I went for a brief sprint around town for "black friday" shopping- we went to the gallery, and her friend's gallery and the grocery store for more lemons for my lemon honey tea.  I got some beautiful cards, and then was in sore need of a nap.  I cannot exaggerate the amount I slept this weekend.  Matt and I barely saw each other we were sleeping so much.  This is partly due to illness, but I think also a cry for help in the form of blackout curtains for our bedroom.  By today, we both felt with it enough to pack our own things out to the car and stay awake for the long (2 hours) drive home.  Matt took a shower, put on all his warm clothes and came to sit on the couch with me.  Then the cat yurped, and after he recovered his dignity, he came to be the cherry on top of our sick family sundae. 

As objectively bad as most of that sounds, it was actually a really nice weekend.  I mean, if you have to be sick, it is so much nicer to be around people who want to take care of you and can make tea without batting an eye.  I'm thoroughly convinced our health was buoyed up by a full array of hearty and nourishing foods, prepared lovingly by my (blessedly un-infected) mother-in-law.  And if we left too many germs behind, I will totally rush back to concrete to make the tea and prime the DVDs.