It's been a relatively laid back, easy-going Thanksiving this year. That's in part due to our extended family deciding not to meet up together as an absurdly large unit, which we normally do, and that decision is in part due to such facts as the unstable economy, family living distances away in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and various areas in Maryland. Normally we would brave against such sensible decisions as staying home and being calm and relaxed and congregate somewhere, but this year my mother and father both are hobbled by injuries and surgeries they've had in the past year. And so...here we are...spending Thanksgiving as an immediate nuclear family unit in Forest Hill, MD.
We ate what could be called "dinner" at around...1pm, but that was because my younger brother Matthew and his girlfriend Laura needed to head on down to Columbia, MD in order to visit with the part of her family that lives there. So as a family we decided to eat earlier than normal.
The meal itslef was fairly simple and small for a traditional Polish-American gorge-fest.
No pierogi.
No gołąbki.
Not even any macowiec for dessert.
It was, in fact, very American. Turkey (sans stuffing), with gravy, mashed up potatoes, green beans covered in garlic and butter (okay so that's at least "Ukranian style"), cranberry sauce (from the can), and corn (from the can), along with one pumpkin pie (store bought), and one pecan pie (made by a friend of mine) for dessert. Things couldn't have been more traditionally American...except for the discussions before, during, and after the early dinner.
I started off the morning by waking up around 7:45am and making my way downstairs to take a three mile run on the treadmill. My mother was already up and warned me not to let the dogs downstairs seeing as she didn't want them to get snapped or stuck in any of mousetraps in the basement.
Yes. My parents have mice loose in the house and they're using traps to fight their presence --- both the snapping and glue variety. I find glue traps to be exceptionally cruel and barbaric. I can remember living with an ex in Dallas and we were beset with mice and rats in our house. It was awful...especially whenever we caught a mouse, or a rat in a glue trap. One doesn't see a verminous scavenger in that situation, but a lost, suffering, anxiety-ridden creature who has no idea what is happening.
At that time I disposed of these traps in one of two cruel ways (neither of which I enjoyed doing). I either decided to put the mouse out of its misery by beating it to death against the concrete curb outside our house (because...you know...a hammer was just...inhumane...), or, after giving up on the "beating method," I would simply take the glue trap and toss it into a nearby dumpster and try not to think about the rodent's suffering. Eventually, we decided to use high pitched frequency emitters that kept the mice away...miraculously.
I should suggest those things to my parents because they didn't seem to bother that particular ex's dog, and my parents have two dogs. However, they haven't gotten with the "high frequency" program yet, and my older brother George has a most interesting way of getting rid of mice caught in glue traps...one he was able to implement not once, but twice this morning before dinner.
He puts on a pair of rubber gloves, walks into the basement where the trapped mouse is "resting" (or resisting its fate), puts the mouse (trap and all) into a plastic grocery bag, ties a knot into the top of the bag, and then walks back upstairs, leaves the house via the garage door, and walks out to the far edge of my parents' large lawn where stands a large fire pit, that looks more like pot-bellied fireplace with a smoke stack. Prior to having walked into the basement, George had started a fire with a crude assortment of kindling sources and fuels made of layers of coal, small bits of wood, paper, and all lit with a small butane lighter. When he gets out there, he tosses the mouse, bag and all, into the flames and let's it burn to death. So while the turkey is roasting in the oven, my older brother is in the backyard roasting a mouse or two.
Charming, I know.
I tried to focus on which wine I would rather drink with dinner...the Riesling, or the Beaujolais Nouveau. White tends to go better with turkey...according to the signs at the liquor store. I couldn't help but wonder, "What goes with mouse? My guess would be...the red?" My mother tried suggesting that we try some port with dinner, but I had to be the one to tell her that's much more of a dessert wine. We should wait to try that with the the pecan and pumpkin pies. "And not with the mice," I thought.
Eventually, the mice were no longer an issue, and had, metaphorically, long burned away from our memories. Time flies when cooking, setting the table, burning rodents, and serving food. One would think all that could follow would be pleasant conversation...
My mother gave a lovely toast at dinner, but my thoughts stayed elsewhere during her giving thanks for a lovely, simple dinner, and her whole family (inlcuding my younger brother's girlfriend...for whom I had to choke back grumbles of disapproval when my mother called her "a part of the family"). About ten minutes before sitting down my father started complaining about the new president of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski...
Apparently President Komorowski thought it would be a good idea to invite former President, and general of the Polish armed forces responsible for imposing the last bout of martial law in Poland, Wojciech Jaruzelski, to a meeting of the National Security Council, comprising of former presidents and prime ministers, ahead of Russian President Medvedev’s visit in December. This invitation is more than a bit of a scandal in Poland...as well as in my parents' houselhold...even more so because my father and I both voted in the most recent Polish Presidential election that put Komorowski into the Polish President's office. However, my father voted for Komorowski's opponent, Jarosław Kaczyński, who is a bit of a conservative and a nationalist. I voted for...Komorowski...a fact that, at the time, and to do this day, has never pleased my father. He even once remarked, "What is wrong with you?" I looked back at him and said, "You voted for McCain and Palin and you ask what is wrong with me?" That conversation ended quickly...as do most political discussions between my father and I.
However, for the first time in my life, my father has been finding little ways to dig "the Komorowski problem" into my side like a knife with any small, questionable decision he makes. So, a hugely questionable decision, like officially inviting someone who many Solidarity-era Poles consider to be a traitor and a tyrant, to a Security Council meeting is a boon for my father in saying (without actually having to say it), "See!? You voted for a piece of shit and an idiot!" Smatterings of this point came up during dinner, and dessert with such generalized, but very pointed questions, like, "Who would vote for an idiot like that?" I wonder...
My brother George, fresh from his adventures in burning living mice, chimed in with such gems as, "What's Jaruzelski going to suggest to Komorowski? 'Hey...let's leave NATO and the European Union, reinstitute making religion illegal, and bring Poland back to the Dark Ages!'" Yeah...to my brother's and father's credit, Komorowski did suggest leaving NATO during his presidential run...and then turned around on that suggestion.
However, my father also reminded us of that point during dinner. "That idiot even suggested leaving NATO!"
I kept my head down and just mumbled something like, "Yeah...that's great. Could someone pass the mouse...I mean...turkey?"
We ate. We drank. We napped.
Like I wrote earlier...a perfectly straightforward American Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving one and all.
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