Why do I look like I am standing on the set of, Days of our Lives?
It is because it was our turn to host Thanksgiving.
"And action!" said the director.
"If you ask me, dahling," (me, being the forever hot, Susan Lucci), "brine is just another four-letter word, with an e on the end of it."
"Cut!" she yells.
"What's wrong now?" I said.
"Susan Lucci was on All My Children, not, Days of Our Lives. And I thought you said you were going to clean the bathroom."
"Why do you have to be so negative all the time. It doesn't matter which show I name. All Soap Operas have wet bars in their living rooms, just like the one behind me. And I happen to believe that Erica Kane has a point."
"Like what?"
"As sure as Luke and Laura were meant to be together, Millie Noe and brine are not."
"Cut!" She says again.
"You see." Millie continues.
The director stomps out of the room, muttering something about Windex.
"To me, to brine a turkey is just another way for a man to complicate an otherwise simple holiday. And it is another way for Sven to mess up my kitchen. The very kitchen that I have been spit shining for three days. Fair warning. If your husband prints a recipe off the internet and starts asking things like, "Do we have Kosher Salt? What is Savory?" And, "Who has that deep fryer?" You are screwed. Because, once the cave man instinct, to make a fire and stand around a turkey that has been soaking up a drywall bucket's worth of salt-water and herbs, then patted dry and lowered into a pot of sizzling peanut oil, kicks in, it is absolutely going happen. Just as surely, As the World Turns. And why, you ask? What is the purpose of all of this hullabaloo? Ha Sven? When a traditional, roasted turkey or two, are already perfectly, perfect and pretty hard to fuck up, unless of course, you don't know that they put gizzards and necks and stuff in both ends of them. But I know that now. So, why?"
The director comes back into the living room. "Are you ready to get back to work yet?" she says.
"I am working," I say and point to the T.V. camera aimed at me. "This is how the soap opera T.V. set came about. Our daughter got married this last summer and I did not want to run out of anything on that very special day. When a reception is held, under a tent on your property, you can't just ask someone to run to the cellar and get some more of whatever you run out of, like they do in a hotel bar or a convention center. Oh wait. Yes, you can. If you shop at Costco, for three months straight. Which I did over my lunch breaks, with my friend, who at one point was convinced that I was a bootlegger. But that is okay. That is why I was able to set up the made for T.V. scene, for the family gathering, tomorrow."
The director glares at me and says, "Are you ready yet?"
"Me?"
"Action," she snapped.
I click my way over to the spread of bottles, in spikey, high heels, a dress that has my knees pressed together, making me walk a little pigeon toed and a pair of dangly, diamond earrings, surrounded with fourteen karat gold. I pour myself a shot of bourbon. On cue, I turn to face Sven and all of the cameras, and I say in a deep, throaty, voice, "Sven, dahling. I think I know who the father of my son is."
And then my Sven, wearing a dashing, fitted, black suit, loosens his tie. He pours a half a glass of scotch into one of those fancy cognac glasses and holds it, palm up, between his pointer and naughty finger. He thoughtfully rubs his two thirty, shadow and then takes a step closer to me. He pulls me in, tilts my chin up with one finger, looks searchingly into my sparkling eyes and whispers, "Do you think the father is my twin brother? The guy who has been dead since 1982 and popped back from of the grave last week? Or do you think it is Def Leopard's one-armed drummer? Or could it be your next-door neighbor?"
"No, dahling, I think the father is."
"CUT!!!!!"
"Now what?"
"Enough of this bullshit, Millie. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving!"
Jeez, what a crab she is. I was just trying to have some fun. And then the unimaginative, bossy me, had to show up.
So no. There were never any cameras.
It went down more like this.
I planned to clean our house from top to bottom. Thaw a couple of turkeys. Prepare enough stuffing for an army. And then mash twenty-five pounds of potatoes.
I was not worried. I had plenty of time.
How hard could it be?
Well, for starters, Millie Noe does not vacuum after lunch.
So, on Saturday, she met her sister Louisa, to watch the Badger game.
And Sunday is a holy day.
So.
But, when Monday arrived, she got down to business, after a pleasant ten hours of beauty rest and then traipsing around outside with Hunter and a cup of coffee.
Finally, she had fifteen pounds of peeled potatoes boiling in a large kettle on top of the stove, as well as another ten steaming pounds, in another bowl, accompanied with some, butter, salt, pepper and milk.
This happened to be the precise moment that Sven called out from the other room, "Hey, Mill, what is Lars' phone number?"
Why did Sven need Lars' number right then?
Lars' phone number is in my contacts.
As the potatoes whipped peacefully around, in the mesmerizing glass bowl, under the heavy-duty beaters from the seventies, I dared to pick up my phone, to look for it.
Now, I should explain to you, that all I have to do is peek at my contacts and my IPhone starts to dial those people up. For a phone that is so worried about security and has a password for every situation to keep strangers from getting into any of your personal stuff, so much security in fact, that I am regularly locked out of it, I find it odd that it doesn't give a shit that it calls people that I have no intention of calling, all the time. How secure is that?
I still do not know who my phone rang at that moment. Nor do I care. Because right then, the rubber, Pampered Chef Spatula, that I had been holding onto, was sucked up by those industrial sized beaters.
Wow, that makes a lot of noise.
And wow, a person could break a wrist if a person doesn't let go.
"Millie, why are you so rough with that vacuum?" Sven says to me next.
Those were Sven's last words.
One less plate to set at the table this year.
Just because a man has to patch a little drywall here and there because his wife vacuums without abandon, does not mean that a man should speak about it.
And furthermore, why the fuck do the cords have to get so tangled up all the God damned time?
Tuesday, I took a break from domestic drudgery. It was my mother's day to see her doctor and I was in charge. She broke her leg eight months ago and it is taking its sweet time to heal. But the good news is, she has been upgraded to walking with a cane now, while wearing a Herman Munster styled boot, if she so chooses.
She so chose.
After looking at the X-ray together and hearing the, "Well, why don't we give it another six weeks?" out of the mouth of Doctor McDreamy, my mom and I ran some errands. First it was Walgreens. Then the Dollar General. Then the grocery store. Then, it was beauty time at the salon. And after all that, we went out for lunch.
I don't know about you, but I was famished.
I can parallel park like nobody's business as long as there are two empty spaces in a row, so that I can pull straight in.
Well, we found two empty spaces in a row, near the top of Main Street.
We pulled straight in and walked together on the sidewalk down to the restaurant. My mother was latched to my elbow, and we listened to the rhythm of her tapping cane and her clunking boot.
Giselle joined us for lunch and it was all very nice.
But all nice things must come to an end and soon it was time for the trek back to the car, which, if you recall, was near the top of Main Street. That is a fair distance from the restaurant if you happen to be wearing a Herman Munster boot and have a cane.
"Millie, slow down, will ya?" says my mom, all out of breath, as I dragged her along. It was hard to slow down very much. I was already taking teeny, teeny, tiny, little, itty, bitty, baby steps.
We made it to the KIA. I open the door. She slides in.
"Mom," I say. "Where is your cane?"
"Oh," she says. "I must have forgotten it."
Well, I found her cane. It was hanging on the salad bar.
And that is just one reason I will never work in the health care profession.
When I returned home later that afternoon, I ran into Sven, who had just printed off a four page recipe about making a brine.
No!
"Hey Millie," he says. "Do we have any Kosher Salt?"
Yikes. Was he planning to complicate the situation?
"What is savory?" he says.
My eyes widened.
"Do you know who has that deep fryer?" he asks.
Oh yeah. He was absolutely planning to trash my sparkly kitchen.
Here is the thing about Sven. He is very sweet. He is very cute. And he is VERY messy.
Messy, like, if he opens a drawer, he never closes it. If he takes off his socks, that is where they lay. If he walks into the kitchen, it looks like a bag of flour exploded.
So, an argument ensued about a four-letter word with an e on the end of it. All streaming from my mouth, while Sven stood there looking like a deer in headlights, the way men always look when their perfectly good intentions are about to mess up my clean kitchen. The one with the polished stove.
Well, Sven did make that brin(e) and he did immerse that turkey in a bunch of shit and they did stand around and watch it sizzle, just as predicted.
You cannot turn off cave man instinct.
Thanksgiving was an absolutely marvelous time.
Nobody minded a little bit of barking, the Packers losing or the fact that the first season of, All My Turkeys, has been canceled.
They said something about it being ahead of it's time.
Hunter would like to thank everybody for coming.
The following items must be claimed within 30 days, or they will become the property of the establishment.
1) Man size large Michael Kors vest
2) Man size XL Abercrombie shirt
3) Man XL Hollister lightweight navy-blue hoodie
4) One pair of green Shrek ears
5) One wallet
6) One pair of red ear buds
7) One BB Gun