Thanksgiving: A Day of Socializing

It was a pretty good day. I wasn't really surprised about that, but I was relieved.

I spent some time in my kitchen before going over to my parents' house. I had an idea for an oyster/bacon appetizer, remember? Well... They didn't quite go according to plan. I failed to consider (I really didn't know) the fact that oysters in a can are very soft. When I poured them into a bowl of wine, garlic, and pepper, they pretty much fell apart when I stirred it around. Still, I made the best of it. Because of that, I decided I'd batter do a backup plan and decided to make some baked garlic/rosemary carrots to take along. When I started to go through my carrots (which I had in the garage to keep them cool) I found that one of the 3 bags was totally rotten, and the other two bags had to be gone over and bad ones weeded out. When I put those into the oven I started working on the appetizers. I managed to get enough of them wrapped to use up the 12-oz. pack of bacon, but because I had the oven in use I couldn't broil them the way the recipe stated. Instead, I pan-fried them. I must say--They were damn tasty! Sarah and Teresa were out shopping, and while I waited for her to drop Sarah off at my house I kept nibbling... I ate over half of them! The carrots came out flawless. I took the remainder of the oyster nibblies, the bowl of carrots, a platter of cheese and crackers, and two 6-packs of the hard apple cider I mentioned yesterday.

I was surprised to find that everybody was there yesterday--Even my sister and her husband that live out in Port Orchard. Everyone was in good spirits and got along great. Everyone that wasn't afraid of the oysters and did try them loved them. Even my mom approached one with trepidation and gave the "hmm... pretty good". The apple cider was a big hit too. People that didn't normally drink much if any were into their second before long. Basically, all the stuff I took went over well, and everything that was there from everyone else was great too. My old man wasn't too tough to take either. The only time his colors shined was when Sarah and I were ready to leave. I went out to the back porch to get the bag with the two apple cider six-packs in it. I came into the kitchen (we go out their front door when we leave) and put it up on the counter, looking through it to see if any of the bottles were still full.
"Looks like all but one got drank," I said.
"You can leave the rest of it here, we've got lots of room in the recycle bin," my mom volunteered.
My dad leaned over. "What this?" he asked, looking into the bag.
"What's left of the cider. All empty but one," I explained.
Again, my mom pipes up, "Just leave em here, we can throw them away."
Then my dad turns into his usual self, and says, "I don't want to take them clear out there." (Their recycle bin is all of maybe 25 or 30 feet away just outside the fence of their small back yard.)
"I'll take them with me," I said, closing the conversation.

See what I mean?

Anyway, from there I took Sarah home. When we pulled into the driveway I saw that the house was dark. "Where's mom?" I asked her.
"At Noelle's."

I asked her if she wanted me to take her over there, knowing that she doesn't like to be in the house by herself if she can help it. She called Teresa on the phone and said that would be good. While I was there I took the rest of my carrots in and put them into their fridge. Sarah loves them and Teresa liked em too. It's best if they get eaten and it's probably more than I could have eaten by myself anyway.

We went over to Kurt and Noelle's house, which is right across the street from the house we used to own a few years back. It still feels kind of like our old neighborhood. I was just going to go in and drink my last apple cider with them but I ended up staying most of the evening. They're great people and I like spending time with them. The visit there was a great way to cap off a pretty good day.

Now it's Black Friday! I don't feel like fighting any crowds, but I may venture out and buy a loss-leader Christmas tree for my place this morning. We'll see.