Auntie Beth knows the holidays can be polarizing, and it’s not just because of voting habits.
It’s the cranberry sauce.
There will never be peace between the warring factions of jarred vs. whole berry.
For the record, Auntie Beth likes them both.
Grandma Kathy’s is a whole-berry house.
Let’s start there and examine the Thanksgiving staples:
Whole-berry cranberry sauce FTW.Also polarizing: green bean casserole. Auntie Beth is a fan.Not a fan of gravy, though.Mashed potatoes with the secret ingredient: cream cheese. Not great for the waistline, but worth it.Mac and cheese with about 27 different kinds of cheese.Dressing (NOT stuffing as it didn’t go in the turkey).Keep the carb fest going with rolls.Roasted carrots with sage and brown butter.A little salad so folks can pretend to be healthy.THE MAIN EVENTPumpkin pies: Libby’s regular on the left, fresh on the right.
For this Thanksgiving, we also had some different choices:
Brie and fig jam puffsDeviled eggsWhatever these are (delicious)
What are some dishes you can’t live without for Thanksgiving? Tell us all in the comments.
I love a guest post, and it has been a WHILE. Today’s comes from Kerstin, who shares a tale of a house divided.
I’ll be back with an original post on Election Tuesday.
Love, Beth
My daughter, a junior communications major, uses social media for work, but Facebook is for old people like her grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles worldwide and probably some former teachers and coaches. Every now and again she will post pictures of what she’s doing away at college. We ask if we may tag her in pictures when we are together.
Despite being six hours away, we remain close — probably chat daily, about anything and everything. It’s the relationship we are choosing to have with each other.
Last year, she introduced us to her boyfriend. We had seen him in her group of friends since freshman year and have enjoyed welcoming him to our home during holidays and spending time together when we visit her.
We were introduced to his parents during a tailgating party at their university. He plays football. Despite differences, we have common ground: the kids.
As I was scrolling through social media one night, I saw a meme she had reposted. I treated it like every other political meme I see: I scrolled right past it — not because I agree or disagree with it, but because I’m a fan of hurricane memes and not much more.
It was late. I kind of thought “oh boy” to myself — almost certain she would be inviting comments from those opposed to her views. That’s totally fine, but whose opinion has ever been changed by a meme on Facebook? (Even if it should have?)
I went to sleep and woke up to a message including a screen shot: a response from her boyfriend’s father regarding the meme. Oh boy!
The meme that was reposted by my daughter:
“we cancel out each others votes!!” “you’re dating a man that doesn’t care if you live or die.”
The response from the father:
“Very extreme, emotional and a false narrative. [My son] would be the first one to put his life on the line to save others. Would you? You now have the right to vote and choose as it should be. It’s a state issue and always has been.”
First things first: the good news.
My daughter’s boyfriend immediately sided with her, and reached out to the dad. I am glad he sides with my daughter, and even more pleased that he didn’t cancel out her vote.
My daughter then responded to the dad rather lengthy and pleasantly unhinged and unfiltered. If he didn’t know where she stood before, he does now. That paired with phone calls from his son should have triggered an apology. Instead he fled into the lie that he thought he was responding to the original poster.
Dude, what a lame lie, how would the original poster know the son? Who knows how old the original poster is? Is that person even a U.S. citizen? Eligible to vote? A simple humble apology would have been a solid choice. But no, the verbal attack was followed up by a lie that he holds onto.
Going forward, I have won the happy couple to host for holidays, vacations and the just because.
But really there are no winners here.
We are going up to the parents’ chili cookoff at the final home game of the season. It’s the weekend after the election.
Note from Beth: That should be fun. I’ll have to check in with Kerstin to see how that went.
Thanks for coming to Family Weekend to surprise Gideon. He loved having you here and being able to talk to you about his classes.
I love that we can still spend time together like regular people/parents even though we are divorced. It’s good for us and for our kids.
Gideon and Mikayla even ditched a Halloween party with their friends to hang out with us and play cards.
(And no, you are not the reigning Uno champ in anyone’s record book. Ask Uncle Pat.)
I was glad you were here this weekend for another reason: I got to see your reaction in person to this:
“Comedy” at its finest, amirite?!
(To all people defending him and the rally in general: Explain the joke. Tell me like I’m five how it’s funny and not offensive. And if it’s that he’s a “shock comic” that took aim at everyone, tell me why there weren’t any jokes about white people. Seriously.)
I could almost see the blood boiling beneath your skin.
One thing Trump didn’t do at the rally, surprisingly, was repeat his stupid claim that children go to school for gender reassignment surgery.
Trump’s team saved the lie for a text blast AFTER the rally. Great. Also, HOW did I get on their list?
Me: Can you imagine? The school wouldn’t even give Gideon a Tylenol for a headache without a note from me! You: But yet they have surgery suites with doctors and nurses in one of the classrooms. Sure. Me: And all within a school day! When teachers are buying supplies out of their own pockets. Right. You: How can anyone believe this?
It was just like old times.
The good news is that Gideon is just like us.
After I texted him what I said to a high-school “friend” who called the MSG rally “patriotic” (the same rally that one of the speakers — radio host Sid Rosenberg — called “a Nazi rally“), he texted the following. (We all curse like sailors so I sanitized it for publication.)
Thought I’m a fan of his POV, I’d love some punctuation.
By the way, did I tell you that he sent in his request for an absentee ballot back in September and Georgia (specifically Chatham County) STILL hasn’t sent it? Same for Mikayla. He’s been calling to no avail. It’s maddening. And Georgia is a swing state too. SIGH.
Anyway, thanks again for coming. It was good to see you. Beth
Thanks so much for taking the Saviors Tour to Portland. Because of you, I got to share a special evening with my son.
I’m a Green Day fan — perhaps not a super fan, but a fan nonetheless. I love live music of any sort. Gideon is a Green Day fan. I’ve been trying to steal his Green Day shirt for a year now. And his girlfriend loves Smashing Pumpkins, one of the openers.
Heavy rain (yay, Oregon!) and traffic (yay, Portland!) and difficulty parking (yay, Providence Park!) meant that we missed the Linda Lindas and Rancid, which made me very sad. We did arrive in time for Billy and the gang, though, which made Mikayla happy.
Typically the home stadium for the Portland Thorns, Providence Park is a great music venue with fantastic acoustics.
Sadly, our open-air floor seats meant we needed our rain ponchos at times.
Didn’t matter. Totally worth it.
When you played “Longview” (Gideon’s favorite), he said, “I’m so happy, I think I might cry.”
And I thought I might cry too.
It was only Gideon’s second concert, if you can believe it.
His first also was with me.
He was not even a year old. I was wearing him in one of those baby Bjorns at the Police reunion tour stop in New Orleans in 2007. (Long story for another time. Going to the concert with kids wasn’t part of the plan, and a friendship ended over it.)
You sounded AMAZING! As good if not better than the recordings. And you’ve been at it for 37 years. Fitting then that it was a 37-song set list.
37 songs!
All of “Dookie.” All of “American Idiot.” Plus a few more classics.
Billie Joe, you seemed choked up too.
Maybe it was because it was the second-to-last night of a very long tour. Maybe because it was a great night. Maybe we were all sharing something special.
So thanks. From the bottom of my jaded little heart.
Not a damn thing. Folks need to get over it. (Or stop doing stupid stuff to cause the face. 😄)
Here’s a handy decoder:
“Oh you think so, do you? FAFO.”“Let me get this straight.”“Bitch, please.”“I’m laughing at you, not with you.”“Come on, now.”“This MFer.”“Do tell.”“I’m just going to look down at my notes, because my face has nothing nice to say.”“Oh, honey. I actually feel sorry for you.”
Now let’s test your knowledge. What is my face saying to you?
A. This bar is great. B. The decor is unique. C. I found love in a hopeless place. D. I want to murder this man who sat four inches from me despite the fact that there were 10 empty seats at the bar.
If you said D, then winner, winner, chicken dinner!
Whatever you do, don’t be this guy:
It’s misogynistic and akin to “you should smile more.” Frank, how ’bout you train yourself to STFU.
If you need it, here’s a dude saying roughly the same thing:
It’s an extra layer of communication. Useful, I’d say.
I mean, just think about how moms operate. All you needed was THE LOOK from your mom, and you stopped your buffoonery immediately.
In retrospect, I should amend my first line. I do not “suffer” from FAFO Face. I actually celebrate it! I have the ability to communicate effectively without words.
I hope your hangover is not too bad. Perhaps you are still mad at me, but I’m betting you forgot our entire interaction.
I’m sorry I had to be the bad guy.
My volunteer job at the concert’s beer garden required me to enforce just three rules:
Must have a pink wristband to enter.
No beer outside of the beer garden.
No passing beer over the beer-garden barrier.
I stopped one of you from violating No. 2 and had this exchange:
Me: Sorry, you can’t leave this area with those [gesturing to his two cups of beer]. Him: Am I supposed to chug them? Me: I’m not recommending that, but you can. Him: But I want to go hear the music. Me: Great! You can do that right here.
Another one of you tried to be slick by putting the cup close to your body and walking out while turned away from me.
Listen, girl: I was young once too. I know ALL the tricks.
Rule No. 3 was — by far — the one that caused you the most dismay.
To be fair, the setup wasn’t great. There should have been a fence for the fence.
But policing that line with you was rough.
Beer makes some of you very bad-tempered. I almost had to call security. (That would have meant breaking up the officers’ coffee klatch though.)
Luckily, only a handful of you acted the fool. Most of you were well behaved.
Also, I was thrilled that the beer ran out quickly, and I was relieved of my duties.
Y’all seemed to have a great time overall and enjoyed the concert. That’s good.
Fairly well-attended concert for an artist whose name escapes me.
I did NOT have the greatest time, but that’s ok. I performed a necessary service by reducing liability.
Take some Tylenol. Drink water. Eat a bagel. You’ll be fine.
I’d love your help in finding the parking access card, building fob and door key for my Airbnb.
Veronica the Cleaner took a pic of the bundle last Sunday to show that the guest returned it.
But when Amit checked in Friday, it was nowhere to be found.
There were no guests in between.
Unless I hosted ghosts. Or aliens.
I try to offer a five-star experience, so I set to work to try to fix the issue, even though I was in Savannah trying to spend some time with Gideon on his spring break.
The fob was the immediate concern. Well, the property manager only works Monday-Friday, and she was off Friday. NO ONE ELSE can distribute them. Fob is a no-go until Monday.
I still needed to get a new access card and key and to change the code on the lock.
I have friends in Atlanta, but that’s a big ask.
As I was flying through Atlanta on my way back to Portland, I decided to see if I could extend my layover.
The noon flight was sold out. Standby didn’t look promising. The 3 p.m. would get me there at 4, but my PDX flight left at 7.
Three hours to get out of the airport, run these errands, and get back through security?
My blood pressure is skyrocketing just thinking about it.
ANXIETY INTERLUDE.
I could either sit in the airport fretting for hours or get on the road.
I canceled my SAV-ATL flight and rented a car.
I have two sayings:
Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.
Bad decisions make good stories.
I got quite an experience and a story.
All was well until I entered Atlanta’s orbit. I am from Atlanta. I know traffic.
We always say, “Atlanta is an hour away from Atlanta.”
This was worse than almost anything I had ever seen. Add one hour to the journey.
Peachtree Street was a hot mess.
I mean … WTF?!? Seventeen minutes to drive 2.6 miles.
I got to the condo, grabbed the extra set of keys, and found a hardware store. That was the easy part. PASS!
Next I tried to change the code on the door lock. Somehow, I have the wrong programming code saved in my phone and no tools to take off the lock to get at the info inside. FAIL.
I went to the parking garage to get a replacement access card. The person who can do this works Monday-Friday. NO ONE ELSE can distribute them. Of course. FAIL.
So if you are keeping track, you can tell that I got virtually nothing accomplished. I wasted time, money and energy.
I am a glass-is-half-full person, so let’s look on the bright side:
I earned Skymiles and Expedia OneKeyCash on the car rental. Clearly that’s better than keeping my actual money. 🙄
I got to test drive a Subaru Forester. It’s THE car for folks in the Pacific Northwest. I’m trendy!
I got to catch up with my friend Jennifer on a two-hour call. Two hours! Y’all know that’s huge for me.
I met Amit, who is lovely, and now has a brand-new door key. Hope he gives me a good review. I did go the extra mile. 😉
I got my heart pumping thanks to road rage. Can we call it a Traffic Tantrum? (My agita!)
I really got to SEE Peachtree Street. Never paid much attention to most of the buildings before.
And also Peachtree Center Avenue, onto which I detoured.
Then I had to race to the airport.
It was … not a fun trip. And not productive. But at least I tried.
Tony (if I may be so bold), it would be great if you could somehow make the wayward items turn up during Amit’s stay.
Speak to the aliens, please. Have them beam them back down.
Thank you for leading my son. Dominic clearly looks up to you and credits you with helping him get through Navy basic training.
I guess I should blame you for my tears.
😉
To be fair, they were happy tears. And they were at an appropriate time: Pass-In-Review on Thursday.
I was so proud of Dominic. He was proud of himself too.
Dominic marches with his division.See?! Proud.
What’s funny is that people have asked me if we are a Navy family — if that’s why Dominic enlisted.
“No, not really,” I’d say. Both of my fathers did a stint in the Army. Eddie’s sister too. My nephew was in the Marines. I have good friends who were in the Navy, but no family.
If anyone can do it, he can. He has the determination (read: stubbornness). When Dominic wants something, he will not rest until he gets it. (Trust me: I’m his mother. I’ve seen it.)
And when he does become a SEAL, we will have you to thank for helping him on his journey.
I’m so glad you were able to call me yesterday. It was the one present I wanted on Christmas, but didn’t think I’d get.
Hang on. There’s something in my eye.
OK.
I’ve sent three letters to you at Navy boot camp, and you had the nerve to tell Gideon on the call that you really wanted letters from him and your dad.
“Not that I don’t love your letters, Mom,” you said.
Sure.
And yes, I’ll send plenty of pictures of Vince. That dog misses you, for sure.
I do too.
It’s crazy that so much has happened since I saw you for Thanksgiving.
I mean … so much. The Monday after Thanksgiving, you passed another PST, got your orders the following week, and shipped out about 10 days later.
To be a Navy SEAL is a difficult path, and few make it. You are stubborn, though, and will follow through if it is your idea and something you want.
Things started looking up, scenery-wise, once we started driving along the Columbia River.
Once again, Leo could not be bothered.
That mouthJust LOOK at him!
Everyone perked up when the landscape started looking like what you would expect from the Pacific Northwest.
Mt. Hood welcomed us.Sasquatch hasn’t … yet.
We drove up to my new digs and got the key.
It’s got some things going for it (a big front porch, good size overall) but some things against (no central air, bathrooms are on the first floor while bedrooms are on the second).
And this kitchen — while fine — is nowhere near as great as my St. Louis kitchen.My St. Louis kitchen. See what I mean?
In fact, I missed my kitchen so much that I CRIED when my utensil organizer wouldn’t fit in the drawer.
It wasn’t about the drawer, though.
It was THE MOMENT that it all became real. I live here now.
Observe and report 