In her shoes

Two years ago Mom was still with us and able to make the gravy, as she always has. Last year I couldn't face any of it, so we went out to a hotel buffet. This year I saw her everywhere--in the conversations she would have loved and the ones she would have hated, as I was cooking alone in the kitchen the way she so often ended up and I think may have actually preferred, as I made the gravy that I think may have been even better than hers. And it was only as I looked down at my feet, trying not to cry for the third or fourth time that day that I realized my metaphor was literal: these brown clogs were ones she wore often in the last years of her life. They fit me perfectly.

Thanksgiving Scene

There I was, alone in the kitchen, hands covered in herbed duck fat and elbow deep in turkey guts, when whoosh! my pants dropped to the floor.

Alice was upstairs, Jason's dad had gone for a walk. "Help!" I yelled to Jason.

"I'll be there in a minute," he called from the living room.

"NOW!" I said, and he rushed in to stand right next to me.

"How can I help?" he asked, seeing no blood, no fire, no obvious emergency.

"MY PANTS!" I said.

He looked confused, took a step back, and looked down.

"OH," he said, as light dawned over Marblehead, "Your pants fell off."

He picked them up and together we waddled over to the sink so that I could wash my hands and hold up my pants while he picked the oft-washed knot out of the drawstring (this took a while) and then retied it.

I'm just as glad no one else was around, but part of me is sorry they missed one of the funniest moments of my personal Thanksgiving history!