Sometimes when I’m in a weird mental state at school, coming home reminds me of what makes me who I am. I’m so grateful for roots. Even sitting in this Dixon Starbucks does something. Even ending up sitting across from the tattooed, wild party boy I’ve avoided for years is part of the experience. Such things are to be expected when one returns to a small town. Ahh. Home.
As a result of having no dessert or starchy foods on Thanksgiving, I feel I’ll already be a step ahead of everyone this year in our process of losing holiday fluff. There’s a positive side to everything, right? I know there are people out there who went hungry; I’m not complaining. But sometimes a girl’s soul wants a piece of pumpkin pie, and that’s the danger of being health conscious AND an equal-opportunity food lover. We health enthusiasts make our bad choices carefully, so when we decide we want something badly enough that it’s time to do it, the world needs to watch out cause come hell or high water that item had BETTER BE AVAILABLE. I say we, but in reality I mean a somewhat hormone-controlled 23 year old girl.
By the time I realized my mom wasn’t kidding and there really wasn’t a spot of edible pie in the house, it was late and the frozen pie I’d found required the defrost/bake/cool process. I was willing to commit the sin of eating it, but not the additional sin of doing so past 7pm, per my new rule. (it’s a complicated world of decisions I live in). So my mom dug into her secret stash (I now know it’s somewhere in the kitchen.. probably cause she thought I’d assume it’s somewhere more clever) and satisfied the monster-me with sea salt chocolate she’d picked up for me in Napa.
I decided to take myself out on black Friday and explore. My adventure landed me in Natomas and - God knows why - the Arden Mall. From 9am to 5pm I flew under the gang radar, weaving between crazed moms, squeezing through cart derbies and grinning to myself at the sleeping men in the massage chairs. I thought: “That will be me when I am married. I’ll make him come, then pay the Asian guys to massage his head until I return so he can carry the bags.” All about efficiency.
That night the pumpkin craving returned with a vengeance after never being satiated. This time I caught it long before 7, so it was happening. If I’d known the battle ahead of me, I might have found a new strength in resisting cravings but I was clueless. Removal of the HUGE, heavy turkey tray had to happen to get to the pie in the back of the fridge, which dripped turkey juice all over the floor and got black burnt stuff-junk on my hands and shirt that spread like grease. (which I had a fresh recollection of, after having to put air in my tires at a gas station in Sac that afternoon. All I did was put air in.. why does everything car-related have to include grease).
I’m already aware that I’m making a bad decision. The more opposition, the more determined I become while secret panic builds in the back of my mind that God or the Truman Show-type-audience is saying “nuh uuUuUuhhHhHhh..”. I get the pie box out, and let some of my frustration out by plopping it on the counter only to open it and realize it had already liquified and plopping did it no favors. Fine, it’s still pie and darn it it’s still gonna bake when that oven heats up. In the mean time, this bowl of sweet potatoes needed some spices and I’d enjoy it. I should have seen the next one coming- a container of spices fell from the top shelf, plummeting into the liquid pie directly below it. Now grease and turkey juice wasn’t the only thing decorating my shirt and face.
While the pie was baking, my only option for whipped cream was the defrosted heavy whipping cream my mom had saved. Well, homemade IS the best, and it had worked for my mom in the past, though odds were obviously against me. Of course, the dairy splatters all over the counters and backsplash can be explained by not having enough liquid in the blender to cover the beaters, but I like to say it was all fate’s consistent, cruel sense of humor. To add insult to injury, just when my mom came in and checked on it, saying “oooh! looks like it’s gonna work!” it suddenly stopped fluffing just before its peak and started curdling. My dad had been whispering “Saaaafewaaaay… is just down the streeeet…” this whole time, but why drive to Safeway when I was working my butt off to stay in the house and be “lazy”?
Now I had a hot pie on the counter that needed hours (HOURS!) to cool, no whipped cream, and it was 7pm. 7pm. Hence my half-crazed, half-laughing facebook statuses last night. I sat myself up on the kitchen counter, wallowing with a warm pie in my lap and a fork when my dad came in, that dry, blank look on his face when I know he’s smiling inside cause he knows the fate of my whipped cream project by just taking in the scene. For show, though, being the kind, understanding father he is, he looks into the Kitchenaid bowl and exclaims, “What is THAT?!” I told him to ask God cause He’s the only one who knows. I was going to Safeway.
On the way home from Safeway, I summed up the trip in one exasperated question: WHY CAN I NOT HAVE WHIPPED CREAM?
Out of whipped cream? OUT? The story lover in me couldn’t help but enjoy the belly laughs of my parents when I got back and told them. The rest of me was not satisfied with french vanilla ice cream.
And that, dear facebook friends and blog endurance-readers, is why I am entertained and content to write this from my corner table in Starbucks, cup of whipped cream in hand and pumpkin pie in my tummy. I truly hope your Thanksgiving break has been a good one, one focused on the things we do have rather than what we think we have been deprived of. Next year at this time, I will be spending Thanksgiving thankful that I am no longer student, and maybe sad that I am no longer a student. :) Maybe.
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