ST and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend together.  Lots of food, lots of love, and lots of sitting our asses.  I have yet again f*cked up my left ankle, this time the tendon sheath over the top, and I’m trying to rest it.

We had prepared for the long weekend by purposely holding off on our latest Netflix arrivals (The Lake House and Boondock Saints) as well as finally using up some Blockbuster money I’d had since June (Nacho Libre and Chronicles of Narnia).  But by Sunday afternoon, the movie well was dry. 

We’d just come home from the condo (I’d insisted we make a brief pass over it with a broom and dust rag), I needed to put the ankle up and veg for a bit.  So I popped a Sex in the City DVD in.

ST has never really watched any of the series, and was restless in that Sunday evening way that had him pinging from room to room with little tasks.  But who can resist plot lines where Virgin Mary statues replace vibrators?  Soon he had settled in next to me and we were watching the “Are we sluts?” episode.

When Carrie is all huffed that Aiden is in the bathroom for an hour, and it turned out he was drawing a romantic bath for two, I turned to ST and mummbled and gestured.  It was the type of comment that wasn’t meant to be articulated fully, the gist of it being fully formed on the television set. 

Except…

“What did you just say?”

“I said….why don’t you draw me a bath….with salads…”

“That’s what I thought I heard.”

“But I meant candles!”

“One bath with salad, coming up.”

…that was the title of yesterday’s post that got eaten by hosting issues.

(Since my account is up mid-December, this not the greatest time for them to be letting me down, no?)

The post was about the fact that I received an email from a guy who found me through online dating about eight months ago and wanted to know if I was still looking for someone.  And dude, eight months ago my life was a lot different than now.  Aside from choosing to up and move out of state, I can’t imagine a life change this great.

And yes, sometimes these days I’m feeling the weight of those changes.  But I get to come home and have dinner with a man who will share that weight.  I go to class and feel the oldest and out-of-sync, but still get that charge of hearing something in lecture fit with something I knew before.

Side note:  On Monday, I showed up for two tests in a sweatshirt my father gave me when I was seventeen.  SEVENTEEN.  (I’m thirty-one for those not keeping count.)  That’s…not right, right?

I am incredibly happy for everything I have in my life.  The hardships remind me this is path I chose to take.

Happy Thanksgiving.

ST and I are planning a Thanksgiving for two.

If you told me anytime upto perhaps September this year that I’d actually *want* a holiday with just the two of us, I’d say you were nuts.  I love big disfunctional jumbles of people spilling into hallways and spilling wine on the carpet.  I don’t care if it’s people who’ve known me for fourteen years or four hours - my parents often took in visiting U of Chicago professors and our table was always rounded out by strangers.

Even though I haven’t had a Thanksgiving with my family in over thirteen years, that tradition has carried through with several ad-hoc “orphan” potlock Thanksgivings.  The last few years R and S have hosted and I had assumed that we would be partaking with them once again.

But…as the time got closer to decide…all I could think about was how exhuasted I’ve been, how difficult that week will be (two tests on Monday, possible grandparent visit Tuesday, and waking bright-n-early Friday to be bombarded with approximately 6,430,927 tour guests at the sanctuary).  ST and I do get time together almost every day, but not exactly quality time.  He’s usually exhausted and we might spend a few hours talking about necessary issues (what bills came, what should we do about the cat marking the recycling, etc.) and watching a bit of TV.  Trying to rouse a boardgame out of him is even tough.  Then he heads off to bed often before 8pm.

So, while his company stays open almost every holiday, he will be off work Thursday and we decided to capitalize on that.  We’ll spend the day together, alone.

I still haven’t decided if this is the best thing.  I worry I want to hide from the world a bit too much these days.  I’m swamped and confused and feel like I can’t let one other person in my peripheral vision or I’ll lose focus of everything.

But on the other hand, as soon as we made the decision, I realized how many options this opened up and became extremely excited.  First off, the turkey?  Will be stuffed.  I haven’t had a stuffed turkey in ages and the stuffing made in the pan just doesn’t compete.  You bacteria-phobes have no idea what you’re missing.

Secondly, the cranberry sauce?  Will be fresh.  And not sauce.  Cranberry relish with orange and fresh ginger.  Mmm.

The mashed potatoes will be skipped, because we have them all the time.  Instead, corn souffle.  Corn, cornbread mix, cheese, sour cream…incredibly easy to make but so decedant I rarely pull it out unless it’s the holidays.

Lastly, the pie.  It shall not be pie.  While I love a good crust, nay demand one!, in a fruit or berry pie, and could eat a graham cracker or chocolate crust plain and be happy, I have never felt the need for one with my pumpkin.  Bake it in a casserole dish, call it custard, and break out the spoons!

(There will also be salad, green beans, and rolls.  Just because.)

Of course now that I’ve created our dream meal, we definitely need to re-think the just-the-two-of-us mentality.  That, or buy bigger pants.

Ready for a bunch of random photos I’ve thrown together?  Good!

This is a picture of Bond Falls, in the UP of Michigan near the cabin.  I used to go every year, at least once, with my grandparents for a picnic.  I hadn’t been in probably ten years and suggested it while ST and I were up with my parents.

It’s not picturing-sharing at Jessica In Progress without one shot of a pet.  ST and I live quite close to the Hillsborough River State Park and decided randomly to go one afternoon.  (We had our fourth, and probably most pivotal, date there as well.)  Don’t you just feel exhausted looking into Bush’s eyes?

One reason you might be exhausted is that you sniffed and jumped around this wasp for a few minutes.  In case you wondered, the wasp didn’t care that you were there.

I said random, right?

There are very few people in the world who will appreciate a handmade card wherein a baby is devoured by a fish.  C and H are two of those people and hold a very special place in my heart.  

And lastly….I have a favorite bathroom stall at school.  It wasn’t chosed for location or size or the fact that it always has toilet paper.  This stall in my favorite for the immense amount of political, racial, and mostly religious grafitti all over the door.  It ranges from the serious to the hurtful to the stupid.  But in the middle of it all is this statement:

I was little red riding hood for halloween.  I was supposed to be Rogue (from the X-men), but I had a little crisis over the whole thing.  Maybe I didn’t want to base my whole halloween persona on the fact I’m prematurely gray.  I also thought I wanted to be retro Rogue, with bomber jacket and green spandex, and that meant spending too much money.  (Sadly, we watched X-men I the day after our costume party and I realized in the last scene that I had the perfect NewImproved!Rogue costume that wouldn’t have looked like I just threw on jeans and a T-shirt AND it would have been free.  Live and learn.  The learning being…watch more TV?)

Aaanyway, I was little red riding hood.  (ST was the big bad wolf.  Permission to gag granted.)  And in my basket of goodies for Grandmother?  Mini liqueor bottles.  Specifically, Jack Daniel’s.

To some at the party, this was just cute.  Others knew better.

My grandmother has had a Jack Daniel’s (black label, ice, with a twist of lemon) every night of her life since she was diagnosed with diabetes and told to stop drinking all the frou-frou sugary concoctions.  That was before I was born.  I know of two occassions when she detoured from this path.  When grandpa was in his car accident, I strongly suspect she was having more than one.  When she was recently re-diagnosed with diabetes, she stopped for two weeks (two long hard weeks) to see how it effected her blood sugar until her doctor told her he never meant for her to give up her live-saving juice and practically mixed her one in his office.

My grandfather has not been well.  He’s the only one of the two that drives, and he hasn’t in over three weeks.  After his car accident, they moved to the retirement community for these types of occassions.  Grandma can theoretically take community busses to the grocery store, the mall, etc.

In practice, she also takes these busses.  So I suppose I should say that theoretically she can get everything she needs.  And that’s where the plan falls apart.  She doesn’t have the upper body strength to carry more than two bags of produce.  This means she’s going to the store almost every other day to keep them stocked.  And things like grandpa’s seltzer water for his throat tickle are just always too heavy.

I’m worried about other things too.  They have always been people to eat out twice a week.  It’s something that I got to first endure then enjoy growing up (the only saving grace to restaurant dining when I was five was shirley temples with six maraskeeno cherries)  (no, I’m not looking up the proper spelling, that’s how I’ve pronounced it my entire life).  Now, when grandma is even frailer and getting dinner together means her starting right after lunch, they aren’t going and she’s not getting that rest.  And I wonder how the other chores are going - laundry, bed-making - with so much energy put into hunting and gathering.

We’re going up tomorrow to spend the night, cook fahitas (grandpa has evidently been salivating ever since the word was mentioned) and assess the situation.  Grandma is thrilled and told me she’s already planned that we take her shopping.  It’s jumping the gun, but ST and I have also discussed whether I will start making weekly/bi-weekly trips to help with housework.  In some ways, this is one of the reasons I’ve stayed in Florida.  And one of the reasons I felt good about not being tied to a regular job.  But there has been a time or two when I thought the time had come and it hadn’t, so we’ll just have to see.

I’ve pestered grandma quite a bit for items we might be able to bring up, so that our grocery list is lighter when we get there and she doesn’t have to trot all around Publix.  Despite repeated queries, the two-itemed list remains constant:  mini bottles of seltzer water, and a not-so-mini bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

That’s how I’m feeling these days.  Life is just a major clusterfuck.

We were doing the weekly grocery shopping on Sunday when ST spotted a buy-one-get-one-free ad for the generic 2-L soda.

“This is a good deal!”  I agreed that it was, then wondered why he was still standing there.

“So, can we get some?”

This isn’t the first time he’s asked; kowtowed to the crown of grocery shopping I was unaware bestowed upon me.  Oh sure, he may argue on points here or there (organic eggs, for example), but for the most part once we get in the door my list rules supreme.

The point of this story is my answer: Yes.

I often try to figure out or articulate why things work with ST that didn’t work with others.  Why we’re deeper in debt than I was with ex yet we don’t fight about money.  Why I never believed the phrase, “There’s no such thing as bad sex” until him.  How it’s possible with four cats, a dog, a guinea pig, and two forgetful people to (mostly) stay on top of the housework without so much as one raised voice.

 The easy answer is that we both say yes a lot.  Neither of us has gone without a foot or back rub anytime one was requested.  He’s eaten his first tofu dogs, I’ve had my first meal of deer burger.  Whatever our little hearts desire in the rhelm of food and/or entertainment are almost always instantly granted.

But…why?  Why is it so easy to say yes to each other when many people who know us might throw the words prideful and stingy into descriptions they thought would never get back to us?

I can tell you that in other relationships, I haven’t bothered to ask for much because I was afraid of that, “No”.  In other relationships, I’ve used excel spreadsheets to determine who owes who what and what day of the week with what moon phase I might be able to get what’s due.

With him, I am comfortable and content.  I don’t need a list to determine what I get can ask for; if anything I self-police that I’m not getting too much without giving enough in return.

If I could give any advice to anyone in relationship, it would be to ask yourself what’s your yes comfort-level.   

*The title is on a magnet the ex put in the Christmas stocking once.