Time: It's On My Side

 You know what I had plenty of this past week?  Time.  I am truly grateful to have had the entire week off for Thanksgiving.  Soccer season starts tomorrow and that is three straight months of practices and bi-weekly games, and travel and, of course, doing it all in soccer weather.  (for those who don't know, soccer weather is anything 50 and below and accompanied by any form of precipitation from rain to grapple to snow) And I love it and yet there is so little time to do anything else after teaching, coaching, and normal grown-up life things like groceries, errands, and couch naps.  So what a relief and a reprieve to have this whole week of time.

I will admit I started the week off sad.  I put the girl on the train back to her dad and it was like sending away not only my daughter, but my really good friend.  And my heart twisted and ached in my chest but I had time to just be sad.  I had time to cry my sinuses out because I would miss her and I missed her brother and stupid holidays and sharing kids and wah.  I didn't just push it down and do my busy life; I had time to acknowledge the sadness and then, I had time to move on without it. 

I had time to spend Thanksgiving day with a friend I rarely have time to see. Our families spent so much time together when the kids were little and as I walked into her lovely, welcoming home to hug her, it was like no time at all had passed.  I had time to sit and visit and recollect and catch up and I had time to think how amazing it is to not be the one in charge of dinner on Thanksgiving.  I also had time to still miss my family but be absolutely mesmerized by another family's dynamics and to be so grateful that they invited me in to take part.  Well, to be fair, they invited me for dinner, I added the appreciation of family dynamics on my own.

I had time to watch a small child of my friend and realize that while I might miss some days when my own kids were small, I do not miss bedtime when they were small.  I had time to hike and see that Texas is really trying its best to produce some fall leaves and colors and smells.  I had time to watch all of Great British Baking Show and cry because those people are just so damn beautiful to each other and 1899 and I need someone else who has watched that to let me know so we can talk about that ending.

She's really trying.

I had time to start two books I will never finish and sigh about the fact that I can't remember the last time I read a book that really captured my attention.  I had time to choose to not check my work email because, it will be there on Monday, and now is not the time.  I had time to take my dog on very long walks in the middle of the day just because. I had time to nap. I had time to realize that there is an hour of the day where the sunlight coming through my patio door shows every piece of animal hair on the floor and learn to run errands during that hour.  I had time to get coffee with a friend and phone calls with relatives. I had time with my partner to just enjoy being with one another and laugh and rest and simply be.  

I had time to think about, rue, and then celebrate my life choices.  I had time to think about what I want to do with this life, my job, my words.  I had time to realize that there is never a straight-forward answer.  And the knowledge that I have time to figure it all out.  

I hope that everyone has some time in this busy season to, well, just have time.  Time for yourself, time for your thoughts, your feelings, your sense of self and purpose.  Time for a good or bad glass of wine and a bubble bath. Time for a warm cup of coffee in your cold hands.  Time with those you want to spend time with and less time for those you have to spend time with. Time for moments that make your heart ache and time for moments of pure joy and time for all the emotions in between.  Time to appreciate where you have been, where you are now, and what you have to look forward to.  And most of all, time to take a couch nap with a soft blanket, a bad dog, something British or football droning on the TV, and the knowledge that this is truly the very best use of your time.

It All Comes Down to Butter

Last summer, I did something that inadvertently changed my life.  I brought home an audio book of Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”.  Bill drives two hours each way to get to his office and I thought this would be some interesting listening and act as a pleasant diversion for a few days.  Instead, it made him vegan.  Vegan, as in hold the eggs, no cheese for me, vegan. I have to say that when he first told me he was going to be vegan, I did not think it would last.    Two months in, I changed to hoping it wouldn’t last.  Now he is one year and five months in and I am afraid it is going to last.

I miss my husband cooking with eggs and cheese.  The man makes a blue cheese mac and cheese that will not only stop your heart, it will take your breath away; it is that good.  I swear it was just a few years ago I had to ask him to stop cooking everything with a roux; my wiggly thighs couldn’t take any more buttery beginnings.  We didn’t eat a lot of meat before this, but I find now that because there is never meat in the house, it is all I want to order when we are out.  I used to be very discerning about the meat I ate.  Now I just eat meat.

In an effort to make the most of my time, when I bake, I bake vegan so that both the kids and Bill have something sweet.  I use veggie butter in place of butter, flax seed and water in place of eggs.  When I eat what I have baked, my taste buds scream “WHERE IS THE BUTTER?!?”  “WHY HAVE YOU RUINED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES?!?!”  Bill insists that they taste great but the man is living on soy and grains and is therefore taste bud compromised.  The kids eat it, but there is a haunted look around their eyes.  

We do eat well and very healthfully.  We tease each other about our meal choices.  For example, if Bill is in a bad mood or says he is tired, I will tell him to eat some meat.  Or because I am always tired, he will say it is because I am loaded down with animal proteins.  Ha ha, we laugh and tease.  Until today.  Today he posted ridiculous menu items he said sounded great for Thanksgiving.  It was from something called a Vegan Guide to a Turkey-less Thanksgiving.  Blasphemy!  You can take away my blue cheese mac and cheese, but you cannot substitute a Lentil Mushroom Loaf for my turkey Bill McMahon.  You cannot.

Thanksgiving is about butter and gravy and turkey and pie.  It is not Veggie Tofu Pot Pie or Tofurkey.  I will not “make the vegetable the star of the show” as your recent post declares.  I will stick that vegetable on the side and drown it in butter, gravy or cream of mushroom soup as the Pilgrims intended.  I want whipping cream in my mashed potatoes and I want to use the leftover whipped cream from the pies in my morning coffee.  I want the first scoop of mashed potatoes with the swimming pool of butter on top.  I definitely do not want to use coconut milk as a substitute for anything as far as the pies go.  No I do not.  I want the house to smell like cooking turkey all day long and into the night.  Thanksgiving is not grains and veggies and health because calories do not count on Thanksgiving.  We eat until we are so full we have to lie down and we blame it on tryptophan – not the 4000 calorie dinner we just ate.  We wake up from a little nap and because our stomachs have lost a bit of their distended bloat, we start on dessert.  And who can eat just one piece of pie?  Later at night, our stomachs empty from being stretched out all day; it is time for a turkey and stuffing sandwich.  (Bread on bread?  What, you say?  Try it, you can thank me later.)  This is Thanksgiving.  I feel like Charlie Brown being handed pretzels and popcorn when you talk about anemic vegetables and soy pressed products instead.

Sigh. It is apparent that we will need to sit down and work out what is non-negotiable so that we can both have a happy holiday.  My list is as follows: TURKEY, gravy, sausage stuffing, real whipped cream and genuine, from the cow, butter on everything.  I don’t know what Bill will put as his non-negotiable but I bet falafel is part of it.  I am not sure the chick pea really has a right to be at Thanksgiving.  However, because I am thankful for my husband and thankful for the right to eat my weight in mashed potatoes, if I get my list, he can have his too.  

Stop Rushing Me!

Enough America.  Enough of your propaganda.  Enough of your ads, your music in the background, your red cups of coffee extolling a season that is not yet here.  Enough.

It is early November.  The weather finally feels like fall.  Halloween is past, but so recently that kids still have their trick-or-treat candy left.  There are still three and a half weeks until Thanksgiving and, believe it or not, 7.5 weeks until Christmas.  You would never know this based on the ads on TV, the circulars in the paper and the bombardment of Christmas in every store.  I don't want to see stores bedecked in red and green. My eyes are still happy with autumnal reds, oranges and yellows.  I know Thanksgiving isn't a big money maker, but do we have to go right from Halloween to Christmas?  It is like reading the first three chapters of a book, skipping the middle and then diving into the final chapter.  Total rip-off.

I was surprised to receive the big toy book from Target before Halloween.  That got tossed without even paging through it because IT IS TOO SOON to start thinking about Christmas.  And yes, I tossed it complete with coupons and $5 gift card inside because you have to use them before Thanksgiving.  I was saddened to see that Starbucks broke out their holiday red cups on November 1st.  Too soon Starbucks, too soon.  Red cups December 1st?  Yes, perfect.  Let's all dream of peppermint mochas, playing Santa and good will towards men.  Red cups on November 1st?  Pressure.  It is not festive and merry when you force it too soon.  We will all be sick of the red before St. Nicholas Day.  (December 6th for those of you who did not grow up in the North).

Bah.  Humbug.

I am not going to buy into the hype.  I am going to eat my kids' candy and I am not going to skip over the next three weeks of thinking about Thanksgiving.  I am going to look forward to a long, long weekend filled with amazing food and time spent together as a family.  We will eat with abandon and wear our comfy pants all day long.  No nice clothes and good manners (except for Bill), just time together, movies, hanging out and relaxing.  Time to reflect, time to give thanks, time to just stop grinding it out each day and time to just breathe.  One year, thanks to my worldly cousin, we ended up having a guest here from another country who had never had Thanksgiving dinner before.  My kids got to explain the history of Thanksgiving (minus the genocide that followed) and he got to eat a Bill McMahon turkey dinner.  It was a beautiful, beautiful, rewarding, soul-enriching day.  Why are we as a nation trying to fast forward through all this?

Last year I got caught up in the hype.  I felt that I had to buy this at this store or this over here or this right now, but financially I couldn't jump fully into my seasonal crazy and that made me stressed.  I was sure Christmas would be ruined and I wouldn't get what we needed.  But let me tell you, Bill and I took a day the week before Christmas and got everything we needed, and cheap!  Forget Black Friday!  Try the mall the week before Christmas - they are giving things away!  The best part was that we took an entire day and we spent it together.  We had coffee and talked, we went to the mall and survived, we thought about our kids and how big they had gotten.  We wondered if William would still shake when he opened his presents.  (He did, but not as much as we hoped.)  It was a calm, wonderful day in the middle of a busy, harried week and I can't wait to do it again.

So please don't let them fool you.  Don't let them take away the actual beauty of Thanksgiving by treating it like it doesn't matter.  It does matter!  Don't ruin the magic of Christmas by buying into it too soon.  Christmas is magical because it only takes place for a short while, not because it is readily available November 1st.  There will be plenty of stuff available in December and leftover stuff haunting the shelves still in January.  Close your eyes to the commercials and skip over the ads in the paper.  Look at the weather and the calendar to decide which holiday is really next.  

I wish I could say I would boycott Starbucks and their red cups for the next month, but that would be silly.  I think I will bring a reusable cup when I go as to not be angered and which I should do anyway.  December 1st, however,  I will take their red cup and I will smile and I will feel the magic of a true Christmas season beginning to sparkle.