(no subject)

Just got an email from my dad. My great-grandma, who lives with my parents and whose health has been declining over the last few months, around 1:30 this morning asked my mom to call the ambulance and she's in the hospital right now. She's on oxygen and that helped but her doctor wasn't very happy with things. So there's no telling what might happened.

When we moved over here, I told mom and dad that if it looked like Grandma Rose wasn't going to make it much longer, I wanted to know because I wanted to be able to go home and say good-bye. But if it happens now, I can't afford it; not with two trips home next summer already planned, and not with it being right around Thanksgiving. I'd really really really been hoping that she'd be around in June when we go back for my cousin's wedding, and that if I didn't see her after that again, I'd be OK. I'd really been planning on that. Now I don't know if it will work and I'm very worried.

Grandma update

Got an email from mom, Grandma's able to sit up and eat breakfast and is doing much better. She'll probably stay at the hospital overnight, but hopefully not much longer.

Last year Joel and I completely missed Thanksgiving; it wasn't until a day or two before that anyone mentioned it, and we'd completely forgotten. Part of it is because the two of us are two out of only three Americans on our floor of the dept., and Brian isn't in often, so it's very easy to miss anything specifically American (unless it politics. Unfortunately). The other part is that it hardly feels like the end of November - it's cool and rainy, but there are still days when I don't need my jacket, just a thick sweater. But this time enough people mentioned it early enough that we decided to Do Thanksgiving. Thursday was going to be inconvenient, so we decided over the weekend to do it today. We're having:

Orange-Honey-Mustard glazed duck (adapated from this recipe)
green beans
potatos with spinach and cheese (Joel only)
pickles, black olives, green olives
apple pie
cranberry salad
bread from a new recipe we've never tried before that Joel found in the NYT

Right now, I'm feeling pretty thankful.

boy, that was exhausting

And we still haven't had the pie yet.

Now I understand why most people, when they're cooking a holiday meal, start sometime in the morning, so that things are ready sometime in mid to late afternoon. We just went home from the office an hour early, and started cooking around 4:30pm. The bread finished around 7:30, and so we had a nice snack then, but the rest of things all finished up right around 10:30. Luckily by then we were hungry again! The pie should be finished in another 10 minutes or so, but now we're full again and probably won't have any right away, despite how yummy it smells.

But this was a lot of fun. It was actually the first time Joel and I had cooked a full holiday meal together. It's nice to see that we're able to do so with very little bickering, getting in each other's way, or excess mess. (Continual dish washing was the key, but we managed to end up the night with only very few dishes remaining to be washed, and we always had a pot or kettle or bowl for whatever we were dishing up next.) I feel a lot less homesick for my regular holiday traditions having done this. Next year hopefully we'll think about doing this enough in advance that we can invite some people over - we made enough food for at least five people, and it will take us quite awhile to get through the leftovers.

The duck turned out excellently. Mom and dad, if you're making duck for Thanksgiving and haven't decided how yet, I highly recommend this recipe.

Off to enjoy what little is left of the night with my glass of wine...we deserve it!