By way of an opening conversational gambit, yesterday morning, my beloved chose, “Thank you.”
“For what?” I responded, intelligently.
“For not telling me it snowed,” he clarified. “I didn’t know until I looked out the window at the top of the stairs and saw snow on the roofs.”
“Lucky you. I knew as soon as I opened my eyes this morning. Everything was too light.”
The sad fact was that neither of us was delighted to discover the cold, white stuff had arrived during the night and settled on roofs and tree limbs and grass and gardens. At least this first snow hadn’t lasted on the sidewalks and streets, and made them slippery. That will come soon enough, as winter moves in.
I thought I’d maybe seen snowflakes one recent afternoon, but had dismissed the idea at once. The protocol around here is, if it’s possible to ignore a few errant flakes, that’s what you do. Unless, of course, you’re a child, in which case you whoop and carry on and watch for more.
Or, in the case of some folks on Nixon Road, you get ready to shovel. Those folks must really enjoy shoveling snow. I counted eight snow shovels resting against the side of their garage, all different types and sizes, including short ones for the kids. There may actually have been nine shovels. In the general riot of readiness, it was hard to tell for sure.
The topic of discussion in French class this morning was Thanksgiving memories, with the hope being that they would be memories of odd or awkward or downright embarrassing incidents. My sisters and I would all probably tell the same story.
When I was in high school, the guests who joined us for a Thanksgiving feast included, among others, two members of our parents’ respective families who were austere bordering on dour. They were serious and bespectacled individuals whose dignity was important to them. Neither of them had any discernable sense of humor.
The repast was formidable, a production of the usual elegance and beauty. As the hour arrived for dessert, our mom placed a pumpkin pie in front of our dad. The protocol was for him to plate everyone’s slices, with or without whipped cream, as the diners desired.
Mom also introduce a new product, the latest in convenience food: canned whipped cream. We all duly oohed and ahhed over this innovation. What a wonder. What would they think of next? Dad was happy to dress the pie with whatever Mom wanted, and the first guest, of course, requested whipped cream.
Dad pointed the nozzle of the can at the first slice of pie and activated the spray. Regrettably, none of us knew that the nozzle needed to be perpendicular to the surface of the pie, and said nozzle was at an angle to it.
The whipped cream jetted out of the can, ricocheted off the pie, and covered the eyeglasses of everyone sitting on my side of the dining table, which included the dour duo. Some even adhered to the life-sized portrait of Dad’s grandmother, which hung on the wall behind us.
Were it not for the collective gasp of everyone else at the table, you would have been able to hear a pin drop. I could feel Mom and Dad’s horror.
What to do, what to do? I ran through the possible responses to the Whipped Cream Event and could see only one way out. So I started to laugh.
My sisters grasped immediately the necessity of this laughter, and joined in immediately, as did the other guests. And shortly thereafter, the Dour Duo laughed, too. It really was funny. We could have used windshield wipers for our spectacles. I don’t know, however, if either Mom or Dad found the memory of the incident anything but shudder-worthy.
While speaking with one of my sisters, just now, I confessed to not knowing whether canned whipped cream ever put in another appearance in our family home. She said, “Absolutely, it did! Then she added, “I just don’t think those particular relatives were there when it did.”
Another woman in class told about having prepared a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and carrying the various dishes into the dining room, one trip the molded gelatin dish, the next trip a couple of sides. Only, the gelatin dish was next seen on the floor, where it had fallen, intact and right-side-up. She replated it and served it with full disclosure of the path it had taken to the table.
“We just ate the top,” she said. “It still looked pretty, and it tasted just fine.”
Happy Thanksgiving!
22 November 2024