In which I celebrate Thanksgiving and RUIN the world as we know it!

Boy howdy it's been a while since I've been HERE. I'd thought of writing something in here every once in a while. Then the phone would ring or that great show would come on or my Farmville crops would need harvesting or some other equally ridiculous thing would happen and I'd forget what I thought was so interesting in the first place (to my 5 loyal readers, lol) But this, oh THIS story was actually so good, I had started the monologue in my head before I even got off the phone with the Best Friend EVER. After warning her of the abuse to follow, and assuring her the names of the innocent would be protected, I was granted permission to tell The Great Thanksgiving of 2010 story to you...if you're still hanging around that is, just waiting for me (HA!)

See, lets start with some background into the players here...

Me - erstwhile reporter of truth (and lies, can't forget the lies!)
Best Friend EVER - been together, thru thick and thin, for...shit...14, 15 years now. Been thru the boyfriends, the fiances, the cheaters, the pregnancy, the moves, the BROKEN LEGS (mine of course, but that's a WHOLE OTHER STORY), and the birth of...
My Beloved Goddaughter - smartest baby ever, turning quickly into the smartest 8 year old ever...but with all the communicative subtly of a busted TRUCK
Mom - maker of the BEST DEVILED EGGS
Pop - eater of Thanksgivings from way back when men were men and smokes were a nickel a pack!
My Beloved Honey - he who I think honestly had NO IDEA what a mess of a life he was walking into, and stays with cause he's just that cool, lol!

See, we've been eating Thanksgiving dinners, just like you, forever. They were always the same, steeped in all the traditions they should be...turkey, trimmings, family, big table, football, food coma, you know the drill. THEN, I decided I was a big old grown-up in my own right and could handle the drama llama that is Thanksgiving dinner and I started hosting it at my place. Slightly different take on some dishes but most of the same stuff because that's what traditions are...things you do forever because that's how they've always been done. Sometimes you can improve them, sometimes you just fuck'em up but you keep going with them. (That part there about how they've always been that way...that's what we call FORESHADOWING boys and girls!)

Now see, usually at this time of year, there are at least 8 people at my table for dinner and once in a great while as many as 13 or 14. This year though, it was gonna be different. Sis and her husband moved far away on us - to the great and far away land of Chi-town (or just north of there that is) so there's 2 less. I got to thinking it'd just be 4 of us this year - me and MBH and Mom and Pop (see how 8-2=4...I'm an idiot and it'll become clearer later - FORESHADOWING only works if you see it coming!) and quite frankly, neither Mom nor I relished the idea of making the FULL SPREAD for 4. So, we broke down and did the one thing that NONE OF US has ever done before - we decide to (gasp) EAT OUT!

We plan for one place - it CLOSES (cause Charlie Brown's SUX!) so we go to Houlihan's instead. (Nice spread there, by the way, in case you were looking for somewhere to go.) But...this isn't about OUR dinner, oh no. It's about my best friend EVER and her daughter, the smartest girl in the world.

See, they used to live here, with me. Not long mind you, but long enough for my beloved goddaughter to realize I am the BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD! (shut up and quit laughing, what she doesn't know won't make me look bad!) And see, in her 8 years of being in my life, I think she's spent 5 of them eating Thanksgiving at my table...with a full spread that includes (at a minimum) turkey,the assorted trimmings, fruit salad, and Mom's deviled eggs. In the intervening years, my BFE and the smartest baby in the world have moved away too...all the way up yonder to the Newest of Yorks (which I won't drive to because those people WALK crazy, let alone drive crazy!) and the only thing that brings them BOTH back, year after year is my turkey and Mom's deviled eggs.

Now, enough backstory (all THAT just to get HERE!)

I hear, yesterday, that my beloved goddaughter gets an invitation to dinner with her grandfather. And her response you ask? It may have been something along the line of..."well, I always have dinner with my Auntie but she didn't invite us this year. I don't know what's up with that, but I guess we could come over to your house. We're not going anywhere else so we could come, I guess, if we had to." (I promise there is only MINIMAL creative license there, if any!) That's my girl, subtle, real subtle! After we get back from our dinner, I then get the REST of the story from my best friend EVER:

Grandfather in question is Jamaican. We don't even know if they celebrate any Thanksgiving there but he's NEVER made a turkey...ever. He has NO IDEA what a "spread" for the dinner is so he asks my BFE (after inviting her and the brilliant babygirl to dinner mind you) to cook said bird and make whatever "spread" goes with it. She, politely declining to cook the entire meal, does agree to make some dishes to go with the turkey. He then asks the smartest girl in the world what she wants. What does she announce to him?????

She wants deviled eggs.

At least 20 or so "cause my mom and me we throw them back"!

Said to the man who's never HEARD of a "deviled egg" let alone made one!

I hear this story from my BFE who is still trying to figure out how to drop dead from this evening. Her father in law invites them over to a meal he has no idea how to prepare, which his granddaughter reports she'll deign to come to as her Auntie had the unmitigated gall to not invite her first, and then the smartest girl in the world spends the evening bedeviling him over the fact that it's not MY Thanksgiving spread! My best friend EVER is hoping and praying the entire time that the lord God will just scoop her up, or that He'll at least sew her daughter's lips shut. What response does her prayer get you ask...and I QUOTE..."and God was like, oh, no, no, you're good."

Now, I am in my most heartfelt emotional spot right as I'm hearing this, so I'm laughing my fool head off while she whisper-screams FOUL obscenities at me - you know, in that mommyspeak voice that says she'll overhear me if I'm any louder but you know I'm gonna kill you and maybe her in just one more minute if you don't STOP.

Then, it occurs to me what I've done; that this is actually mainly MY fault.

I ruined my beloved goddaughter's Thanksgiving! I set her up to think that the traditions of this national holiday of family and the giving of thanks were one way because, to her mind, they WERE that one way.

Then, I went out to eat.

I think I may get my Fairy Godmother license yanked for pulling a stunt like this!

So, what did I do? I informed my best friend EVER that if she drops the smartest girl in the world off at my place early next Thanksgiving, not only will the WHOLE spread by on the table for them both, I'll teach her to make deviled eggs for her own self!

I'll still spend the rest of the intervening year grovelling, but I'll teach her to make her own eggs! That's GOTTA even it out somewhere down the line, right?