Ghost of Thanksgivings Pasts

 

 

1956-1959 The Reading/Stoneham Football games and coming home to all the wonderful smells of pies and turkey prepared by my grandmother. Just the four of us: grandmother, mother, brother and me.

1962 As a new bride in Stuttgart, Germany, I only had an electric coil to cook with. I did open cans of turkey and cranberry sauce bought from the PX.

1963 We now had an apartment with a real kitchen. In the PX in Stuttgart going up to a motherly-looking women and asking her how to cook a turkey. It worked. The turkey was good.

Late 1960s early 1970s Aunts, Uncles, Stepmom and Dad with wonderful food and penny poker after.

1970s Aunt Millie's in Connecticut...a definite over the hills and thru the woods feeling. Sweet and sour meatballs was one of the appetizers and they were made with Grapeade and Ketchup. Housemate's family and my daughter.

1986 Panic call from my daughter that there was an "emergency." The bus hadn't arrived to take the band to the Boston Latin/Boston English football game. I drove them in relays and mentioned "emergency" should be used for something more serious. 

1988 Dinner at my brother's cooked by his pregnant wife. I went with my Yugoslavian exchange student. My daughter was overseas. My mother refused to come because she thought we should go to her house. My brother caved and took her a plate of all the good things my sister-in-law had cooked.

Mid 1990s Introducing Thanksgiving to Swiss, Dutch, German friends in the little house used for entertaining where I was living in Payerne, Switzerland. Friends came from the States to help. My daughter brought the turkey from Mannheim, Germany where she was a student.

1996 I told my assistant that I was homesick because it was Thanksgiving and even though it was an Armenian family, her mom baked me a pumpkin pie that I took home that night. Heaven.

Late 1990s I appeared on English radio in Geneva to discuss Thanksgiving.

Late 1990 Bought a turkey, couldn't get the oven to work so went to a Chinese Restaurant with my daughter and a Brit friend.

2003-2013 Thanksgiving at various Geneva restaurants who were doing a special meal for American clients or cooked it at home. A couple of years we bought the turkey already cooked from a store in Collogny, where Shelley et. al. once lived. Frankenstein was born in this village over looking Lake Geneva. Combinations of friends and family.

2020+ Thanksgiving in Argelès-sur-mer. The local butcher special ordered a whole turkey each time. I would have to cut it in two to fit into the small oven. Included two close American neighbors. Thanks to the American store in Geneva I was able to get things like cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin and Bell's stuffing seasoning. During the pandemic we broke curfews and shutdowns. We didn't get Covid.

2022 Thanksgiving the Sunday before. Invited by our landlords who also invited their friends of many, many years. They provided turkey and basics plus wine. Everyone else contributed a dish. A truly wonderful evening of warmth and sharing.

Thanksgiving day...a normal Swiss day. However, later in the day I will find out who won this year's Reading/Stoneham and Boston Latin/Boston English traditional football games.

As for being thankful? It is far too huge to measure.

FlashNano2022 22 A Bedtime Story

 

Nov. 29 FlashNano2022: A Bedtime Story

The 22nd in a month long daily exercises in writing flash fiction to prompts

 

A mother is in her daughter’s bedroom. The little girl is in bed as her mother begins to read a bedtime story.

Mother:               Once upon a time…                                                                                

 

Marcia:                 How long ago was that?

 

Mother:               Before you were born. There was a little girl named Red Riding Hood.

 

Marcia:                Was Red her first name and Riding her middle? Was her last name Riding-Hood?

 

Mother:               It was a nickname.

        Her mother gave her a basket of goodies to take to her grandmother.

 

Marcia:                (yawn) What kind of goodies?

 

Mother:               An egg salad and coriander sandwich plus ginger cookies.

                              The little girl was told to walk through the woods.

Marcia:                Can’t her mother drive her? (yawn)

 

Mother:               It’s only a short walk.

 

Marcia:                (yawn) Can’t Grandma pick up the basket at the little girl's?

 

Mother:               Grandma is in bed with a cold.

 

Marcia:                Maybe the little girl will catch it. (yawn) (yawn)

 

Mother:               The little girl put on her pretty red cloak with her hood and …

 

Marcia:                (deep breathing). 

 

The mother puts down the book and pulls the covers over the sleeping child. After putting out the lamp and putting on the night light, she tiptoes from the room, relieved she doesn’t have to finish the bedtime story.

Cow or Cranky Old Woman

Day 21 of FlashNano 2022...write a fiction piece prompted by the last message on your phone.

 

Cranky Old Woman

Ellen couldn’t complete the Flash Fiction assignment for the day: to use the last message on her cell phone as a prompt.

The reason?

No one left messages.

Why?

She had refused to give her mobile’s number to anyone except to a place she would need a code, like her bank. Even her husband didn’t have her number.

Why?

She didn’t want phone calls. Even with her precautions there would be rings interrupting what she was doing, seeing, thinking.

Her husband insisted she take her cell to the studio when she was painting in case of emergency. She did. She left if off.

Her cell had one great use as a camera letting her snap discoveries that might be used as a base for other paintings or just things she’d looked at that interested her.

Today, she had had lunch with Janine and Emma. Both women had spent most of the first half of the meal on their phones, albeit it with an, “Excuse me, I should take this.”

In the brief moment when both alleged friends were free, halfway through Emma’s salmon with a lemon sauce, Ellen had thrown down her fork. “I’m leaving. If I come out to lunch with people  I want to eat with those I can talk to.”

The night Janine messaged her on Facebook. Emma had sent an e-mail. Neither apologized for ignoring her, each other, or the food.

She had not even a chance to share her great news about her upcoming exhibition in the best gallery in Boston.

Emma wrote she was being a COW—cranky old woman.

Life was too short to spend her time with people who were spending their time with others when allegedly they were with her. Mooooo, Ellen thought as she checked her other messages. And proud of it.

 

Nov. 18 Flashfiction Confessions

 

Nov. 18 of FlashNano2022: Today's prompt, "I confess."

                                     CONFESSIONS

“So? What are we confessing this year?” Mary, the last of the five women to arrive, breezed through the door.

This was their annual retreat, held the last ten years since they had moved out of the house they’d shared in university.

Five years ago they had renamed themselves The Five Sluts. It had started with them confessing how many men they’d slept with. Anita 5, Emma 8, Maggie 4, Sue 7. Mary had only slept with one man she said, her high school sweetheart who was now her husband. Sometimes, she’d also confessed, she wished that she had more experience, but not enough to risk her marriage.

Each year, they decided what they were going to confess. 

One year was did they ever steal anything. Anita and Emma had shop lifted as teenagers. Maggie admitted to kiting a check at the bank where she worked but repaying before it was discovered. Sue regularly lifted small bills from her husband’s wallet. Now she had close to $500. 

Mary hadn’t stolen anything.

The cabin, which belonged to Emma’s parents, was well hidden in the woods, a short walk from a lake, but this was November in Maine and the women might take a walk along the edge later, but no way would any of their toes touch the water even if they could break through the ice.

Deciding the confession topic had become a ritual, with a fire in the fireplace, a good wine, French cheeses and a special bread that Maggie had carried from a Boston bakery where she stopped on the way to the retreat.

Although confessions were a big part of the retreat, time and chat was also spent on what they’d been doing the past year, memories of living together, food, their families. With their families it was showing pictures of their kids, Anita 2, Maggie 2, Sue 1, Mary 3. Emma had never married but her confession four years ago involved her abortion which revealed Anita’s and Maggie’s. Maggie was the one who declared back when they all lived together, she’d never get an abortion, admitted she couldn’t face a third child as her marriage was breaking up.

“Pass the brie,” Sue said. “For this year how about telling us the biggest lie you ever told?”

They agreed.

“I told my Mom that I’d seen Dad with another woman,” Anita said. I had a good reason. There marriage was horrible and I’d hope they’d break up.” She sighed. “They didn’t.”

“I said I had a masters on my resume. They still haven’t discovered it,” Sue said.

“I told the police, I hadn’t seen the kid who robbed my neighbor’s house. I knew him, but I didn’t want him to have a record. He had a lot of family problems.” Maggie refilled all the glasses.

“Does telling your daughter there’s Santa and a Tooth Fairy count?” Sue asked.

“No,”the others chorused.

“My husband thinks I have a book club that meets once a month. “It’s so I can have a night on my own and do what I want to do.”

“What do you do?” Mary asked.

“Normally go to a chick flick. One time I went to a bar to see if any man would try to pick me up. Sue paused. “No one did. I guess I’m beyond my sell by date.”

They went on a tangent about preserving their looks, hating their gained weight and brands of moisture they liked.

Mary went to the fridge to get more cheese.

“Wait a minute. Mary? What about you?” Anita said.

“I’m really ashamed of this one, and I hope you won’t be mad at me. “I lied about the number of men I’ve slept with.” Mary put the cheese on the table.

“How many?”

“I’m not sure. When Bill is out of town, I work as an escort.”