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There are people who, on the morning after Thanksgiving, get up at the crack of dawn. They put on clothes and drive some distance to a shopping mall or discount store. There, they will be squashed and prodded like cattle by masses of overzealous bargain hunters, and endure many, many minutes waiting in long lines. Ostensibly to snap up incredible bargains that, realistically, will likely be available again at some point in the following weeks.
Since Black Friday doesn’t exist in Calgary, I embarked on a new tradition of my own creation. I stayed in bed and read a book. Which wasn’t quite as luxurious as it sounds due to two small people crawling all over me as I attempted to read. The same two people who drank every last drop of my orange juice before I had the chance to take a sip, and who ate most of the cheerios in my bowl. All while my better half did the motherload of Thanksgiving dishes downstairs. Not a bad way to spend a morning.
It was so enjoyable, in fact, that I attempted to replicate the laziness again on Saturday. After a marathon cleaning up session, I hopped on the couch hoping for a nap. Our fifteen month old nightingale starts singing in his crib around 6.30 most mornings. Which is rough when you don’t go to sleep until nearly midnight.
G decided to laze around with me. We lay on the couch sticking our toes through the crocheted blanket. 
We read the December issue of Bon Appetit, finding yummy things to make. 
It was blissful, really. I thought to myself ‘we’re entering a new phase of life…things are slowing down…the kids aren’t so crazy.’ Then, as usually happens after I make some quiet, smug observation…. I was proven wrong.
See, a sharper mother would have made note of the following, and drawn some important conclusions.
- Child spent most of the previous night coughing
- Child has little or no appetite
- Child seems somewhat lethargic – spending two hours lying on the couch with his mother
- Child’s younger brother is oozing snot
- Child’s friends at preschool have had the flu this past week
Conclusions: Child is sick and should probably stay at home and rest
Instead, I dragged my whole family out of the house to Costco. G fell asleep on the way there, which isn’t unusual. But it is unusual for him to lie face-down in the store cart. (Gross!) It is unusual for him to refuse a chocolate covered cookie, and a chocolate, and a nanaimo bar.
As I observed the obvious – that the kid was sick – it dawned on me, in the crowded aisles of Costco, that the rest of us – at least the gray-haired ones – might well be following suit. If the headaches, fatigue and sore throats are any indication.
We came home and put the sickly guy on our bed, where he watched Wall-E on the laptop. I was downstairs when he puked in our room and the hallway.
New phase of life?
What was I thinking?
As is our habit, we spent a considerable time going back and forth on whether or not we should (a) have Thanksgiving dinner this year, and (b) invite people to said dinner.
Monday night, around 10, we committed to having and hosting a turkey dinner, and Jason sent an email to his colleagues inviting them to celebrate the American holiday with us. Four adults and two children agreed to join us for dinner, with another adult and child joining us for dessert.
Wednesday night around 10, I realized I didn’t exactly know what I’d be making for the dinner, so I flipped through the November issue of Bon Appetit. Good thing, too, since the turkey recipe mandated the bird should be sprinkled with herb salt a full 18-24 hours before baking. Whoops. At least I’d had the presence of mind to defrost the (tiny) bird.
I settled on a simple herb and onion stuffing, butternut squash and ginger soup (which I just happened to make on Tuesday night) and some lime-glazed carrots. I tossed around the idea of making cranberry relish. Even though no one I know actually eats it, attractive as it may be. However, when I inquired at the Superstore as to the whereabouts of the cranberries, the produce guy gave me a look that said: ‘Thanksgiving was last month. The cranberries are gone.’ Right. Never mind then.
Around 1pm on Thursday I began my preparations for the evening meal. At the last possible moment I decided I needed to make an artichoke mushroom lasagna – just in case people were really hungry (or vegetarian) – since our bird was only 7 pounds. I sauteed the mushrooms and got out the 2kg jar of artichokes I’d picked up at Costco. The lid was so large I could hardly get my (big!) hand around it to twist the thing. It wouldn’t budge. Meanwhile the mushrooms were sauteeing, releasing their juices. And I had no artichokes.
I ran the lid under hot water. Nothing. I placed the jar upside down in a bowl of hot water for several minutes – twice – nada. I licked a lollipop and rubbed it all over my hands, in a desperate attempt to make my hands sticky and offer some resistance against the smooth metal lid. Didn’t work either. And then G saw the sucker and absconded with it.
I briefly contemplated smashing the glass jar with a hammer and letting the proverbial ‘chips fall where they may.’ But realistically I would end up with glass in my artichokes which would not make a good impression on my guests. I also had no idea where the hammer was. I thought about placing a panicky call to Jason to see if he could open the jar over the phone. But I didn’t have his number and he was teaching a class at the time.
Finally, out of desperation, I held the jar in both hands and hit the lid against the edge of the tiled countertop a few times. Miraculously, the lid twisted when I applied counterclockwise pressure. I don’t think anyone was ever that grateful for an open jar of artichokes.
After chopping the chokes and adding them to the mushrooms, I got out the box of lasagna noodles.
There were 3 noodles in the box.
Seriously.
A quick trip to the store was out of the question since my youngest was napping, and time was of the essence. I remembered that I’d bought a box of canneloni noodles at the store the previous week. And so my new dish, ‘artichoke mushroom canneloni’ was born.
The rest of the dinner came together without a hitch. As much as a stovetop with two small, functioning burners, an oven that runs at least 50 degrees too hot, and an oven door that doesn’t fully close, would allow. The fifteen month old tugging on my pant legs while piercing my eardrums with his wailing, and his brother, who was surreptitiously undoing all the cleaning and arranging I’d carefully done, made it even more pleasant.
I’d like to see Martha Stewart put together a fancy dinner under such circumstances.
The turkey was done by 5.30 and the last of the guests didn’t arrive until 6.30, which means we ate a slightly cold bird. But all was well. The soup was yummy, the turkey actually tasted good – good enough that the kids kept running back to the table asking for more (and kept nibbling on the carcass long after the meal was over), the stuffing was good too. The carrots were, in Jason’s words: ‘as good as cooked carrots could be.’ Who actually LIKES cooked carrots? Even when cooked in a mixture of orange juice, sugar, water, and lime zest…
And no one even touched my hard-won canneloni.
The children had, by the end of the evening, created nothing short of a war zone. Tinker Toys, K’nex, Puzzles, trains, train tracks, blankets, pillows…every possession they owned had made its way downstairs and been dumped on the floor.
As I put G to bed, I clumsily tried to explain to him what Thanksgiving was about. My attempts to explain concepts like ‘thankfulness’ and ‘gratitude’ failed miserably. I tried asking him what he was ‘happy’ about, instead, reasoning that happiness was akin to thankfulness – at least on a preschool level.
‘I’m happy no one is lying on me,’ came the solemn replied.
One of our guests, a three year old girl, had climbed on top of him earlier in the evening while tugging at his shirt and making squawking sounds in his face. A new habit of hers, her mortified father tried to explain. Apparently G had been traumatized.
I tried to redirect the conversation. ‘Besides no one lying on you, what made you happy?’
‘I’m happy no one is hitting me,’ he offered.
And that’s what Thanksgiving is all about.
A friend kept our boys for a couple of hours two Fridays ago, so I and my esposo went to Nectar, a dessert bar, since we’re too old and boring for regular bars. [Truth be told, J was a little miffed that we skipped dinner and just ate dessert. But I'd read good things about Nectar and another opportunity to try it wasn't going to present itself anytime soon.]
We arrived at the odd hour of 6.30pm..for dessert. The display case was filled with delicious things – a hunk of red velvet cake, chocolate caramel tarts, french macaroons, and lemon tarts, too. I was pumped. We were seated by a window in the vast loft-like space, and perused the menu. They had fancy dessert wines and expensive scotch and brandy. But we just opted for a cappuccino (me) and homemade eggnog (Jason….blech).
I decided to try the chocolate caramel tart and Jason ordered the sticky toffee pudding. We thought about being completely gluttonous and ordering three desserts – since we were skipping dinner and all – but reigned ourselves in.
The waitress arrived and set my tart before me. ‘This is my favorite dessert that we make here,’ she announced. She said nothing as she put Jason’s dessert before him. As she walked away, he remarked: ‘well THAT makes you feel good – when the person who works in the place pronounces one dessert her favorite and says nothing about the other one.’
Hoping for the best, we bit into our respective desserts. Mine was good – for the first bite or two. And then it became…..cloying…sickly sweet. The thin disk of chocolate on top gave way to a heap of caramel poured over the crust. Just a bunch of caramel and a little bit of chocolate and crust. Suddenly I was worried I wouldn’t even be able to finish it.
For the record, I am a contender in the dessert arena. A force to be reckoned with. There’s almost nothing sugary that I can’t (or won’t) eat – and eat a lot of. I pretty much have a supernatural ability to digest sugar. You will never hear me saying crazy things like: ‘oh, that’s too rich!’ or ‘no, I think I’ll skip dessert tonight.’ It’s just not in my vocabulary.
But I sort of met my match on that fateful Friday night. The waitress’ favorite chocolate caramel concoction was ‘too rich’ and if I hadn’t paid $8 for the tart, (and hadn’t missed dinner) I probably wouldn’t have persevered to the end. My date, a fan of all things chocolate and caramel; who could sit down with a spoon and a jar of dulce de leche for an hour, agreed with me.
Meanwhile, his sticky toffee pudding, the dessert that did not meet with the waitress’ approbation, was amazing. The most delicious thing I’ve eaten in a good while. Served with a housemade apple sorbet, it was almost perfect – the crumb, the sweetness, the warm with the cold…
As we walked out, I was forced to consider whether my reaction to the tart was due to my age. Now that I’m nearing the mid-thirties mark, are my tastebuds aging too? Am I getting ‘weak’ in my old age? Will I become the kind of person who takes a couple of bites of dessert and then pushes the plate away, declaring it ‘too much?’
Will I be eating rice pudding and tapioca from here on out?
When Jason attempted to bring our freshly cut Christmas tree into our home on Sunday, it didn’t fit. It was too big – quite a bit too big. (We truly ARE the Griswolds.)
Apparently we’d been duped by the gargantuan trees in the forest into choosing a tree that seemed ’small’ but was actually quite large. (Objects may appear smaller than they actually are.) So, ‘Sparky’ spent a good while outside with a drill and a saw, trying to ‘trim’ our tree so it could come inside.
Finally, with a good chunk of the tree lying outside in pieces, he brought in the slimmed down version. Things were looking up. Then we removed the string holding the branches in place.
The tree was wide. Much wider than we anticipated. The branches were also sparse, and the tree was bare in several spots. It stood much like the Leaning Tower of Pisa – leaning substantially to the left. And the needles on the tree – felt like blades from an x-acto knife.
Had the cold frozen the thinking part of our brains? How is it that we thought this tree was ‘good enough’ when we were standing in the forest, but when we got home you could almost see the word ‘LEMON’ written all over it?
‘It’s a Charlie Brown tree,’ Jason sighed. Dejected. Disappointed.
On the brighter side, my ‘decoy’ (I mean, baby) tree was the best parenting decision I made in 2008. Giving G his own tree to decorate helped him to forget that there was a real tree, hung with breakable ornaments, less than fifty feet away. And, (bonus!) it was a great vessel (dumping ground) for those ‘not-so-pretty’ ornaments in our collection. [Of course, Jason noted that most of the ornaments in that category technically belong to him.]
The decoy tree has not, however, kept the kids from pilfering ornaments off the ‘big’ tree. Which they’ve kindly dumped in random places all over the house. I also did what parents and pet owners the world over have done for thousands of years – put the unbreakable ornaments at the bottom of the tree, and the fragile ones out of reach on the top branches. Which didn’t do anything for the poor tree’s appearance.
Initially I thought that each boy would have his own tree. But it turned out we didn’t have lights for the third ‘baby’ tree. So, the Hen’s tree was decorated with our (Jason’s) cheap silver ball ornaments and placed outside on the porch by the mailbox. And the Hen has already thrown a shiny ornament to the ground, obliterating it into a thousand pieces.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Canada Mailman. Watch your step.
Growing up, our Christmas tree tradition was, what can best be described as, ‘minimalist’. Around my sister’s birthday in mid-December, the white artificial tree was removed from its box, set up and decorated with ornaments and lights. Two weeks later, around January 1st, the ornaments were removed, and the fake white tree was put back in its box.
When I got married, my tree traditions became more complicated.
The first two years, when we lived in a 600 square foot apartment, we bought a little pine tree-like plant at the grocery store. We placed it on top of a stool and hung a few ornaments on its droopy ‘branches.’
When we moved to Minneapolis, and became homeowners, my previously apathetic husband morphed into Jason (Clark) Griswold. It’s not that he decorated every inch of our roof with Christmas lights and blew out the window in our neighbor’s house. But seemingly, out of nowhere, he became ‘the boy who grew up with fake Christmas trees and could not bear it any longer’. He insisted we get a real Christmas tree; acting as if anything less would be sacrilege.
So we did.
Six years later when we were ensconced in our Muncie home, he upped the tree ante. Instead of just buying a ‘live’ tree from the Kiwanis, we had to go to a Christmas tree farm and supervise the cutting of our chosen tree.
So we did.
This year, recognizing the season was upon us, I started investigating our Christmas tree options on the internet in October. As it turned out, there were no Christmas tree farms in the Calgary area. No places where one could go to pet some animals, ride a little tractor into a field of trees, pick out a tree and watch a man cut it at the base. And drink hot cider and eat fudge afterwards. (Is it my imagination or is fudge at the forefront of all holiday traditions?)
Even I, girl-who-grew-up-with-a-fake-white-tree, was disappointed.
I’d grown rather fond of our yearly expedition to the farm. Getting lost on the way there three years in a row, each time more bizarrely than the previous year. Freezing our fingers to the bone. Our oldest son’s excitement at looking for the tree and checking out the tractors. And drinking the cider that was so hot you had to wait twenty minutes before you could even take a sip.
I deduced from my research that the only tradition-worthy option that would make Sparky happy was to cut our own tree.
In Calgary you can drive to a little office and pay $5 to obtain a tree-cutting permit. The permit people hand you a map that shows you where to go to cut a tree. Actually, you’re allowed to cut up to three trees.
There are explicit written rules. The tree cannot be located within 1km of a picnic table. And it cannot be on a slope where it was supposedly planted to prevent soil erosion.
There are also unwritten rules. Like, you have to be able to transport your own tree. And the tree should fit in your domicile.
So Sunday came (a full week earlier than we normally venture out for a tree). We got up and drove our rental SUV forty-five minutes southwest of the city. We came upon the designated tree cutting area – ‘crown land’ it’s called here – and started searching, while trying to dodge all the crazies out on their ATV’s. We dutifully measured distances, to ensure there were no verboten picnic tables or slopes nearby. We found a spot and parked. We started walking. It was freezing cold.
It’s oddly difficult to find a suitable tree when walking around a forest of extremely tall trees. A Christmas tree farm is so much more convenient, where all the trees are similar in size and close together. We hemmed and hawed, while fingers and toes turned to ice.
‘No, that one’s too tall.’ ‘That one’s too dry.’ ‘That one’s too sparse.’
We waited for the heavens to part and the light to shine on the right tree. But it didn’t happen. So we settled. We found a ‘good enough’ tree. And two baby trees for the kids.
Since, after all, we were permitted to take three home.
We headed to Banff today as we had another out of towner in our midst who was dying to see the mountains. This time we thought we’d try to venture even farther north, across the Continental Divide, possibly to the Columbia Icefields.
The Icefields are supposedly two hours north of Banff/Lake Louise, which is already an hour and a half from Calgary. That meant that children and weather would have to cooperate simultaneously in order for us to make it that far.
It became fairly clear once we left Lake Louise that today wouldn’t be our day to see the Icefields. The highway was covered in snow and ice. Which would only elongate the journey. Still, I held out hope that maybe it would happen for us. That the kids might fall asleep; that the sky would open up.
They didn’t. It didn’t. And then we came upon a Pontiac stuck on the side of the road. Apparently the guy driving the car had tried to turn the car around and got stuck – perpendicular to the road. My husband, good samaritan that he is, pulled over and got out. He pushed the car from behind while the stuck-guy tried hitting the gas and steering the car into freedom. It didn’t work. The guy got out and started pushing the car, too. After giving it their utmost, the car somehow crept into an unstuck position. The relieved driver gratefully, vigorously, waved to Jason and drove off.
It should be mentioned that there was also a man driving a Honda Pilot. Who graciously sat in his warm car and turned on his hazard lights while the two guys were pushing with all their mights.
We drove on for a while, past a glacier and a hotel that was closed for the season. At the first opportunity, Jason turned the car around and headed back towards Lake Louise. We were about 10km from the exit when we found another sedan on the side of the road. Its occupants were two German/Austrian males, who’d also tried to turn their car around. It had skidded and the back half landed in a ditch. They asked if we had a rope. Negative. Then they asked if they could ride with us to Lake Louise. Negative – unless they wanted to sit in the trunk with a stroller.
So Jason decided to be Superman again, and put on his magical coat and gloves. I got in the stuck car to steer so the three men could get behind it and push. Luckily two snowshoe-er guys showed up with little shovels in their backpacks. They looked like Santa’s Elves. The men dug around and did manly things, (like discuss whether the car was front or rear-wheel drive) while I surveyed the interior of the car, waiting for my moment to shine.
Eventually they all got behind the car – to try and lift it back onto the road as best I could tell. They shouted at me to hit the gas and to turn the wheels in various directions. Miraculously, the car got unstuck. And fortunately, I didn’t hit any oncoming traffic, or our own parked car. Our Teutonic friends were rather grateful and hightailed it out of there – ostensibly to avoid the angry tow truck guy who had been called to come and rescue them.
Maybe we’ll see the Icefields in the summer.
Today, all we got to see, were some elk…elks?
About a decade ago, when I was a diligently bored student in graduate school, I heard a phrase that has stuck with me ever since. We were reviewing a problem in an economics class (I think?!), and the subject of the problem was labelled ‘a known truth teller.‘ In an effort to demonstrate, I suppose, that the facts of the problem should be considered to be true.
The strange, ungainly phrase elicited many a laugh outside of class and a couple of friends and I frequently used it in subsequent conversations. I don’t remember anything else about the two years I spent in graduate school, but I still whip out ‘known truth teller’ at least once a month. Worth thousands of dollars? Well, who can put a price on comedy – and a good memory?
When I think of the phrase now, my oldest son comes to mind.
I made hot chocolate today during the pre-dinner, post-snack hour. [Who am I kidding, that WAS my dinner.] G had taken his cup into the dining room, while Jason and I were standing in the kitchen, talking about the day’s events.
‘This hot chocolate tastes weird,’ Jason remarked. And it’s true, I had just thought the same thing. Maybe I hadn’t used enough chocolate, or maybe the ‘Galerie Au Chocolat’s Belgian Fair Trade Hot Chocolate’ from Costco wasn’t a great buy after all.
Ten seconds after we stopped talking about our hot chocolate, G walked in the kitchen; a dark brown ring around his mouth.
‘That hot chocolate tasted DISGUSTING.’ He announced. (I don’t think capitalizing the word adequately conveys the disdain with which it was uttered.) ‘That’s why I didn’t like it.’
Jason could barely contain his snickering and I just stared at my oldest, pondering an appropriate response.
‘Yeah, it tasted disgusting. That’s why I didn’t like it,’ he repeated solemnly. Just in case I didn’t hear it the first time.
He left the kitchen, presumably to unearth that which is wrong and horrible and disgusting in the rest of his world.
‘The kid doesn’t lie,’ his father remarked.
I couldn’t leave bad enough alone. My yucky wreath was taunting me every time I walked past it, so I (inspired by a little pep talk from the queen of beads – Ms Katie Hacker) decided to rip the thing apart and give it another shot.
Which, as ever, seemed a lot more straightforward than it actually was. Starting with simply removing the blood-tinged cream ribbon. I’m pretty sure it took me about two minutes to wrap the wreath and it took me about ten minutes to take it off said wreath. Then, I started taking off the wretched beads. Within about five minutes I’d gashed three fingers on my left hand. Substantially enough to still be wearing band-aids 24 hours later.
So I did what I always do when I face a craft crisis, aka an unfortunate collision of ‘idea’ and ’skill’. I summoned my husband.
Lucky for me, an episode of ‘the office’ (British version) was playing on the laptop where I was working. It hypnotized him into forgetting that I’d just handed over that silly wreath and begged him to de-bead it. He grabbed some pliars and began the arduous process, chuckling while Ricky Gervais did what he does best: act like an imbecile, cringe-inducing, manager.
‘I hate beads,’ Jason muttered halfway through. If he hadn’t been so busy looking at Ricky, he would have probably given me the evil eye. It is, after all, my fault that he hates beads of any kind.
Several Christmases ago – dare I say eleven (?!!) – Martha Stewart Living’s December issue hit the news stands. Actually, it hit the recycling bin at Ball State University, which is where I found it upon leaving work one day. In all of her holiday issues, Martha features a special craft that is beautiful and looks ‘very simple’ but is sure to make your blood boil and possibly ruin your marriage. In 1997, the ’special’ craft was a beaded ornament.
I took one look at it and had to make it. Despite utter lack of skill or proper tools.
I don’t recall the how’s or the why’s, but I ended up stringing a gazillion beads using a needle and sewing thread. Resulting in permanently damaged retinas, I’m sure. These tender strings of beads were then applied to styrofoam egg and circle shapes using tacky glue. Ta-da.
I vividly recall tacky glue on every possible surface – my fingers, my face, my hair, the wrong side of the beads; and beads that would fall off strings when the tenuously tied knots gave way; and more temper tantrums than one person should probably have in a lifetime. I also remember Jason staying up with me until 3am in my mom’s kitchen while I finished some of the wretched ornaments for co-workers and, the following year, in-laws.
Due to lack of tools and materials, we had to come up with an alternate way for making loops from which to hang the ornaments. My starchitect came up with a plan…which worked better on some than on others. Which means I still have half a dozen beaded ’shapes’ that won’t be hanging off a tree any time soon, unless I put them in a plastic bag and hang the bag on a branch.
Lesson number 1: don’t read Martha Stewart Living. Lesson number 2: buy ornaments from Target. Lesson number 3: don’t marry for love or money – marry for beads.
Of course I’m being a little facetious. I really do love these ornaments – even the ones that can’t actually hang on a tree. And if we hadn’t made them, we wouldn’t have been able to bore every person we met since 1997 by telling this story.
Again, and again.
It’s been a mediocre couple of weeks. My children haven’t said anything funny. My husband hasn’t said anything funny. Nothing has happened to me or those around me. So maybe it’s only appropriate that even our food has become boring.
The Hen was awake a lot last night. Now there’s a shocker: my second born didn’t sleep through the night. Again. So I had a little trouble getting myself out of bed this morning. Luckily my better half took care of breakfast duty. At one point G snuck up to my bedside and announced in a superexcited sing-song voice. ‘We’re making wafffffles!’ Trying to entice me into an awake state, I suppose. ‘Do you want me to bring you some breakfast in bed?’
‘Ah, no thanks, I’ll just come downstairs,’ I dissuaded him, seeing as I’m actually still sleeping on Sunday’s french toast stains.
So I ventured downstairs and G handed me a bite of his waffles. It tasted like…nothing. A really weird, bad, ‘nothing’. Like something was definitely missing from the batter. Ten seconds later Jason walked in and handed me my own plate of waffles. ‘It’s a different recipe,’ he started explaining…’it doesn’t taste very good.’ [Nothing like a caveat to crush your appetite.]
‘Yeah. I know. I just had a bite of your son’s,’ came my ungracious reply. I decided to avail myself to some coffee instead.
Lunch-time arrived. I decided to bite the bullet and used the pizza dough I’d made the day before. Despite my reservations that it still hadn’t turned out right. I found some frozen tomato sauce, which I thawed and reheated. Added a sprinkling of dried herbs and thin slices of mozzarella and slid it into the oven. Then I kind of forgot the pizza was in the oven. I pulled it out and G took one look at it: ‘That pizza is burnt. I don’t want to eat it.’
It wasn’t burnt. The mozzarella just had a ‘dark’ look to it. I sliced it up and we dug in. ‘It tastes good,’ J remarked….’it’s just a little bumpy.’ It did taste okay, but it wasn’t a smooth pizza dough, just some sort of weird lumpy hard-ish affair. At least we ate. For dessert we had some fruit popsicles. That had experienced some kind of trauma in the freezer – maybe they’d melted and then froze again? G took his out of the bag and there was no ’stick’ to hold onto. Just a rectangular lump of ice. Jason bit into his popsicle and announced that he was going to ‘clear his plate,’ which means the popsicle ended up in the trash. I ate mine despite the absence of taste or appropriate texture. There’s probably also a tiny health risk with eating a formerly-melted-then-frozen-again popsicle, huh?
As the dinner hour neared, I was plum out of ideas for an interesting meal. I allowed my oldest to pick: omelette or (frozen) chili. He picked chili. So I took yet another container out of the freezer; thawed and reheated it. In an effort to not be a total loser, I also cooked some broccoli. Ta-da!
Tomorrow has got to be better.
A week or so ago, a friend living in London (Claudia!) changed her Facebook status update to report her excitement at enjoying the season’s first red cup, gingerbread latte from Starbucks.
Those marketing geniuses at Starbucks, sure came up with a winner when they conjured up the lovely red cardboard cup that’s only available during the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s season; filled with overpriced seasonal coffee beverages.
I didn’t think anything of my friend’s reminder that it was red cup season, since I’m not visiting Starbucks much these days. And the mere thought of an eggnog or gingerbread latte makes me queasy. Ditto for the peppermint mochas.
But my better half somehow latched on to the idea that the Starbucks outlets in Canada don’t use the red cups. He returned from a few solitary hours at the bookstore with a Starbucks cup in his hand. ‘I don’t think they have the red cups here,’ he declared. ‘Of course they do,’ I countered. ‘If they have them in London, they must have them here.’ ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he challenged me.
‘Well, maybe since that was a Starbucks in a bookstore, they don’t have the red cups,’ I reasoned.
On Wednesday night he returned from running errands with another Starbucks cup. A white cup with the green, white and black logo. ‘No red cup?’ I asked, since he’d gone to a real Starbucks – not one in a bookstore. ‘Nope’ he replied triumphantly. Pleased that he’d been right.
So today I decided to stop at Starbucks during a solitary run to the grocery store. I decided I was going to interrogate the barista as to why Starbucks in Canada do not serve drinks in red cups during the holiday season. Is there some sort of weird cultural association with drinking coffee out of a red cup? Why would they not follow this particular aspect of Starbucks protocol? They serve those stale, cold Top Pot doughnuts, for pete’s sake! I even considered writing a letter to Starbucks headquarters. [And a letter to Target while I'm at it, to figure out why in the world there is not a Target in Canada.]
I parked my car and walked into the Starbucks. The place was filled with red and green holiday decorations. Mass-produced merchandise lined the perimeter of the store – cup ornaments, gift boxes, gift cards, and CD’s.
And red cups.
