Full Contact Scrabble

Hope you all survived your Thanksgiving week. Eh, maybe your life is more normal than mine and you don't have to survive holidays. For me, a visit with family in SC involves survival skills. One of our coping mechanisms is a little game we like to call full contact Scrabble. See, we don't just have a pleasant friendly word game while we sip hot tea and catch up on each other's lives. We drink, swear, and throw things at each other while we play ruthlessly. When my sister keeps score, she gives each player an endearing nickname on the score sheet, names like whore, bitch, and fucker, for instance. Trust me -- this is a form of therapy that helps us release hostility and express ourselves.

I was finally able to visit my grandmother for the first time since she was placed in a nursing home; unfortunately, she didn't know me, which broke my heart. This deterioration is painful, but after all, she just celebrated her 92nd birthday. It doesn't make it easier to lose her, but it's inevitable. She is back in the hospital as of last night, by the way. She had another mild heart attack, bless her old soul.

While in SC, I argued with my mom about my grandma. Well, argued may be too strong of a word. We discussed the fact that my mother has not been to see Grandma in the nursing home because she is mad at Grandma for something she said. Here's my take on this: Grandma, while she may be a crotchety old woman who has no tact whatsoever, isn't getting any younger. Are you going to let WORDS stop you from saying goodbye? Grandma has said mean things to a lot of people since she's been sick; get over it. Mom was angry at first and later said, "I think you are good for me. When I say something that is bullshit, you tell me it's bullshit." You just don't know what a breakthrough that is.

I ate a lot of good food, and the scale can tell you just how good the food was. I gained four pounds last week, eating my own cooking. I roasted a 15-pound turkey, complete with a pan of dressing, collard greens and crowder peas from the garden, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potato souffle, and pumpkin cheesecake. Even having a small amount of the foods I like resulted in too much food on my plate. Nothing says "grateful for the harvest" like having to unbutton your pants at the dinner table, evidently.

Today, I faced students waxed lazy(er) and sleepy(er). At one point, I was tempted to say, "You know what? You're right. Let's all put our heads down and take a nap." I squelched that thought, but I'm definitely going to bed early.

Layered Pumpkin Cheesecake

Thought you might enjoy this recipe. I've been using it for years, and it's really delicious.

LAYERED PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE

INGREDIENTS
For the crust:
· 1 cup gingersnap crumbs, about 20 to 24 cookies
· 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
· 3 tablespoons melted butter

For the cheesecake layer
· 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
· 1/4 cup sugar
· 1 teaspoon real vanilla
· 1 egg
· ¼ teaspoon lemon juice

For the pumpkin pie layer:
· 1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin puree
· 1/3 cup evaporated milk
· 1/2 cup granulated sugar
· 2 eggs
· 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
· 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
· dash ground nutmeg
· dash salt

PREPARATION
With a spatula, combine gingersnap crumbs, chopped pecans and butter in a bowl until well blended. Press into bottom and up sides of a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. Combine softened cream cheese, 1/4 cup sugar, lemon juice and vanilla, blending with electric mixer until smooth. Blend in egg. Pour cream cheese mixture over crust. Combine pumpkin pie ingredients in another bowl; mix to blend well. Pour over cream cheese mixture. Bake at 325° for about 1 hour and 15 minutes or until set. Chill. You may top with whipped cream, if you like.

What's on your table?

I thought it might be interesting to see what will be on the Thanksgiving table this year. We had a surprisingly good garden this year, considering we are in a drought, and our feast will definitely feature collard greens and crowder peas from our harvest. We will be roasting a turkey with dressing (we don't stuff the bird!), and serving up a variety of vegetables, including the collard greens and peas. I will make Parker House rolls, and FYI, we like the jelled cranberry sauce straight out of the can vs. a fancier version up. I know that's not very Martha Stewart-ish of me. For dessert, instead of regular pumpkin pie, my pumpkin cheesecake has been requested by my sister. I will probably make a pecan pie, too, as that is one of my husband's favorites. We hate that sweet potato casserole thing with the marshmellows. :::shudder:: If I were more inspired, I might do a photo/recipe study a la PW; if I get motivated, I may at least post recipes. :)

So, what's on your table? Ham or turkey? Neither? Stuffing/dressing inside the bird or out? Cranberry sauce? Sweet potato casserole?

It's Official

As of November 14, we have two teenagers in the house. There are obvious signs that there are two teenagers in the house: strange tribal music blares from speakers, clothes lie in heaps on the floors of their bedrooms, Clearasil and Tag body spray clutter the bathroom countertops, and there are two practically-adult-sized people glaring at me and giving me lip quite often. They have their good qualities. I'm just having trouble identifying any of those qualities today. It gets better right?

Sexploitation

By stripping off my clothes to a litle bump and grind music, I so totally got my husband to do the laundry tonight.

I rock.

Apologies

Sorry that last post was long-winded. Stories about my teenager getting into trouble always seem to be somewhat...er...detailed.

Telling On Chelsea

Raising teenagers makes me want to drink a lot is like nailing Jell-o to a tree. You should try it sometime, if you haven't already. This weekend was NOT one of the fun ones, and the stress has been kicking my butt.

Chelsea had her BFF Amy staying at the house for the weekend, and since they are both 16, we trust them somewhat. Well, OK, we trust them about as much as you can trust any other 16-year-olds. We're friends with Amy's parents, and our kids bounce back and forth from each other's homes often. My husband and I had plans to go out for dinner on Saturday, leaving the two girls with our son, who is almost 13. We were gone about 90 minutes to an hour, and that's about how long it takes for teenagers to get into a lot of trouble making bad decisions, apparently.

Having barely gotten seated at the restaurant, we were sipping on wine, talking, and enjoying some grown-up alone time when my cellphone rang. It was Chelsea, who wanted to know when we would be home. I told her I wasn't sure, and asked why. "Well, I need you to pick up some tampons for me and I want you to call me when you are on the way home," says she. "Hmmm," I say, "Didn't we just buy some yesterday?" "Yes, but Amy just got her period too. Can you please call me after you leave the store?" Curiouser and curiouser. Red flags were going up, no pun intended. So I said I would go to the store for her, but did not agree to call.

We ate our dinner with a little less enthusiasm, suspecting something was going on, obviously. We stopped by the store after dinner, and then drove directly home. As we pulled on to our street, we could see a truck parked alongside the road by some bushes right next to our front yard. As we pulled in the driveway, we also saw every light in the house was on, and the basement door was standing open. I went for the front door while Mike went to the backyard, where the girls practically ran into him as they were hightailing it to the basement. I walked in the front door, and Mike shut up the basement, then walked back to the front yard, where he saw the truck now speeding away down the street.

Immediately, we both start questioning the girls about who was at the house, what's going on, who was in the truck, why is this door standing open, why are all the lights on, etc. They are not admitting to anything. In fact, Amy hides out in the bedroom to avoid the questioning. No matter how much we interrogate, we get no answers. Meanwhile, Michael is oblivious to anything; he's been on the computer with headphones for the evening, and all he can tell us is that the girls were outside in the backyard. We tell Chelsea that we know she isn't being honest, and she will have to tell us sooner or later. She's stomping around, "Oh my God. I can't believe you think I'm lying," while Amy comes out long enough to tell me, "Miss Liz, Chelsea isn't lying." Fine, we will let it go for tonight.

Morning comes, and I'm drinking coffee and reading blogs, like I do on Sunday morning. I hop on to MySpace, where I have an account strictly for keeping up with what the kids are doing. Amy is on my friends list and had sent out a bulletin (That is a message that goes to everyone on your friends list, if you are not a MySpacer.) The message was one of those long, silly surveys with questions like, "What's the last thing you ate? What's the last thing you drank? Where's the last place you went? Who was with you? Etc." There was a lot of incriminating evidence in that survey, so I immediately began to ask questions again.

Some of the truth finally came out. Chelsea admitted that yes, OK, we did ask some boys to drop by here and they brought us a drink and some Slim Jim's from Smallwoods, the local convenience store. Mike says that Chelsea is spoon feeding us enough information to get us to stop asking questions, but isn't telling the whole truth. "Oh my God, Daddy," she yells as she stomps through the house. (Oh my God is the in expression for teenage girls, apparently.) I follow her to her bedroom door, and say to Amy, "I can't believe you lied to me, too, kid." She protests that she never lied to me, to which I say, "Yes you did, when you told me Chelsea wasn't lying."

Amy begins to cry and Chelsea is shooting daggers at her with her eyes. Amy sobs and says that she doesn't want to get Chelsea in trouble but she doesn't want to lie to me. In part, this hysteria is about Amy wanting to get herself OUT of trouble, but that's beside the point. She proceeds to tell all:

Chelsea invited the two boys over to the house the minute we pulled out of the driveway. They all hung out together in the basement, where nothing happened because neither of the girls like the two boys "like that." All that hanging out and talking got them hungry and thirsty, so they decided to go to the store. Chelsea used her cellphone to call upstairs and tell her brother, "Amy and I are at the end of the driveway and can't hear the house phone if it rings. Call me if Mom and Dad call, ok?" "OK," says he, and goes back to his oblivious little world. They drive off in the truck with MY DAUGHTER AT THE WHEEL. You know, the one who has only had her license since July. The one who knows that it's illegal to drive with non relatives or anyone under the age of 21 until you've had your license for 6 months. The one who called me to find out how long we were going to be out. Yep, while we're eating dinner, our daughter is out joyriding in some boy's truck. Did I mention we don't know this boy? And he's almost 18? Oh, and just to be sure she had told us everything, Amy told us that Chelsea was smoking. Again. We already busted her for that and thought we were past that, as well as past this lying when you're caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar. But no, we were just delusional.

Skipping past all the screaming, yelling, and profanity appropriate parental response of firm discipline, let me just say that we have taken her license away, cleaned out her room except for her bed and desk, and she can't go anywhere without one of us. Needless to say, she and Amy are no longer BFFs, because naturally, it's all Amy's fault that she got into trouble.

Who are these people and why are they calling me Mom?

What a Week

Who would have thought that Halloween would have such a disruptive effect on high school students? Not me, that's for sure. After all, I teach 10th grade and most of my students are 16 years old. They talked about Halloween all week. They discussed costume choices. They left candy wrappers on the floor. They asked me why Halloween isn't a holiday off from school. They didn't want to do classwork, which one student explained to me thusly: "We can't do no work today. It's Halloween, and we gots to get CRUNK! Ayyyyyyyy!" The ones who made it to school the next day came in sugared up and climbing the walls; those who were hungover from Halloween partying didn't make it to school.

Two more weeks until Thanksgiving vacation. Woohoo!