The Thanksgiving Adventures Begin...

It's a sad comment that we live in a 'burb fifteen minutes outside of Boston, and yet when we say we're going into "the City," we mean New York and we tend to do it about twice as often as we go into Boston.

Normally we host Thanksgiving. It's one of my favorite things to do. Yes, that's right, I enjoy hosting Thanksgiving. I love the planning. I love the cooking. I love the decorating. I even love the cleaning up after and that satisfaction of a fridge full of leftovers. Yes, I am a geek. Yes, my mother will wonder how she raised a daughter like me after that paragraph (rebellion against childhood upbringing, of course).

But, obviously, with our tiny little apartment kitchen, our dining room table in the middle of the living room, and the general disarray of our house life, we're not hosting this year. Next year, ah, next year with my 36" stove and wide counter space... But this year, we decided to make the trek down to the City to have Thanksgiving with my parents and the Tweedle Twirp. Of course, my parents' city apartment is considerably larger than our home apartment, but the kitchen is 1) not that big and 2) completely not set up for cooking. It's set up for getting bagels from Murray's and burgers from New York Burger Company. In preparing what to cook (my mother's exact words, "You can have Thanksgiving at our place. But I'm not doing any cooking!"), I quizzed my father. "Do you have a muffin pan?" I hear rustling and clanking, "Ah, no." "Do you have a baking pan of any size? 8 x 8? 9 x 9? 9 x 13? Even a pie plate?" "Ah...no."

So we're not exactly cooking a full meal. The Tweedle Twirp ordered a turkey, stuffing, gravy, and green beans (who really likes cooking green beans?) from Balducci's. I'm making bourbon-spiked sweet potato (and, yes, I'm going the gauche route and still added marshmallows; the bourbon is for me, the sweet potato is for my kids), sour cream-thyme muffins, and cranberry sauce. Tweeds is baking the pumpkin pie.

There's the background. Yesterday I convinced Adam to work from home. He got up early and got online while I buzzed around like a madwoman. Got Doodles to school. Plopped Pie in front of a very rare morning of TV. Packed. Cleaned. Organized. Got us all out the door and to Doodles's school by 10:30 a.m. ("We're late! Come on, Pie and Adam!" "It's only 10:25. Doesn't it start at 10:45?" Does this man live on some planet where the time is adjusted funny? Whenever I tell him a starting time, he adds at least fifteen minutes to it.)

We make it to his school just on time to see our little pilgrim enter the cafeteria for their big feast. Each class made a part of the feast. Doodles's class made corn bread. Another made soup. One made apple pies. And the fourth made--just like the pilgrims--fruit kabobs. After the feast, all the pilgrims got up and performed for us, such Thanksgiving classics such as "Albuquerque Turkey," "The Tom Tom Song," "There Are Many Things I'm Thankful For," and "Tony Chestnut." The singing ended at 11:14. At exactly 11:14:02 I had those kids in the bathroom and then out the door. We were on the road at 11:22. Which is awesome because apparently a few hours later there was an accident that caused the Pike to close a bit.

We made it down in decent time; we took on short cut and hit traffic outside of New Haven and Hartford and there was one relatively long pit stop when Pie had to pee, but we arrived in the city (meaning we crossed into the Bronx) about 4:30. It took a bit to get into Manhattan proper, but the great moment was when we got lost in Central Park. In my defense, in all my years living in New York, I never, ever drove. Really. Even on my own student film shoots at NYU when I had to rent a van, I got someone else to drive.

Why were we in Central Park in the first place? I had the brilliant idea that Adam would drop me and Pie off to watch the Thanksgiving Day balloons inflate (Doodles was invited as well, but he had no interest). I got the directions from Google Maps, which told us to take the 79th Street transverse. Only the 79th Street transverse was closed. So we entered at 72nd street. Which apparently takes us back up to 110th Street. By 5:30, Pie and I decamped at Central Park West and 81st.

In my mind, I envisioned a casual stroll among the balloons, a little oohing and ahhing, and then a quick subway back for dinner with everyone else. Not quite...

As we got to the corner, where we could see Buzz Lightyear and Spongebob we were stopped by barricades. First we were just stopped as Mayor Bloomberg passed. And then we were stopped as we were told that we had to enter the balloon inflating at 79th and Columbus. Pie was a real trooper and just kept periodically shouting, "New York! Yea, New York!" We headed over to 79th and Columbus. And waited. And waited. In masses and masses of crowds. Just waited. Finally we got to cross over and into the barricades where we got shuffled down to 77th Street.

We were smushed in, but that Pie didn't care. "Where are the balloons? Where are the balloons?" Finally, after about an hour, we made it to the balloons. And Pie was entranced. "Who's that? Who's that?" We saw Pikachu (who I originally said, "Look, it's Homer Simpson!") and Ronald McDonald and Hello Kitty (who I said, "Look! A turkey!") and Dora the Explorer (recognizable at 1000 paces), Snoopy (who I said was, "I have no idea who that is"), the Energizer bunny. At the end of the row was a Smurf. "Pie, I said. That's a smurf!" At that moment we came to a sudden halt (I will say that we were able to get right up to the barricades and see the balloons and it moved at an easy pace) as the mayor gave a press conference. "That's the mayor I told Pie."

Finally we made it down 77th Street. I did gave Pie the choice of going to the balloons on 81st Street or heading back down to the apartment for dinner. She thought about it and decided to head back, which was good because it was already after 7 and I was hungry.

We headed to the subway. You've never seen a kid so excited to be on a subway. "It's the subway! Yea, subway! Why isn't the subway moving? Oh, that's silly! It is! Is this our stop? Is this our stop? Is this our stop? Yea, subway!"

Back at the apartment, we got ourselves some burgers, came back, played. My kids did nap in the car. Their normal bedtime is 7 p.m. At 10:15 Pie finally fell asleep. Doodles fell asleep shortly after.

So 10:15 bedtime. Any guesses on wake up time? Yep, 5:45 for Pie. A cranky 5:45. But she got up. And since she was up, we had the obligatory conversation about whether or not to go see the parade in person (general advice is to arrive by 6:30 a.m. to get a good place to see the 9 a.m. parade). My daughter exhibited a rare moment of wisdom and opted for the TV.

Happily, the Nana was up soon, so Pie had a playmate while Adam and I went back to sleep. I got up just in time for the start of the parade. The kids were very enthusiastic and sure enough, Pie yelled, "I saw that last night. I saw that bunny last night! I saw that star last night!" And as that giant Smurf passed by, that great big blue inflated Smurf, Pie yelled out, "Look! It's the mayor! Doodles, that's the mayor!"

And that's our Thanksgiving until now, 9:30 a.m. Doodles is playing with Tinker Toys. Pie is doing naked tushie dancing in front of the parade on TV. Adam and my father are off picking up a pre-cooked turkey. And we've got a whole weekend ahead of us. Tune in for more turkey adventures. And happy Thanksgiving!