Welcome to Black Friday! What's up with all these stores opening at 4:00 this morning? I don't know about you, but waking up really really early to stand outside in the cold in front of some store/mall/whatever among a million other people is not really my idea of a good time. I don't really like crowds. And I don't really like people. Big crowds of bargain-hunting people? Before I've had my coffee? Um, no.
In times past, my family used to go out shopping on Black Friday, although it was never that early. We've since stopped doing that, once I was old enough to declare "Aw, HELL no! I'm sleeping in!" Which is what I did this morning.
The sore throat I had earlier this week did indeed blossom into a full-blown cold, despite my glugging down Airborne and sucking on zinc lozenges. Consequently, when we made the trek over the river and thru the woods, as the song goes (okay, fine, it was really more like over the Edens and through Deerfield to Highland Park we go...) I was a big, sniffly, sneezy mess, armed with Kleenex and more Kleenex. And, this is possibly the worst part of the experience - I was unable to taste a damned thing. How devastating is that? On the one day of the year that we dedicate to eating a whole lot of tasty food, I can't taste a single thing. I was sitting around, watching the Packers game, and then the Cowboys game, stuffing my face and not being able to taste any of it... And we had all kinds of great stuff, shrimp and snacks, the turkey and stuffing...
Waitaminute. Let me take a second to tell you about this stuffing. It's one of my favorite foods on earth. The recipe came from my late grandmother. It's a rice based stuffing, not a bread one (in fact, we've eaten it for as long as I could remember, I was startled to learn that other people but bread stuffing in turkeys on Thanksgiving. I just had no idea. Anyway - Uncle Ben's rice, seasoning, ground beef and pork, apples and onions and assorted other seasonings, stuff it in the bird and yum yum yum. We only make it at Thanksgiving, so it's special when we get to have it.
Right, so anyway. We had mashed potatoes, yams (my grandmother puts amaretto on them), my favorite wine, and I had gone to the BomBon Cafe on Wednesday afternoon to pick up some tarts as a birthday treat. Do you think I could taste any of it? The answer you're looking for here is no.
On the scale of holiday bummers, I think this one is pretty high on the list, second only to one Christmas a few years ago. I'd had four impacted wisdom teeth, impacted so badly they were starting to hurt. We'd scheduled the surgery - wait for it - the day after Christmas. So not only was I in a whole bunch of pain, I was only able to eat soft foods at dinner....
But it's better today. So it's a good thing I saved some stuffing and chocolate tarts, huh?
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