To gallows fodder and black rabbit: I’m so sorry for what you are going through. It definitely puts things in perspective.
As for my Thanksgiving, I spent it with my husband’s ex-wife. There’s nothing else to say.
Lynn, as God Is My Witness, I thought Salsa Manufacturers could Seal. They were both Tostitos brand and bought from a local Stop&Shop and it made the ka-thuck! sound when it opened. We just tossed the second one unopened.
(I’ve seen "Starship Troopers"and there was no way I was facing it down w/o tactical armor, a flamethrower, and one Hell of a lot of extra clips …)
Then again I think that maybe, somehow, I was missing the Spirit of the Thanksgiving Feast…
“F-cking Humans! Always ruining a good dinner-party…” 
But on a more serious note…
+1
How the hell did I miss this the first time through? Sincere condolences, and I’m glad you made it home in one piece.
Me, too. I refused to spend another Thanksgiving at my parents’ house because I’m sick of drama and guilt. Unfortunately, the sprog got to spend the week at their house on his own, a mistake that I don’t intend to repeat. Basically, I’m boycotting all but the most essential family gatherings until my sixty-something parents can behave like adults and not toddlers. So Airman and I got to spend Thanksgiving at a nice restaurant with his family. No drama, no guilt, and no dishes to wash. 
There is a story here that you’ll have to share.
Another tale that’s more comedy than anything else compared to some of the stories in this thread…
This year it was just us (me, wife, two 8yo girls) at our little dacha in the mountains a couple hours from NYC. Really looking forward to it. We got a late start leaving the city and didn’t get the bird in the oven until 3. It was supposed to take around 3 and a half hours to cook so no biggie. We weren’t entertaining or anything.
An odor from the oven soon became unbearable. Turns out mice had made nests in the insulation between the oven box and glass stovetop. Instead of the smell of roasting turkey the room filled with the smell of roasting mouse pee and poo. So the turkey comes out, the stove gets yanked out from the wall and unplugged, I lifted up the top and pulled out the offending areas (without pulling too much insulation), vacuumed, etc., got everything back in place and put the bird back in. It took forever to cook. I finally served up dinner a little after 9. It was delicious and we still managed to enjoy ourselves but it was a journey.
Something similar…non Thanksgiving and about 20 years ago.
I turned on the oven one night to bake brownies. It pre-heated, I put them in…10 minutes later…STENCH.
We had been having a mouse problem already, had put out traps and poison. I quickly deduced the source of the roasting meat/burning hair/burning pee-poop smell coming from the oven. My solution? Take out the barely warm brownies. Turn the oven to clean. 900 degrees fahrenheit.
An hour later the house was full of smoke. We were at both doors with entry rugs in our hands trying to wave the smoke out the doors (wondering all the while, why no neighbors had called the fire department just based on the volume of smoke).
After the smoke cleared and the automatic cleaning lock let go, I found the perfect, mouse shaped briquet in the bottom of the stove.
I called the SO in to see, and I touched it. It disintegrated into nothing but ash.
Therefore, I would say that your solution was, by far, the better one. :smack:
I am so sorry about your mother.
ETA blackrabbit, hope your dad is doing better!
Because they weren’t just dicking around, it was work. My response was the same as you guys, until I remembered how many times my relatives have called my homework “doodling” (drafting <> doodling) or my thesis work “playing with the computer” (statistics program <> SimCity). It might be a good idea to avoid working on holidays, or to come up with some way to have Mom be able to join in occasionally, but still - the root of the problem is “how do we signal that we’re working, when our work is the kind that looks to others like a hobby”.
Read the book. The movie didn’t really have the GOOD armor. When Heinlein describes the real power armor, you will drool and say “WANT!!!”
I’m also very sorry for this. One of my sisters died between Thanksgiving and Xmas back when she and I were very, very young, and so the holidays have always had a mourning aspect for my family.
Truth. And maybe this makes me a cold-hearted bitch, but even if it was a hobby, so what? Living with people necessitates having time to do your own stuff, and having someone decide that they absolutely must participate in every single thing you do would be maddening. Taking on the (rather gigantic) burden of caring for elderly relatives is a huge deal, and I don’t see how anyone could tolerate it for any length of time if it meant not only helping them but also giving up every hobby, interest, and scrap of private time for their scrutiny and participation. Maybe an exception could be made because it’s Thanksgiving, but wanting some downtime after a Big Family Meal would hardly be a crime.
I was going to suggest that but by the time I got the words out of my mouth they’d already had their little exchange and she went upstairs. To his credit my husband (who is trying to be more patient with his mother) was very nice about it, he didn’t get angry, she got angry. And it was distracting but I get that she didn’t want to be left out and we’ll endeavor to do better next time.
Yes and you bring up a good point Nava how do we signal that we’re not just playing around but we’re actually trying to accomplish something.
Like I said before, I didn’t want to get into a long explanation of the music but my husband is recovering from an injury and can’t play his drum set right now. Hasn’t played in almost 2 years. He’s learning to play various hand drums and has created a sort of hand drum, drum set. We’re working on a recording project with a friend who’s a guitar player but this is completely out of the realm of what we’ve been doing in our professional musical lives (we had a jazz quartet performing jazz standards mostly) different instrumentation, he’s learning to play the hand drums, and we’re working on a project that isn’t really jazz and is mostly improvised. So, the dicking around is important just so we can get comfortable with improvising together.
OK, I guess I did get into a long explanation, sorry 
Things are back to status quo now. We sat in the basement last night and watched ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ together.
Alpine, ol’ buddy, don’t even. Left unchecked they can darn near be cancerous, although I put the blame square on the shoulders of the parents.
My S-I-L and B-I-L have their problems and avoid facing them by allowing their 4 year old daughter to indulge in evey whim imaginable, including running f*cking amok. I sure don’t blame her but that screaming, selfish little princess has actually become a ponderable influence on our family vacation plans and part of the reason I look for places of solitude when we’re up there. I could write a whole thread on it but suffice it to say its caused my frustration toward the parent’s underlying issues to be, well… extreme.
[Quote=Me, upthread, but I effed up the quote tags]
Crowning moment for me was when my MIL and her sister (Mr. Horseshoe’s aunt) dubbed me The Carcass Queen.
[/QUOTE]
Not really - the end result is funnier than the story. I was just going on (and probably on, and on :smack: - there was much wine) about freezing chicken bones for stock and they decided that I would be the one honored with The Making Of The Thanksgiving Soup.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my husband is usually a very sweet and considerate guy. I don’t know what got into him Friday … I blame computer withdrawal, since his motherboard fried two weeks ago, and he can’t play his new game until the new one comes in. Hopefully tomorrow, since that gives him two days off to enjoy it!
And I can totally see him gifting a visitor with one of our chairs or something.
Check again, I did not use the word “husband” in my post.
Our host had a 4" diameter candle and set it next to a small wicker knick knack.
FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!
Just down a wet kitchen towel is all, but it coulda been a whole helluva lot worse.
ETA: black rabbit…there are no words!
Thanks for the good vibes, people.
My dad is still in the hospital - we’re insisting that they hold him for a couple more days on the off chance that another bleeder pops. Everybody’s sick to death of hightailing it to the ER every time a clot blocks up his urethra.