Things I need to remember about Thanksgiving...

1. Buy a bird with the little poppy-outie thing to tell me when it's done. I UNDERSTAND about the meaty part of the thigh, but it's a good thing that bird was dead or he'd have been crippled for life by the time I got through poking around trying to find just exactly how done he was. Overdone, as it turns out.
2. My mother is going to complain about the food, no matter what. Since the woman has been known to drink SPOILED MILK because her taster doesn't work, WHO CARES? And if you WANTED ham, WHY DIDN'T YOU COOK ONE?
3. However much wine we think we need? We're wrong. Multiply.
4. If you get cute with the brine so that you have an interesting-tasting turkey, you're gonna get interesting-tasting gravy and that stuff is NASTY. Just wrong.
5. Don't go messin' with the staples. We had carrot souffle and rosemary-roasted sweet potatoes instead of the traditional pecan/brown sugar-crusted sweet potato casserole and the majority of the Little Kids went on strike. Well, ALMOST on strike because...
6. If you have a 75-pound five-year-old who likes bread in your midst, double up on the rolls. Or set them up high.
7. If Cousin George shows up with his gin and tonic premixed in a 7-Up bottle, don't just set it on a shelf in the refrigerator. The Little Kids again. The scary thing was, the seven-year-old didn't even NOTICE it wasn't 7-Up!
8. If we're going to put that tree together we either need to do it while the Little Kids are there or BEFORE we start drinking. It only had three parts but everytime you turn it on the motion sensitive light in the driveway comes on.
9. The floor at the bottom of the steps to the basement is concrete. Luckily, Little Kids bounce.

P.S. Be careful driving home, City Girl. On your way back from the City.