cellio | family visit

We had the usual Thanksgiving gathering at my parents' house today. Everyone seems to be doing well overall. The nephew was sometimes snarky but usually well-behaved. The niece was sometimes quite rude to her mother and my parents; while some of her frustration was provoked, some of it was either gratuitious or, more likely, connected to something else that I never saw (past differences or the like). But this was pretty much limited to part of dinner; the rest of the time they were not interested in interacting with us. Oh well; I guess this is the surly stage or something. Things have been worse.

The niece is going to study in Italy next semester. I'd hoped to hear more about that from her, but she wasn't being talkative. Oh well. (She's a junior in college.) My mother was expressing the usual grandparental concern about her being "all alone" on a big trip, but I suspect she'll be fine -- and that even if she's not, she's probably not receptive to advice right now.

My parents are talking about going to Italy for a week or so while she's there -- not to bother her, they said, though if they can see her they'd like that. I'm glad that my parents are thinking more about travel; it's something they've enjoyed in the past, and then they couldn't for a while because their elderly dog was sick. The dog has passed on, which is sad, but that does leave them free to travel now.

There was a lot of good food. My mother made the turkey, stuffing, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, and sugar-snap peas. Either she or my sister made the yam/oatmeal/sugar/not-sure-what-else casserole. I made a salad (lettuce, some veggies, apple, mango, hard-boiled eggs -- went over well) and bread. All of this is sounding reasonable so far, right?

And then there was dessert. For calibration, there were seven of us. Given that, I think my mother's apple-nut cake (large pan -- 10x13?) would have been sufficient. But my sister wanted to contribute something, so there was a mixed-berry pie. But that might not be enough, so my mother also made a huge poppyseed cake. (Alas, this one was dairy so I didn't have any.) In other words, there was enough food for each person to have the equivalent of half a pie. Fortunately, the poppyseed cake, at least, will freeze.