Genevieve
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	The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam...

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turkey, glass and pie, oh my!
2003-12-01 - 3:27 p.m.

I have to start out by saying that I am so excited that I have finally found a place to buy my own set of Sandbkkelse Tins, so they are winging their way to me tomorrow from the mid-west. I remembered to get my mom's recipe for these yummy buttery norwegian cookies this weekend while she was giving the recipe to Nancy, Alan's sister-in-law. It starts with a pound of butter and two cups of sugar just to get you going. :) My mother, being the coolest in creation, made some to take up to the Massachuesetts Smiths for Thanksgiving.

Wednesday evening Alan and I came home to a house without heat. hmm... He called the company we had a service contract with and after 3 tries, we got a guy to come and fix/replace our furnace igniter or something. I got to go pick up my folks from BWI and even made it in and out of the short term garage in exactly 30 mins so it was a free trip. Sometimes it is just the little things.

Thanksgiving Day dawned very early as the van to take us to the airport arrived promptly at 5:30am to whisk us back to BWI. The flight was on-time and uneventful getting us to the Plympton Smith Annex before noon for turkey time. My parents got to meet the Smiths who couldn't make it to the wedding and fit right in. They even built a fire to keep us thin-blooded southerners warm enough. Nancy, being smarter than average, had Thanksgiving dinner made by a local organic farm and sent David to collect the spoils and we just spread it on the table and bellied up to the trough. It was very yummy.

We digested a bit (I napped in a chair by the fire) and the Smith boys and their mom had an important family discussion. And as apparently is tradition, we wandered through the woods to Dana's house next door for desserts. It was perfect as we got to spread out the dishes, limit the exposure to the cat-house, and get a little exercise before the next onslaught of food. Fruit of the Forest pie became my favorite (rhubard, strawberry, cherry and raspberries), but I helped make a dent in the others over the weekend- cherry, blueberry, and there was pecan that I didn't imbibe in. And later mincemeat back on the Cape.

Finally, following the vast amounts of food consumed, we piled in the cars and headed back to the Smith homestead on the Cape to visit a bit more, and eventually crash out. I confess that the cat from the first house, the scented candles of the second house, and the dust of the third had completely finished me off by 10pm that night. Only in a nice allergy drug induced state did I drift off to sleep.

Friday was our site-seeing day. We first went to the Village in Duxbury to check out its amenities, and to give Alan and Doug a look around, and let my mom ask all the technical medical questions. Then we made our way to Plymouth MA to see the Rock (sure it is...), and check out the outside of the Mayflower II, and visit the gift shops for lighthouse stuff for my mom. I got a nice earthenware pie plate which will be much more appropriate for period tarts than the pyrex glass. Speaking of glass, we then went off to the Pairpoint Glass Works by the Sagamore Bridge that has glassblowing demonstrations on site (except when we were there) and lots of neat stuff for purchase, including a seconds and opps bench. I got a lovely cobalt blue tumbler that serendipitously fits exactly 12 oz from a Diet Coke can...

Did you know it gets dark there now around 4:30pm? 4:30! Insane...

We drove through historic Sandwich MA in the dark sort of picking out buildings here and there of interest, not that we could see them. We made it back to the house on the lake for dinner and more pie leftovers for dessert, as well as more visiting with Doug and Caitlin. I also pulled out a ball of blue lopi yarn I brought with me and started a mitten of nalbinding. When I left it last night I was 90% done with the first one with only the thumb to finish.

Saturday morning we had breakfast and went for more site-seeing. First we made our way to Sandy Neck beach on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Cape and fought the wind and sand for souvenier nature polished pebbles and a glimpse of the ocean. Then we drove around and saw some typically cape style architecture and then back to Pairpoint, in vain hopes of seeing glassblowing, and my mom got a pitcher she passed up the first time. Finally we made our way to Captian Scott's for a nice seafood lunch. Mmmm... lobsta bisque and fish n'chips. yummm...

After lunch we said our goodbyes, and made our way to the Cape Cod Canal with its strong current and little boats. All of the little seagulls and pigeons were hunkered down trying to avoid the wind as much as possible, so for that visit we just looked out the car windows. Then we visited the Sandwich Glass Museum. Ohhh... There was a small glass blowing (into optical moulds) and pressed glass demo. They had lots of neat stuff on display from blown glass beehive style pitcher and stuff to pressed glass items from cup plates to pitchers and all sorts of items. There was even an exhibit on glass jewelry (specifically Hazel Blake French) and the ladies who would sweep up the broken glass pieces from the factory floor and turn them into art. There was a mosaic of Cape Cod broken down into counties with the various colors of glass. There was even a glass window made from colored broken scraps on display from the late 19th cent. They had to drag me from there kicking and screaming. Actually, that would be unkind to the glass, so really I was just pouting and shuffling... But the rest of my party was all tuckered out, so we headed back, this time driving through Historic Sandwich in the daylight seeing the Town Hall, Thornton Burgess House, the old Dexter Grist Mill, the Hoxie House, etc.

We got back to Alan's mom's place and hung out a bit, rested, (napped), had more pie, and then had to leave to catch our plane out of Providence. Once again, our flight was on-time and uneventful. It was actually not solidly booked so each pair got a row of three seats to spread out over... ah... We arrived back at BWI around 10pm and went out to go catch our ride back home. We got in early and had no checked baggage, so we knew we'd have to wait a bit. But it turned out that the driver was told to pick us up at 11pm, not 10:30, which means our wait was longer, and colder, than anticipated.

Still, we amused ourselves watching the silly minivan driver shoving his 3 adults and 1 child passengers and all their stuff, which there was plenty of, into the little Sienna. There wasn't nearly enough space behind the third row of seats as there should have been. The driver was silently praying for bungee cords or a ball of twine to magically appear, but they didn't and instead he had to shove the luggage in with the folks who brought it. It was them who brought the suitcases the size of elephants afterall. I even heard one of the ladies, and I use that term loosely, complain that they were letting the cold in as they tried to puzzle how to get the jigsaw together. I swear I heard clown music when they pulled away with the minivan's rear end lowered substantially.

All in all we didn't get home until midnight, what with the accident blocking 195 West that we had to jump the median to head back down 295 to get anywhere. And then my parents flight was at 7am the next morning, so we were back up at 4:30am for another shuttle to the airport. Alan and I got home around 6am, and I fell back into bed until 10am. Sunday was spent beaching in front of TV, reading email, doing holiday shopping online, and working more on my mitten. Hmm... bum-ness is a good thing.

Monday dawned in her typical fashion. I overslept, two of my four lamps blew light bulbs when I turned them on this morning, and then there was a grinding, dentist drill, high pitched whining whilring sounds of something wrong in the ceiling above our cubes again. Ugh, gave me a headache.

Yawn, hope you all had wonderful Thanksgiving holidays and at least a bit of resting and relaxation before the hectic holiday season really sets in. I found out that I can listen to Wash FM online, 24 hour Christmas music thru Christmas day. :)

See some of you at Unevent!

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