It was silly of me to think I could get through a holiday without any sort of ridiculous issue. For years now, I manage to have some sort of illness that totally screws up the holiday season.
Last year, I had a virus syndrome that lasted two weeks, during which time I was bed ridden, that spanned from two days before the premier of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, so I couldn't go to the midnight showing, through Thanksgiving. I'd had a big fancy menu picked out and went shopping well ahead of time, but when Thanksgiving came around, I couldn't get out of bed without coughing so hard it caused my back to go out. But still, I was going to get up, for my husband's sake. When I got into the kitchen to start the turkey, my mother had already started cooking the food I bought.
"What did you put on the turkey?" I inquired. I had planned an orange and sage butter rub.
"Butter spray, salt and pepper."
Butter spray? Didn't they stop selling that in the 80s? Apparently not, but she had not sprayed the turkey with butter or liquidized margarine, she had sprayed it with butter flavored generic Pam, which sent me over the edge into a coughing yelling rage. Which was, in actuality, because of my stupid jerk allergies that cause me to have to pay more to get food that everyone else can buy for reasonable prices to avoid becoming extremely sick, hence my unreasonable reaction to defiling the poor, very expensive bird with cooking spray. And I can be a total jerk sometimes...plus that sucker was just coated in pepper. Thankfully, I had no appetite anyway from being sick, so I rubbed the turkey with a stick of butter and squeezed an orange over it, had some can-shaped cranberry sauce, and went back to bed.
This year, I thought it was smooth sailing. I've managed to avoid getting my nephew's cold, I have been diligent about washing my hands to avoid germs from strangers... and then this morning at 6 am, I woke up unable to move my neck without excruciating pain. When I got up, I realized it extended all the way down to my shoulder blades. So I have two options, I can either make our Thanksgiving feast while doing a Quasimodo impersonation, or I can take a muscle relaxer and relive the wedding scene from Sixteen Candles.
OR
(there is a video here, non-page viewers)
