Thanksgiving

I briefly considered not celebrating Thanksgiving this year. Scott was out of town, and I was out of energy. But after only a bit of thought, I decided I didn’t want Justin and Anna to grow up bearing a grudge about the Year We Didn’t Celebrate Thanksgiving.
So, I made plans to join in with some American friends for an evening feast.

After morning shopping, I planned to do a Thanksgiving craft with the kids during their two-hour lunch break from school. For the feast, I was in charge of bringing the apple pie, dinner rolls, and my family’s cottage cheese and olive concoction—all manageable in the afternoon. Then the kids and I would read about Thanksgiving while the rolls baked before heading off down the street.

I came back from shopping in the morning with just enough time to rush out and pick up the kids from school. Unfortunately, as I closed our door behind me, with the mailbox key in hand, I realized the apartment key was still inside. And the door latches shut automatically. And the other set of keys was in Paris. I kept a cool head. I didn’t want to stress out the kids, so I didn’t mention it right away. There is a locksmith on our street with a sign saying they open doors, so we stopped in on the way back. I told the young man our problem, he packed up his gear to follow us out; and then he mentioned the price. Eighty euros to open my door. That’s one hundred dollars. I mumbled a few words of apology, slunk out, and sought solace and help from our upstairs neighbors.

Alex and Marina weren’t home, but Norma let me cry on her shoulder while the kids played. We called Alex, who suggested sliding a credit card through, giving me momentary hope. But, alas, our doors are credit card proof. This should be reassuring, but it was mainly irritating.

So, after dropping Justin off at school, I slunk back to our neighborhood locksmith to admit defeat and plead for help. An older man was at the counter, and he offered to open the door for sixty instead of the usual seventy. Hmmm. I figured this was a good deal. Don’t know if he had compassion on me because the other guy warned him that a very upset lady with hungry looking children might be back or if prices just depend on the look of desperation in the client’s eyes. In any case, I was feeling pretty good.

Back in our building, Anna and I plopped down on the stairs as the locksmith took out a paper-sized piece of plastic—basically, a big, slightly bendy, credit card thing. I was thinking that sixty euros was a little pricey to pay someone for having a bigger piece of plastic than you have. But, hey, he had the plastic piece. And I had rolls to knead.

Then things got interesting. As he worked the sheet between the door and the frame, the lockmith began to repeatedly kicked the door. Hard. Anna was frightened, but unwilling to miss the action by going upstairs to play. Little Noah from upstairs came to join the fun and took a seat next to Anna .

Our door is quite secure. It took a half an hour of sweat, more kicks than I could count, three trips back to the shop for more tools, four trips upstairs to examine and measure the neighbor’s door, and three drilled holes before that door gave in. Two four year olds were entertained as well. Sixty euros seemed like a bargain.

In the end, the rolls rose adequately, the apple pie was lovely, and the cottage cheese thing—well, the cottage cheese thing is foolproof. We even managed to make turkeys and read the Thanksgiving story.


Cottage Cheese Thing Recipe

A container of cottage cheese
Three or four big spoonfuls of mayonnaise
Half an onion, diced
A small can of olives, sliced with juice