Who's Cooking?

I know I'm not the only one who has already made two trips for groceries so I can make cranberries and pies and dressing today ("stuffing" for you northerners who probably don't even get to have cornbread for supper the night before Thanksgiving). My mother would have started in on pies and molded or frozen salads already, but I don't like cooking as much as she does, and I don't plan ahead as far. I have exams to grade in between my cooking (which is better than taking breaks to read in between, which usually results in burned food at my house). My family's tradition is to have Thanksgiving dinner as a late lunch, around 1 pm. So for most of my childhood, the first thing my mother would do on Thanksgiving morning was to get out of bed and wrestle a turkey into the oven. That's my plan for tomorrow. Nothing like handling raw meat before having a cup of tea and taking the blanket off the rabbit hutch.

We won't be seeing any extended family this Thanksgiving, even though the schools here have finally decided that not everyone lives within an hour of their childhood home, and they've given the kids today and Monday off. Someone neglected to update the band director, who insists that all the band members must march in the mis-named "Christmas" parade on Saturday, making travel impossible for those of us who live a day's drive away from our childhood homes.

So I'm trying hard to be grateful that both my children will be here tomorrow. It's not that many years until that won't always be true. And I'm thinking of this poem, Resurrection, by Vladimir Holan and translated by George Theiner:

Is it true that after this life of ours we shall one day be awakened
by a terrifying clamor of trumpets?
Forgive me, God, but I console myself
that the beginning and resurrection of all of us dead
will simply be announced by the crowing of the cock.
After that we'll remain lying down a while...
The first to get up
will be Mother...We'll hear her
quietly laying the fire,
quietly putting the kettle on the stove
and cosily taking the teapot out of the cupboard.
We'll be home once more.

Good luck to all you mothers, whether you're the first to get up, or the last, because it took so long to get that teapot dry and into the cupboard the night before!