Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

We are visiting Bill’s family in England for Thanksgiving -- five short days. There was no turkey dinner or Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. However, the English have chosen to celebrate another more modern American tradition: Black Friday. Yes, we Americans eat the turkey and celebrate the voyage that originated in Plymouth, England; then we wake up Friday morning to mania in the stores and in our email boxes. And English retailers have latched onto this day-after tradition. Bizarre.

Bill’s mum gave us our Christmas present early: evening tickets to a musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in London on Thanksgiving night. Waking up at 11 a.m., we had a bit of a late start and found ourselves at Buckingham Palace to watch the guards march around 4:00; then we strolled around Green Park near the Canada Gate -- a memorial area dedicated to Canadian forces killed in the First and Second World Wars.

From there, Will wanted to check out the famous London toy shop: Hamley's. The five floors of toys was filled with a festive buzz and lots of smiles. Each floor had employees playing with toys, so we could see how much fun they were. It worked. Bill explored with Will, and I went with Liam. In a half hour we met and compared what the boys wanted. Bill and I each had a remote-controlled clone in our hands. They were very cool little gizmos. The man flying it around the shop landed it on his nose; his expertise showed he had been doing this a while. The drones took the air with lights flashing and four little helicopter blades spinning. The flying toy easily fit in the palm of my hand.

For Thanksgiving supper, we had delicious baguette sandwiches from a coffee shop then walked around the corner to the theater. The magic of live theater, while eating a Wonka chocolate bar, kept the smiles and awe on our faces, just as the drones had done.

From the theater, we hopped aboard a double-decker bus. The the best seats were available – upper deck front row! We imagined we were on the Knight Bus from Harry Potter, white-knuckled as the driver wheeled around some of the tight corners.

When we opened the door to the house around midnight, we were all wired. “Can we try the drones?” Sure, but don’t fly them where there are glass ornaments; don’t fly them in the kitchen. No sooner said did Liam’s drone mistakenly take off from the kitchen table and zip straight up to the ceiling and drop straight back down. Into my hair.

I cringe when I see bats flying around. It probably isn’t a logical fear that they would get caught in my hair. It’s never happened to anyone I know. I also know no one who’d had a drone get caught in their hair. We all laughed. Then Bill had the brilliant thought that perhaps Liam should turn the thing off. So the blades would stop spinning. In my hair. And I noticed that when I turned my head, it hurt. Right in the front at the hairline, one blade was wrapped so tightly it was pulling my scalp.

Serious de-tangling ensued with Bill working as gently as he could to get the four blades out of my hair. “Mom, I’m so, so sorry!” Liam kept saying. “Get the scissors!” Bill directed. “No, you can’t do that!” Liam exclaimed. “I won’t cut much out,” Bill assured.

As for me, I was caught between a grimace and a chortle. Will sat stiffly and watched my face, trying to judge how painful it was. After 15 minutes, I was free of the drone. “Mom, I’m so sorry!” said Liam again. No more drones were flown in the house last night.

Today, we took them to a park. Liam’s wasn’t working very well. Up close, I saw the problem. Hair wrapped around the blades. Black hair. Had I been seconds away from my hair catching light? Or, had another mother with black hair been ensnared before me? Had they then returned it to Hamley’s in the original package to be resold to us?

All in all, Thanksgiving in London was a wonderful time with my family… and as exciting as Thanksgiving 2009... when we set the oven on fire.

Hoping you had a wonderful, relatively uneventful Thanksgiving Day!

(Do you remember the other Reel Hairy Tale?)

Untying the Mother-in-law's Tongue

For years I’ve had one of Grandma Mills' plants: the mother-in-law’s tongue. It has never been that healthy or prolific under my care. I couldn’t even get the leaves to stand up straight. I’ve had wooden chopsticks and twine anchoring up the tall spiked leaves.

They are dark green from age. They look fragile. Tired. I moved the plant to the deck for the summer, and I removed the sticks and the twine. The plant was in a corner where there was room for it to splay its leaves a bit.

A few days later, I hovered over it with the watering can. Looking into the middle of the plant, where all those spikes radiated from, I saw a short, light green point.

In all my attempts to help the plant stand up straight, I had been suffocating it: new growth erupts from the middle. The place I had committed to darkness with the leaves pulled together so tight it kept out any sun or air that might have generated a young spike years ago.

With water, it lived. With the untying of the string, it’s thriving. Multiplying.

My mind spins with the symbolism.

(There is another other heirloom plant in my care, Grandma Murphy's Christmas Cactus: How to Get a Christmas Cactus to Bloom.)

The Drill

The Drill. It sums up last week. Will and Liam had dentist appointments. It was a 25-minute drive to the dentist’s office in the dark early evening rain. In the back seat was a re-hashing of every dentist appointment they could remember. Dentists were demons. Once this was agreed upon, Will and Liam went on to reminisce about strep throat tests. The nurses who did those were also evil, but not the doctor – no, she was really nice. (Well-played, Doctor, throw the nurse under the bus.)

“How long will this take?” Will asked. It’s this 11-year-old’s favorite question. He’s squirming in the waiting room. “Do you want me to come in with you?” I offered. “Only if you don’t restrain me,” he replied with annoyed emphasis on “restrain.” Yes, in the past I have put a full body press on Will and watched cavities filled and sealants applied. About six inches away from the action in Will’s mouth. He knows the drill; I pray I’m not called into restraint service today.

As Will settles into the chair, with book in hand, Liam is guided to the room next door to Will. He also carries a book. I anchor myself against the wall in the hall giving me full vision to both of the open rooms, chair backs facing me. Liam wiggles and giggles as the hygienist straps the bib around his neck. Once in place, he reads. When the dentist comes in, he notices the tools on cords. “Are you going to harm me?” Liam pointedly asks the dentist. He sees the drill; and again, I pray I’m not called into restraint service today.

Will’s cleaning is quick. He lurks in the waiting room and at my side still with the question, “How long will this take?” Liam is having sealants put on the back molars. The dentist sweetly says, “If your tongue goes over there again, we’ll have to start all over. Keep that curious tongue away!” Now I'm silently asking, "How long will this take?" I’m offered a seat near Liam. Really, I just want to stay against that wall, thinking how pleasant it would be if there was a hook for my collar, so when I feel weak in the knees I would still look strong standing against that wall, er, hooked onto that wall.

Finally, squiggly Liam is released. Bounding out of the chair, he laughs in the face of evil, “YES, I’M INVINCIBLE!” I’m not. In two hours, I’ve relived their childhood dental drama which has brought on flashbacks of my childhood dental drama. If they only knew what it used to be like. Leaving the building, I feel as heavy as the Nor’easter soaking us.

The van chat on the way home switches to the School Lock-Down drill. Will had his earlier in the week. Liam’s is the following day, and he missed the day of school that they practiced for it. I was obliged to prepare him. “You’ll be practicing what to do in case there is ever a dangerous situation in the school. The most important thing to remember is to listen well and do exactly what your teacher tells you.” Will embellished. “Yeah, someone came over the loud speaker and said, ‘The intruder is on the main stairs.’ And we were nowhere near there, so our class left the building.” Liam picks up on the word intruder. “Was there a real one at your school, Will?”

I grew up with tornado drills: preparing for a freak of nature. I struggle explaining the complexities of a Lock-Down drill. I remind myself that they learn this drill as a protective measure. It should give a bit of comfort, but it's a freak of nature less easy to understand than the tornado.

By the end of the day, we have lived the definitions of drill: as the known routine of how an event was previously carried out, as a tool that makes holes, and as training for a “what-if” scenario.

I’m fatigued by the English language. As in exhausted. Not as in dressed for war.

Happy Hump Day.