Charred Turkey and Jamaican Qualade Shooters

We’re driving to New Orleans tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with our two daughters.  The younger one is still in college and the older one has graduated and stayed in New Orleans.  Her boyfriend is a chef at one of the top restaurants in town and he’ll be preparing the meal for us and approximately twenty-five of their closest friends.  The menu includes Roast Suckling Pig, Turkey with Oyster Stuffing, Sweet Potato Casserole with Apple Puree, and Cheddar Biscuits with Olives, among other things. 

            “Shall I bring a Green Bean Casserole?” I asked my daughter tentatively.

            “No, mom, thanks.  We’ve got it covered,” she responded in a tone indicating she saw trouble coming and was attempting to head it off.

            As with most of the country, we’re approaching this most-American of all holidays with a great deal of anticipation and reservation.  Where else but at Thanksgiving do you celebrate so much togetherness, love, and unresolved conflict around a big, heavily-laden table?  Add a well-stocked bar to the mix and the potential for family drama goes through the roof. 

            I’ve promised my husband to be on my best behavior.

            My daughter, when I talked to her last week, sounded confident and unconcerned.  After all, she and Mason hosted a similar crowd last Thanksgiving and everything went off without a hitch, except for the deep-fried turkey which somehow got left in the fryer after someone broke out the Jamaican Qualude Shooters.  We were not at this celebration but have heard the legendary stories of the charred turkey which was greeted (perhaps owing to the Jamaican Qualudes) with cheers and gales of laughter.  Mason served it up on a silver tray.

            I am determined that this year’s Thanksgiving will go off without a hitch, by God.  I will help my daughter whether she wants it or not.

            “Shall I bring the sterling?” I asked her.

            “No, mom, please don’t.”

            “Oh?  Do you have enough silverware for twenty-five people?”

            “Actually, this year I’m making it easy on myself and everyone else.  I’m using throw-away plates, utensils, and glasses.”

            “You’re using plastic?  For Thanksgiving?”

            There was a pause while I imagined my daughter rolling her eyes and making obscene gestures at the phone.  Still, she majored in psychology.  Her education comes in handy when profiling serial killers or dealing with passive-aggressive mothers.  Her voice, when she finally spoke, was calm and detached.

            “Actually, they make really cute plastic ware these days.  It looks a lot like the real stuff.  You won’t be able to tell until you pick it up.”

            “Oh?” I said doubtfully.  “Well, if you’re okay with that.”

            “I am, mom.  I’m okay with it.”

            My husband, seated across the room, was slowing drawing his finger across his throat and shaking his head.

            “Oh, all right,” I said to him later.  “I won’t say a word about anything.  I’ll just keep my mouth shut and drink Jamaican Qualades with everyone else and let Lauren and Mason handle everything.”

            “I think that would be best,” he said agreeably.

            We leave tomorrow for Thanksgiving in New Orleans.  I have been meditating to ready myself for the occasion. 

No doubt, my daughter is doing the same.

Booze and Bad Decisions

My youngest daughter was recently home from school for fall break.  She goes to college in New Orleans (as did my older two) and she’s acquired that slightly jaded, sophisticated air that the city seems to impart.  Been there, done that, dude.  This is a city, after all, that boasts drive-through daiquiris, karaoke laundry mats, and over 150 festivals a year, all of them involving copious amounts of alcohol.  Temptations are plentiful.  Local law enforcement tends to sport a relaxed attitude toward alcohol consumption (you can drink in college bars with only a school ID regardless of the legal drinking age of 21) and it’s not illegal to walk the streets carrying a cocktail “to go” cup.  For students who’ve grown up in the Bible Belt or the Midwest or even New York, it’s an eye-opening experience.  You either learn to hold your liquor, or you become a raging alcoholic.

I generalize, of course.  The truth is, even as a frumpy, middle-aged woman, I love New Orleans.  I love the history and the culture, the French joie de vivre, the emphasis on good food, good booze, and good company.  Where else in the country does Happy Hour begin at noon on Friday and extend into the wee hours of the night?  New Orleans gave us jazz but it also gave us the Sazerac, the Hurricane, and the Ramos Gin Fizz. 

Despite their urban sophistication, I’m always apprehensive when one of my college-aged children comes home from New Orleans.  Chattanooga, for all its revitalization, is still primarily a small town.  With small-town police officers who take their roles as defenders of public sobriety seriously.  Cabs are hard to come by after a night of heavy drinking.  The downtown bars close at 2:00 p.m. but the free electric shuttle stops running at 11:00 p.m.

We thought when we moved off Signal Mountain into a two bedroom condo downtown that it would make it easier for everyone.  Easier for our adult children to party with their friends and take a cab home and easier for us to sleep knowing they were only a few short blocks away and could get home safely.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way.

Jordan’s first night home, she walked into a bar where there were literally “only six people I didn’t know.”   A good time was had by all and at 2:00 a.m., the time she had told me she’d be coming home, I woke up.  I won’t go into the angst of being a parent waiting for an adult child to return home after midnight.  Suffice it to say, my father used to wait up for me.  And now I wait up for my children.  It’s crazy, given the fact that in New Orleans they probably don’t get home before 4:00 a.m., but you see, I don’t know about it, so I sleep like a baby.

At 2:00 a.m. the first of many texts arrived.  Don’t worry, I’ll catch a cab.  Followed by, The cab isn’t coming.  I’ve called twice, and then,  I’ve walked to my friend Kelly’s house, and finally, There’s some guy here who says he’ll give me a ride.  The last one caused a frenzy of return texting.  Don’t catch a ride with a stranger!  Where are you?  I’ll come get you!

Twenty minutes later, she was home.  This was at 3:30 a.m. and I’m the first to admit, I don’t do well without my eight hour beauty sleep.  The screeching was long and sustained.  No doubt the neighbors enjoyed every minute of it.  She, for the most part, was fairly sober and handled my display with a blasé smirking that further enraged me.

“Mom, I’m an adult.  You can’t wait up for me anymore.” 

Eventually, I ran out of steam and we both went to bed.  The next morning she awoke, sweet and contrite, and apologized for texting me eight times over a two hour period.  She had thought that by texting me repeatedly, she’d be putting my mind at ease so I could drop back into a peaceful slumber.  Apparently, she had been “overserved” at the bar (said with a giggle), and the decision to text had been a bad one.  She had not caught a ride home with a stranger (I’m not stupid, Mom) and her ride had not been drinking (Seriously, Mom, I’m not stupid), and I really shouldn’t wait up for her anymore because she wasn’t a child.  She was an adult.

I could only look at her and remember my own father sitting in his wing back chair in his robe, his eyes bleary, his hair standing up in outraged peaks around his face while I argued with boozy breath that he shouldn’t wait up for me.  I wasn’t a kid.  I was an adult.

“You won’t know what it’s like until you have a child of your own,” he’d said.

Forty years later, I get it.