So for Thanksgiving, my maman decided she'd do the basics (turkey, mashed potatoes, home-made gravy, roasted sweet potatoes, rolls, two types of pie (pumpkin and cherry) with Redi-Whip, and she asked me to take care of wine and I suggested the cranberry wine from Minhas because we had no cranberry dish and the wine is tasty chilled) and then the three of us would bring it to grandma's new place to have Thanksgiving dinner with her. Which in and of itself wouldn't require a post. (As a sidenote, my Uncle Steve did call to make sure she had plans and was otherwise going to pick her up to join them now that Sondra's sisters moved their big family celebration to the weekend after. And it seems like Aunt Sondra's insistence that nobody should be alone on Thanksgiving if she asked him what his mom was doing for the holiday, but I'm grateful he was ready to do that. And my Aunt Linda did just her nuclear family but grandma was sad we didn't bring any apple pie so mom had him text his sister to see if she had any homemade apple pie left to bring her mom while running errands today. She said of course she could bring her some and was happy to hear from us wished us a Happy Thanksgiving back. And then I went to check on Henry, a lonely cat, for a friend out of town to her mother's in Iowa for Thanksgiving. 

All of which was probably predictable. 

Now I had offered to make some pumpkin pies because I had 2 cans of pumpkin I bought earlier this fall AND two cans of evaporated milk I bought last year for pies and the best by date on the evaporated milk was 11/30/21. But while at CostCo, they had a very large pumpkin pie she bought and so told me not to worry. Well, when we opened it last night, right under where the label was, there were white spot mold spores which I pointed out to my mama before she started cutting into it to serve. She was so deflated and sad (and annoyed to have to deal with CostCo on Black Friday to get her refund. Luckily, my da does not like pumpkin pie and cherry pie is his favorite so we'd bought him one and we still had pie to eat (though it fell apart trying to serve it was more like a crumble) and so we were all on Team Cherry with Redi-Whip.  

That said, my maman was so dejected and fixated on the pumpkin pie having gone bad that I told her not to worry, I'd just bake one from scratch when I got home or early in the morning before coming to work to play George Winston Christmas music and put up all my indoor holiday decorations at work. (I just need to be there by lunch time as they decided to order in pizza and almost everyone there loves pepperoni/sausage best but I can't eat that. Turns out Sam dislikes sausage and pepperoni (thus why we often do plain cheese for me and Mikaela since she also has a pork allergy albeit not as severe as mine) and he was up for mushroom, onion, black olives, and chicken. So it's not just for me since Sam also wants it and won't eat sausage or pepperoni, but also it kinda is just for me since I gave the final decisions on toppings after finding out what he does/doesn't like. ) 

I went to bed early, pretty much as soon as I got home, so then woke up six hours later (my normal 2 REM sleep cycle if I don't get woken up and I'm not sick/healing) which was like 3am. So I made myself some tea and put together my plant stand (they didn't drill holes into the main slats for attaching the cross bars for the wheel or for screwing on the wheel plates. And when I looked at the quality of pine they used, I realized trying to do it by hand without drilled holes would not only be a bitch of a job probably strip the screws, but the wood quality was such I'd likely split it and then I'd have to wood glue and clamp and these are weight bearing parts and that was not worth the risk. So I asked my dad if I could borrow his handheld electric drill and drill bits or bring that first step to attach the wheels with the parts lacking drilled holes. (Yes I know, I'm old enough I ought to have bought a drill and have a proper toolkit by now - but I need things so rarely other than some epoxy/wood glue/super glue as needed, a basic screwdriver with flat head and Phillips, a hammer, and nails, a tape measure, that anything more I just borrow from work or my father and then return. Some day I'll get myself a proper tool chest with a drill and drill bits, but I have access to borrow them whenever I do need them and so I haven't bothered to make that investment.) We decided it would be easier for me to bring it over and we'd take care of it together on Thanksgiving while mom was cooking. (The turkey and gravy flavors were particularly good this year since I gave her to use some of the fresh tricolor sage and golden thyme I'd grown in my raised boxes at work and culled the last of on Weds before winterizing and putting the boxes away til Spring.) So we drilled the holes got the wheels attached to the base (even with drilling the necessary holes with the smallest bit, the wood on a couple of the cross beams did crack while attaching the wheels - but it's on the underside and didn't split all the way through to need glue and vise, but audibly cracked despite our excess of delicacy for fear of splitting them, which made us both wince. 

So anyway. Got up at 3am. Made tea and put together the rest of the plant stand by myself. (It was designed intelligently to be put together without even really needing a screwdriver since it was all pre drilled all the bolts had washers and nuts to secure them -- the only exception being to attach the wheels in step 1, lol.) Then made the pie crust - only when I double checked ratios because I haven't made a pie crust in a while I didn't read my recipe close enough because I was just verifying the butter to flour to water ratios not the steps of it and I pre coffee remembered "it's not exactly 1 stick of butter to 1 cup flour then ice cold water by the tablespoon til the consistency is right - damnit I'd best check." So I did  And my pre coffee brain definitely thought, "curious, I only remember using one stick of butter for a crust" but went ahead and made it and only afterward realized I had made enough dough for bottom and top crust and should have halved it (1 stick frozen as possible butter : 1.25 cup flour a per crust.) Which was just a stupid not thinking pre coffee oops - and my solution to that oops was "Welp. I do have two cans of almost to beat by date evaporated milk to use up. And I have two cans of pumpkin. And rolling it out to freeze it for another time never produces a pie crust I'm happy with. Guess I'm just gonna have to make two pumpkin pies the." So I did two crusts in two separate pie plates and then put them back in the freezer. (The tricks to flaky crusts is to use the minimum amount of water, don't over mix, and most importantly work everything as cold as possible and keep as chilled as possible. I do move the crust from the freezer to the fridge for the last 15-30mins of prepping the filling (be it fruit pie or quiche) because I don't think from a chemistry or physics perspective that going from freezer directly into a preheated over is good for pyrex or metal structural integrity. Too extreme a change too quick, liable to crack or break the pie plate wherever there is a minor flaw in the chemical bond structure.)  

So anyway. Woke up at 3am, put together a plant stand, made two pie crust from scratch. Then I showered both me and my dog and her jersey (the pup needed it and she's a house guest in a week and so my parents deserve to have her come over at least somewhat clean.). Then I made coffee and breakfast and watched the sunrise. And then I finished making the pies (I decided to put Jameson in one of them, à la the bourbon pumpkin pie variation on the Libby's pumpkin can) and got them in the oven before 9am so they could have time to cook and then cool for 2hrs on the wire rack and I could still get to work in time for lunch. 

Took the pies out of the oven and they passed the toothpick test at 9:41. So now I'm going to finish the last of my pot of coffee and call Wrench auto to schedule for an oil change and tire rotation then get dressed and ready so that I can quickly pack up the pies once cooled enough to bring to work and have free pizza before getting paid to listen to George Winston/Vince Guaraldi Christmas music while I get paid to put up lights and decorations inside. Then home near to close (I have plenty of hours in after all) and tomorrow I will do laundry and make things festive while listening to holiday music and tidy up the small disorders I have found here from moving things around and make leftovers for lunch/dinner.

Also, yesterday morning I woke up to light snow and then afternoon flurries on my way to my parents house. And supposedly tomorrow could be up to half an inch of snow. And damnit but I'm so hungry for some snow that even flurries and half inch gets me excited and happy!