Twice Thanksgiving

This was the first year that my parents told me not come to their house for Thanksgiving. 

Oh, yes.  But not out of spite or harpiness, but simply because my parents have decided that this was the year that all married children eat at their in-laws’ houses.  Next year, we’ll all be back at home.  (My mom said “we get the odd-numbered years, because we’re so odd.”)

So . . . dinner in Provo.  Brian and I were in charge of making my family’s luscious secret-recipe rolls, and acquiring a fancy cheese plate.  Oooh, fancy cheese!  My heart rejoiceth at the thought of thee!  Cheese is REALLY something to be thankful for, no?  Brian’s family had never had a cheese board as part of Thanksgiving; Brian and I got the idea beacause our friends from Pittsburgh, the Seppis, always began holiday meals with one.

Brian and I spent an evening sniffing wedges at the Harmon’s quite excellent cheese counter, and this is what we picked:

• Morbier — this is a cheese with two layers, separated by a fine border of ash.  The bottom part is from the morning milking, and the top from the evening milking.  It was voted the favorite.
• Mimolette — a carrot-orange, medium-strong hard cheese.  We bought it for color.
• Onetic Tomme Noir — a mild white cheese with a black rind.  I found the day after that it makes the best turkey sandwiches.
• Stilton — the classic British blue cheese.
• Sage Darby — white and green cheese that we bought again for color.  I think the sage flavor was a little overpowering.
• French Bouche — a creamy soft goat cheese
• Barely Buzzed — a locally made cheese; the rind is rubbed with crushed espresso beans and lavender
• Cahill’s Porter – a white cheese with chocolate-brown marbeling, it’s made with beer.  Its dramatic coloring is in weird contrast to its mild flavor; it was good, but we were disappointed.

And yeah — there was turkey, sweet potatoes, and whatnot.  We stayed up late playing “Sets & Runs,” which I believe is not so much a game as a way to torture your mind.

After that, came Thanksgiving Two: my mom called everyone up last-minute and invited us up to West Point on Friday night to eat leftovers together and play games.  Because all of my siblings were there, and we were eating a full Thanksgiving spread (oooh, heavenly shrimp salad!) it was like we just had two holidays in a row.  After eating, we all stayed up late playing Rock Band.  (I achieved a not-too-shabby 28 phrase streak with “Pinball Wizard.”)  Jeffrey had fun playing on a disconnected bass guitar.  Patrick and Erich rocked the guitar solos.  My 13 year old brother pronounced “Blitzkrieg Pop” as “Bla-gitz-krieg.” 

And much thankfulness was proclaimed by all.

Byeroid, Thyroid

So, after long last, my thyroid is finally dying!  Hurrah!

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been suffering from hyperthyroidism (Grave’s Disease) for the past two years.  It began during William’s pregnancy, and I’ve been waiting and waiting for him to be old enough for me to get the treatment: killing of the thyroid completely.  Why?  Here’s what hyperthyroidism gives you:

• Rapid pulse (120 at rest is my personal all-time high)
• Heart palpitations (I thought I was having a heart attack)
• High body temperature (kicking the blankets off at night, even in winter)
• High metabolism (always hungry)
• Fatigue (zzzzz)

If you go too long without being treated, your eyes begin to bug out of your head, and it can lead to blindness.  Fortunately, I saw a doctor when I was just at the rapid pulse/palpitations stage.  The standard medication for hyperthyroidism has terrible long-term side effects (painful stiff joints, high chance of osteoporosis), so it’s better to kill the thyroid off and take the medicine for hypothyroidism, the medication for which has nary a side effect at all.

Here’s the treatment: you drink a dose of radioactive iodine.  Your thyroid is the only part of the body which absorbs iodine, so it’s the only tissue that is killed off by the radiation.  The excess radioactive stuff is excreted by the body, which means . . . you can’t be around small kids for a few days. 

See why I had to wait for William to reach toddlerhood?

I fianlly underwent this treatment last Tuesday.  I had to go off my regular medication for three weeks preceeding the treatment, which meant that all my symptoms came back.  I’ve been exhausted, hungry, and hot for a whole month, which is part of the reason why I haven’t blogged, or . . . well, done much of anything for the month of November.

The treatment was odd . . . did you know that many hospitals have a Department of Nuclear Medicine?  And they use a geiger counter to figure out how much radiation might be in your knee?  (At least, they did with me.  “Here, hold your leg still.”)  When it came time to down the iodine, I was lead to a lab hood where a big insulated steel can held a tiny glass vial with a straw inside.  I was given so little iodine that the lab tech had to mix it with tap water so I’d actually have something to slurp up.

The sainted grandmas took over childcare for a few days, and I holed myself up in my parents’ house for the duration.  My parents’ house is very nice, but it’s in West Point, where the most interesting thing to do depends on what books you brought to read with you.  My choices?  Karen Hesse’s Brookyln Bridge, Eva Ibbotson’s The Dragonfly Pool, and Nancy Werlin’s Impossible.  So . . . yeah, I read a book a day for three days.  (The best of the three?  The Dragonfly Pool, although Impossible had the smokin’ hot duct tape scene.)

It’s great to be back with the kidlets.  I missed William especially — I’m used to his constant physical presence, the cuddles, the loveys. 

It will take weeks before I notice any kind of effect from the treatment; my heart still jumps around from time to time.  But it will get better.  I hope.  The biggest question from family has been: with my exposure to radiation, what will my emerging superpower be?  My answer: if I had one, why would I tell you?  Isn’t it standard behavior to keep superpowers a secret?  Besides, I’m always wearing glasses.  You wouldn’t even recognize me in my superhero gear, from which glasses are excluded.

Ha.

We’ve Been Patriotic N’at

Woop!  The election cycle finally came to a close this week!  And Barack Obama is our first African-American president!

How did people celebrate on election night?

In Michigan, my sister-in-law went to a giant spontaneous rave/nerd party in the middle of campus that lasted until 4 a.m.  It got cra-za-zy when a bunch of percussion majors began drumming, which resulted in all the students marching around town.  I’m sure the good citizens of Ann Arbor were thrilled.

In Brooklyn, my other sister-in-law and her husband noticed that a party was going on on the street corner that night, and they walked down to check it out.  They beat a hasty retreat however, when all the white hippies in attendance began singing “We Shall Overcome.”

(hahahahahahahaha)

At Retro Acres, we decided to host an election-night party.  Because we are indeed in Utah, we decided to keep the spirit of the event non-partisan.  However, this was kind of spoiled when the guests arrived to find our children jumping on the couch and chanting “ba-WOK o-BAMA!  ba-WOK o-BAMA!” 

Most of our friends were not particularly enthusastic about either presidential candidate, so Brian and I tried to restrain ourselves to only a few quiet “woo-hoos” when it was becoming evident that McCain was getting thumped.  And now that our friends are all out of the house, let me just say:

WOO HOOOOOOO!

How was the voting experience this year?  We voted early, at the student union of the University of Utah.  We arrived just before the polls closed, and there was quite a bit of a line.  But the kids were happy to fiddle around with the arcade games and pool tables while we waited.  Utah uses computers for its polls, and Brian and I both let our kids take turns pressing the buttons we wanted. 

After we were finished, we spent time walking around the campus and marvelling at what things had or hadn’t been altered in our absence.  (The Marriott Library looks so sleek and shiny now!  But the same dusty-book smell remains.) 

Change: it’s certainly something to believe in.  Ha!