T day. T minus 90 minutes

I'm blogging and
Amy is making mashed potatoes

There isn't a recipe
She learned it
when she was a child
just watching her grandmother make them
(may she rest in peace)

It'll be a side dish, next to
Amy's dad's turkey centerpiece
We'll be having Thanksgiving at Amy's parents.

Later we'll leave here
to go pick up my mom,
(and sometime thereafter
Amy's parent's will leave their place
to pick up Amy's maternal grandfather)

and we'll all converge at Amy's parent's place.

Amy is telling me,
"If you want
this relationship to work,
you have to
be a fan
of the mashed potato."

Luckily for me, I like mashed potatoes.
(I watched "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
at an impressionable age
and the mashed potato scene is
indelibly imprinted in my imagination
forever a part of my victual reality)

I've never had her mashed potatoes before, though.
She's stated bluntly from the beginning
on several occasions that
she makes the best mashed potatoes.

Today however she's shared
for the first time that
sometimes
her mashed potatoes
can come out too garlicky
so this time, she wasn't going to use any.

However, as she was reaching up into the spice shelf
she accidentally knocked over the
garlic salt, the loose lid came off,
and a portion fell into the batch.

and she's been fretting about the amount
if if will be enough for 7 people.

and she's been second guessing herself
about the amount of butter.

Maybe we're nervous.
She's doubting her mashed potatoes
instead of trusting they'll be awesome as always.
and I'm distracting myself by blogging
before the event.

Recipe for this Thanksgiving.

Ingredients: Parents, Children, soon to be inlaws.

With generous helpings of the following:
sarcasm,
misread good intentions,
Strong opinions and even stronger wills,
Passive aggression,
and seasoned with 
garlic salt.
an ever increasing variety of
anticipated worst case scenarios

Instructions:
Gather all together for the first time.
Place in one house.
Mix.

Oh wait. I remembered something.
The love, relationship, and history that
tie all these people together.

Wow, remembering that one ingredient
relieves my anxiety.
Some.
oh, and Amy's potatoes look and smell fabulous.
Okay. We're going out the door and to get our Thanksgiving on!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Voxers!