A Gazillion and One Things!

"The stucco guy is coming today," I said tapping my pencil and reading my to-do list.

"Yes," Mr. Wonderful said putting another coffee pod in the espresso machine.

"I have to buy Thanksgiving decorations for the house."

"Maybe."

"Walgreen's is selling Christmas merchandise already."

"No!" 

I loved my spouse but Mr. Wonderful's "shock" at the ever-encroaching Christmas shopping season was over the top. But that's because I knew his reaction was feigned and honestly? I'd already had my morning teapot of caffeine. He just didn't understand why I was so worked up about the retailers this year. I explained to him how everything had a season and the coo-coo crazy, rush-rush of Christmas shopping, office parties and buying/returning gifts would arrive soon enough. But since it was still November, we should enjoy this time for its autumn leaves, brown turkeys and red wines. Actually red wines were apropos all year long. I'm very accepting of red wines. And white wines, Champagnes, Amarettos, Calvados and hot toddys with rum. 

Don't get me wrong, I loved Christmas, St. Nick, reindeer, Tiny Tim and thinking of others but I didn't want to do all that until after the turkey was stuffed, cooked and eaten, which by my calendar, was still a week a way.

Plus, the truth of the matter was that since Mr. Wonderful and I were hosting Thanksgiving Dinner at our house this year, I had a gazillion and one things to do for Thanksgiving (don't forget that "one thing"!) before I could even get to Christmas. Hence my admonition to keep the Christmas season curtailed until after Thanksgiving Day. 

My Thanksgiving preparation plans included: 1) Writing up a food list that would be as long as Santa's Naughty and Nice list; 2) Writing up a list of drinks for the day including before dinner drinks, after dinner drinks and making-dinner drinks for the chef (make it a double!); 3) Driving to the respective food and drink stores to do reconnaissance; and 4) Finding decorations to put in my house to celebrate turkeys, cooking and Pilgrims when all that was available were Christmas wreaths, Christmas ornaments and Christmas Eggnog with hot toddys. Okay, that last one was fine in my book. 

I also had the stucco guy coming to the house to repair the gaping hole in the exterior of the house. I had to get that hole patched and painted before Thanksgiving dinner and with less than a week, I was running out of time.

"It's just another day," Mr. Wonderful shrugged.

"Thanksgiving is another day like a Tesla is 'just' a car," I said pouring more tea.

"You're acting frantic," Mr. Wonderful said as I downed a third pot of Gun Powder Chinese Green Tea.

"Don't you understand?" I said, my face twitching from all that Gun Powder Green Tea. "I have a gazillion and one things to do before Thanksgiving! And I can't forget that one thing!" Then I grabbed paper, pen and shopping bags and marched toward the door.

With the door wide open we both watched as another element of November happened outside: it started to rain. A lot. A monsoon-like downpour. This would not be a problem in the rest of the world but if you live in Los Angeles you either never learned or have completely forgotten how to drive in the rain, which meant that: 1) Driving to the grocery store for reconnaissance Thanksgiving shopping was impossible (unless I wanted to end up in a fender bender in the street); 2) Driving to the wine shop to buy the Turkey Day beverages was a no go (unless I wanted to end up in a ten car pile up in the parking lot); and 3) The stucco guy couldn't repair our gaping hole today. Argh! I had a gazillion and one things to do and now I couldn't do any of them!

"Want to go for a walk?" Mr. Wonderful said.

"In the rain?" He pulled his golf umbrella from the closet and we went out in the rain. We saw the brown leaves scattered on the ground like fairy dust, we saw bare-limbed trees reaching for the sky and directly over our heads we saw the garnet and gold colors of the umbrella. I squeezed Mr. Wonderful's arm. I had a gazillion and one things to do before Thanksgiving but right now I had remembered to do that "one thing": Enjoy this time.