No More Thanksgiving!

Somebody up there does not want us to enjoy Thanksgiving. To wit, a description of Thanksgivings past:

1996 -- The first year Kelli and I were dating. Let's cover the basics of that year: the 5th anniversary of my first marriage, followed shortly thereafter by my first divorce -- not necessarily a bad thing. The Powers That Be refused to replace the three employees that left my department at TCI cable, leaving me as a manager with no one to manage and doing the work of four people. After working 110+ hours per week, putting on nearly 25 pounds and waking up one morning to discover I was driving, I quit without another job. My last day was to be the day before Thanksgiving. Thanks to my usual bad luck, I worked until 5 am Thanksgiving morning. Kelli had gamely hung in there with me all night (that's when I knew it was love), so we went back to my place and crashed until about 2pm. We obviously didn't go to Mobile as planned. Instead, we went to dinner at the Omelet Shoppe and caught a Star Trek flick.

1997 -- We try going to Mobile again. The night before we were to leave, we reheated some leftover seafood from Ralph & Kacoo's. By the morning of our travel day, Kelli was deathly ill with food poisoning. We made the trip anyway, but she spent most of the trip in bed.

1998 -- Our first Thanksgiving in Carrollton. Familial conflicts made the trip less than enjoyable. I suppose that's pretty typical of most people's Thanksgivings. Shortly after, my mother had a heart attack due to un-managed back pain.

1999 -- Our one good Thanksgiving. We were on our Honeymoon cruise. Of course, Kelli had been deathly ill due to a respiratory infection and an allergic reaction to an anti-viral right up until the wedding. Then, I was down with strep for the first three days of the cruise. Thanksgiving was the first day I felt relatively well.

2000 -- We started off in Mobile for Thanksgiving. Kelli was coming down with something. She thought it was a sinus infection. We then went to Carrollton for an extended family gathering. Kelli was really sick and smelling phantom onion smells. Her mom joked that Kelli was pregnant. On Monday, we found out she was right. That's the silver lining.

2001 -- Savannah was a baby. We went to Mobile, and everything was fine -- believe it or not. Of course, we were in the middle of a four-month period of no work and were headed toward our worst financial crisis of our lives.

2002 -- Kelli's extended family packed about 40 people into a 900 square foot house for the big meal. It was a 2 1/2-hour drive each way, and a bratty distant cousin kept being mean to Savannah. Miserable trip!

2003 -- We were on our way to Mobile and our engine died just outside of Montgomery. Kelli's cousin Stephen had to rescue all of us -- me, Kel, Savvi and Pippin (the cat.) We were stranded at their house in Millbrook for most of two days while we tried to find a way to get us and the Expedition back to Birmingham. The dealership in Prattville told us the engine was locked up and we needed a new one. We had the car towed home. My dad and I put some oil in it, cleaned the oil pan and strainer and replaced the oil pressure switch -- good as new. Our actual Thanksgiving dinner was a menu of various junk food items. For what it's worth Kelli was hospitalized with the flu shortly before Christmas.

2004 -- Unbelievably, a pretty good Thanksgiving, at least as far as we knew. We went to Mobile and had quite the feast with my extended family. We didn't know it yet, but Kelli was in the first days of a doomed pregnancy. We lost the baby on New Year's Day. And Sears caused us to wreck our car just before Christmas. Happy Holidays!

2005 -- Thanksgiving Day isn't here yet, but so far not so good. Cooper is still sick with a respiratory/sinus thing. His umbilical cord was starting to smell infected this afternoon, so Kelli was going to take him to the pediatrician. On the way, the car shuddered and the "check engine" light came on. She came immediately home. Tomorrow, I take it to the dealership and rent a car to get us through the week. I guess two years of driving with a locked up engine isn't too bad!