Thanksgiving This Year

it is 5:30 p.m. in the holy city of zefat.  i went to pick up by grandson from gan a little while ago.  i  seem to be doing that a lot lately.  fortunately, the weather has been warm and i have enjoyed the 15 minute sprint down to the gan.  we usually, spend a half an hour at the park and then we get picked up by my daughter-in-law.

earlier, i went to town to pay my health insurance bill.  my payment was returned by the bank.  they returned quite a few checks this month and it cost me over $70 in penalties.  i still have not received a disability check since late july.  i am totally caught up in the inane bureaucracy of the government here.  i have taken emergency loans am i am still deeply into debt.  i have several outstanding bills that simply cannot be paid.  this is just par for the course here.  i hear it's getting pretty insane in america too.

i am feeling pretty good despite a cold.  what can i expect being around the kids all the time.  they're all coughing and they all have runny noses.  i have a bit of color these days form being outside a lot.  i do not look sick anymore.  i have a bunch of appointments coming up soon.  there's a gyn/oncologist and a brain MRI in november.  there's a brain surgeon appt. and another pet scan in december.  and then it's back to the radiologist in january.  are we having fun yet?

i still have thousands of shekels worth of taxi fares that i didn't get back from my medical carrier and about 8000 shekels from the national insurance that i'm owed.  i don't have enough stamina to deal with all of these offices.  i ordered check books weeks ago, and i found out yesterday that the bank never reordered them.  i feel overwhelmed.  i can't seem to keep track of all of this balagon.  i  am only concentrating on this year's first night of chanukah, which happens to be thanksgiving.  that seems to be the only thing i can relate to.  it's the first time that these two dates coincide since 1885.

i try to plan the menu and look up recipes on a daily basis.  my computer will not let me into most cooking sites.   i want the meal this year to be traditional for both events.  i have my paper turkey table cloth,  my straw turkey bread basket and some turkey napkins left over from past years.  i already made white chocolate dreidel and chanukiah lollipops.  i still have the dark chocolate ones to prepare.  i also have dreidel shaped salt and pepper shakers.  i need to place a small chanukiah on the table for show.  i thought about using 8 of the lollipops to create a chanukiah effect.

i bought a small bag of cornmeal to make the traditional cornbread.  i have dried cranberries that i may add to the cabbage salad.   i already bought turkey wings and frozen whole cranberries.  i have an old challah in the freezer that i can turn into sage and sausage bread stuffing.  i bought two kinds of  kabobs that will take the place of the sausage.  i am still dreaming about making a pumpkin pie.  who knows?  maybe i actually will. this year.  last year i made a pumpkin cake.  it was dreadful.   i saved and froze enough clear chicken soup from a shabbat meal to add to the bread stuffing. 

i need to do something fried to keep up with the chaukah tradition.  that leaves making either corn fritters, or potato latkes.  i'm  toying with the idea of making pumpkin latkes.  i did it one year and they were a big hit.  i'll probably fry chicken cutlets for that shabbat meal.  i'm also thinking about making stuffed baked sweet potatoes.  everything is possible.  i  want to make a chestnut soup but i think that would be overkill.  i have a recipe for fried cookie bow ties.  i don't know if i'll want to kill myself with this project or not. 

 i wish i could buy a prepared pie crust but they only have graham cracker ones and they really aren't good for  pumpkin pies.  i'm also considering making a non baked kind of pumpkin pie using vanilla pudding.  i'll have to investigate some more recipes.  in the meanwhile, i need to see the social worker from my medical carrier and the clerk at the national insurance tomorrow.  that should take the entire morning to deal with both these issues for sure.  i have to get my grandson from gan at 2:00 p.m. which puts me under even more pressure.  i also need to go to the electric company which is at the far end of town which is an expensive taxi ride.

the shabbat after thanksgiving is the 6th anniversary of my mothers passing.  i would like to arrange a kiddish for her in the little chabad bomb shelter but i don't know if my finances will be in better order by then.  i know that i am a bit ahead of myself but that's what i always do.  i'm thinking of tu b'shvat after chanukah.  and i think of chanukah after sukkot.  it's funny but i haven't begun to think about purim yet.