Magic Tea?

Okay - I've had this cup of sucky tea for a while - it's lipton and too strong - and I've been stirring and stirring and it's nowhere near sweet enough, especially considering the strength. So I mindlessy sip through the stirrer and get a mouthful of still granular sugar!!!!!!!

Anyway, I tried to post a comment to An American in Lille, but this site doesn't like me too much!!! So my story follows:

We decided to have Thanksgiving Chez moi this year. So I plan it all out: the menu, what serving bowls, etc... I even make my own compound butter to rub on the turkeys and get two birds to fit side by side in the roasting pan! Magnifique, non? Nope!!! In traditional Francis (Stone actually) family style I went and goofed it!

So I made my homemade cranberry sauce on Monday night (the recipe said it gets better if you make it a few days in advance and let the flavors melt together), roasted the butternut squash on Tuesday night, and my mom came over on Wednesday night to help make the Portuguese stuffing & help me set the table. We make the stuffing, have dinner, set the table and she's off. So I start on my pies! I get my healthy pumpkin pie assembled and in the oven, then start on my apple pie (a Swedish apple pie - one of my favorites)!

So I take out my apple corer and look at it for a minute. I don't really want to core the apple - if you don't angle it just right it's not a fun process. So I put it back and look at the cutter/corer and decide against that one as well. I don't really (and I don't know why) feel like my usual slice off two opposite sides and then the two now-short sides and then cutting the large pcs into 3's and the smaller into 2's. So I grab the mandoline slicer! This will be fast and efficient and everything will be uniform in thickness! And I say to myself OUT LOUD as I take the safety food holder out of the little storage box that holds the mandoline slicer, "and it's important to use these little safety grabbers to keep your fingers safe and happy". BUT do I use the safety grabber? NO - OF COURSE NOT!!! I'm not a moron, I can cut some apples!

And about two apples in, I get a tiny bit of fingernail and a tiny bit of skin from my ring finger on my right hand... go to the bathroom, wash it off, and put a bandaid on. Go back to slicing and STILL don't use the safety... an apple and a half later I got a little bit more of my middle finger... which was followed by a call to Bryan's mom and laying on the floor with my arm above my head while keeping pressure on the middle finger (used-to-be) tip. Karen gets to my house, looks at the finger and says "yep - you need to go to the ER. Do you prefer Rhode Island Hospital or Roger Williams?"

So the bottom line is that Bryan passed out at the hospital when he saw the blood, I threatened him when he came to, and they didn't need to stitch, but wrapped it and gave me some vicatin there and a prescription for tylenol with codeine. The way I cut my finger, it wasn't too deep (remember those uniform thickness slices???) and everything will heal to 'normal' and I won't have a permanent chunk taken out.

So this Thanksgiving I was very thankful for the 9 fingers (or 7 depending how you look at it) I didn't cut and all the stitches I didn't need. :) Finger is healing well and I still get a good laugh out of the entire story... when you're back in the USA I'll have to go through the whole thing for ya! :)