here we go..a totally off or on topic thread.

any thanksgiving plans? favorite recipes to share?

any topics you want to carry over from other threads?

i know i want to give sue a and ask her how is bob?

melody, i got my eyelashes caught in eyelasher curler once. i should have known better than use one. i have thick curled lashes already. no one told to not have mascara on first. OUCH. they grew back pretty fast. i lost the corner ones.

billye, how did the meat turn out? i have layered cassolet recipe that uses different meat.

We can all share! Thanks for this thread.

I haven't done the meat yet. I'm still navigating thru the camera pill thingy. Today also was a dental appt. Walking on the crutches is entirely exhausting and today was a dilly!

Hoping I can get the meat this week-end and try it all. I have one of those big clay pot casserole dishes that you put in the oven. I'm going to stack meat and vegetables in it, add a can of vegetable broth and some tomatoes and cook it all this weekend. This is something I think I can do. If I guide my husband thru it, I think he will be able to do it. I'll peel potatoes, an carrots to go in it with maybe some celery too. I can't add salt or spices, can't eat them, but the canned vegetable broth should do it for us. He likes plain things and I can't eat them so it balances out.

Sue, Please let us know aboutBob. I edited this because I just read about Bob. That's why this thread is so important. We can keep up with people. Hope you are managing all right. Hugs too.

love to all,
Billye

Billye:

Did you see my post to you (on the weight loss thread), about Meals on Wheels in Texas??


And to any of you who live in or near NYC, tomorrow night is the Neuropathy meeting at the CBS Building in NYC. I shall post about it when I get home. There will be a speaker there who will talk about physical therapy, and occupational therapy, and other information also.

Melody

The holiday has become a sort-of multi-day affair? Partly because the last two years I was either in a walker or a wheel chair...maybe. But, the PLANNING part has become more essential than when I was working 60+ hour weeks. I get/pick up bits of what I need days before. Last week the 'turkey' . I have frozen veggies in that huge freezer, but for the Holiday I like FRESH, with a stock of chicken broth and heaps of butter. I mean If one is going to OD on food, it should be absolutely hedonistic, NO? I have infusions Tuesday and Wednesday so, that leaves me Monday to SHOP, and start to cut and prep, put in baggies all the cut-up stuff to heat and cook on next Thursday. Not to mention Cranberries? Whole berry sauce...no frills, just heaps of concentrated Vit C [Mrs D? I am right in this?] to go with all the 'other stuffs'. I don't know about you all, but we never, ever make it to dessert! All that L-tryptophane is more than any soul could ask for, thanks! I have gotten very selfish over the years, I like the way I 'DO' it all, and I like the leftovers...I don't have to really cook for over a week afterwards...Really doing a turkey is nothing to be feared, and yes, I have had some cooking nightmares...maybe not told here, but.....Just avoid heavy lifting and pace yourself and you should come out 'whole'?

OK BILLYE? What all about this Camera PILL THINGIE???????? Yummy? - j

Keeping Thanksgiving low-key, if we do a formal gathering at all. This is my first Thanksgiving in Sioux Falls. My in-laws live here, but all my family is in Denver.

The reason we might not do a dinner at all is that my father-in-law just started treatments for stage 3 bladder cancer, and we don't know how well he's gonna feel. My mother-in-law is having complications from her recent knee replacement and is gonna have her hands full taking care of her hubby. And my hubby never figured out how to cook anything more complicated than scrambled eggs.

If my husband and I do end up staying home, I will probably have him buy a turkey breast and roast it in my rostisserie. I would likely make a crustless pumpkin pie sweetened with Splenda. Only other things would be some mashed potatoes, and maybe I'd allow myself a few bites of cranberry sauce....real simple, and not an excessive challenge for my digestion or glucose levels.

Simple can be quite tasty, actually. And very little "turkey burnout" after the holiday.

fanfaire

My family is all in Michigan and me on Long Island--there was a new man in my life, so I thought we might spend it togetherbut, I think not. I'm too old to deal with a man with "Inconsiderate" as his middle name and I told him that up front, gonna lay it all on the line this time around! Ain't messin with me no more! So now, I don't know what I will do. The holdiays are hard when your family is so far away.

I usually visit them in early December, but this year, I have a new grandbaby coming in April, so I am delaying my vacation until then. I have to see a new baby.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.

If you dont want to be alone on Thanksgiving maybe you could volunteer at some place that provides Thanksgiving dinners for the down and out.

HeyJoe:

Alan and I made that call last year. It was before Thanksgiving (a few weeks), I called around to the local Churches and asked 'are you giving out meals for Thanksgiving, do you need any help?" and I was told "oh, we are making gift baskets but we have enough people, thank you".

I was told that by everybody I called. So, because no one needed our help, we coudn't help. I mean, all you can do is make the attempt.

I think if we had called in Manhattan, and volunteered at a soup kitchen or something like that, maybe we might have had more luck, but honestly, because we don't drive and we use the Access-a-ride and on Thanksgiving day, forget about the Access-a-ride not making you wait for one hour, well, we are talking about waiting for the Access-a-ride, a two hour ride to NYC, and then back again. It's too hard on the knees when you have arthritits and with Alan's PN, sitting for long periods is impossible.

And now that he is all wrapped up with the foot ulcer, we aren't going anywhere either.

Oh well, and in my case, it's made even worse because since I was 24 years old, when my parents moved to another state, I have spent every single Thanksgiving day at my best friend's house (along with her 40 relatives).

Unfortunately, she proved NOT to be my best friend and we've not spoken (nor has any of her 40 family members even attempted to find a solution), in the past 2 years.

Very very hard, to spend 36 years at Thanksgiving (along with weekends and other holidays, with people you've know since you are 13, and have it all GO AWAY, in the blink of an eye.

But we adapt. We have to. We have learned that we only have each other and because I can make Alan laugh and he makes me laugh, well, I guess that's what we have to do. It's called making the best of a bad situation.

So to my fellow friends on these Boards, I know it's a bit early, but I do wish all of you a Happy Turkey Day. And if you are alone, please believe that you are not alone in these situations.

We have to continue to reach out and communicate through these forums.

Melody

P.S. I just read about Ernest Borgnine the other day. He looks exactly the same as he did when he played in McHale's Navy. He is now 90, married to Tova for 35 years and just made 2 more movies. One is coming out on tv during the Christmas Holidays. He says every morning upon awakening "Hey, I made it again".

I laughed my head off

you are so right melody, the members here aren't alone.

i have family, but i take some time on the holidays to log on here and go into the chatroom. i even rang in the new year with a member who was "alone".

and all...the camera pill things was really something. I had to fast for two days, then they have me come in at 8:00 a.m. (I don't like being messed with at 8 am by anyone specially when I've had no food for two days, and no tea the morning I had to go.

They had me put on this black harness, sort of like the one that people wear with those big black belts when they have to lift something heavy. Then they put 7 electrodes all over the tummy and abdomen. Then they hook all these electrodes up to this big black harness. The harness also has a big box on it that is the recorder for the camera. This box is about 4 x4 in. and is about 2 in. thick. She turns on the recorder, checks all the buttons, then she unboxes the "pill camera". She pulls this thing out that looks like a finger sort of. She holds the top of this thing and pushes a button, and then puts this thing against a spot on the camera to syncronize them. Then she tells me to put it in my mouth and drink all the water I needed to swallow it. My husband said I said, "The WHOLE THING!!??" I knew there was no way I could swallow it. Then she said no, only the capsule. I then realized there was a capsule on the top of this finger thing....... It was blinking.........Do you have any idea how hard it is to put a capsule that is blinking in your mouth and swallow it??? My husband said I really looked at it for a few minutes, looked at the nurse, and then grabbed it really fast, swallowed with big gulps of water.

Then we had to wait until 4:00 in the afternoon and go back to have the harness taken off. So I'm wearing this big black harness, with three different colored blinking lights right on my belly, and my husband says, "Would you like to go somewhere else?" You gotta love men.

I had to watch the blue blinking light all day. If it had stopped then it had a problem and we would have to start all over a different day.

Really not a difficult test. The question is:.........Is there a camera inside of my septic system photographing all the radioactive soup gobbling down bacteria or producing bacteria?. Or is that little stinker lurking in my bowel watching for the opportunity to grab on to some kink and stay there?

They said that if I had nausea, or cramps or such, to call and they'd xray me to see if it was stuck. I said what happens if it's stuck and the nurse told me, "I don't know, you'll have to ask the doctor." I'm hoping I'm one of those lucky ones who have a film industry in their septic tanks.

Sorry, I know this is long, but some people had asked how it went.

Billye