'Twas the night before Thanksgiving...

...and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring,
not even Bob.

Poetry isn't my thing.

Where to start? I'll recap the last week or so. Last Thursday I went to a funeral at Quantico National Cemetery. Nice place, interesting funeral. Maybe I'll decide to be planted there, but without the motorcycle gangs. Anyway, after the service, I noticed that my throat was getting pretty sore, and some salsa gave me a quick head's-up that something was amiss.

So when I got home I took a look and found some little white spots sores in my throat. They're on my tonsils, the back of the roof of my mouth, on my dangly thing. So I called the doctor's office and made an appointment for Friday morning. We're supposed to go and cook Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws, 'cause Annie just had knee replacement surgery and I want to do for her. They've hosted great Thanksgiving dinners for the last several years, and I'm looking forward to pampering her a little bit. So anyway, I know I can't get her sick, last thing she needs is an infection and rejection.

So Friday morning I look at my throat and the spots have grown to form open sores. You know, those things like you get when you bit the inside of your cheek. Doctor does a throat culture, saying he's pretty sure it's strep throat, gives me a 10-day run of Amoxicillan and some lozenges and some good decongestants, and renews my Midrin prescription for good measure.

By Saturday I can't eat. By Sunday I'm absolutely miserable. So back in I go on Monday. Turns out the strep test came back negative. So this doc runs blood work, looking for maybe mono, and a white blood cell count. Both come back negative, so she determines it's probably a bacteria infection of some sort and gives me a stronger antibiotic, Levaquin.

I guess I'm feeling a little better, but I still can't say more than a few words at a time without hurting and my voice giving out. Doc also gave me some Lidocaine to swish around so I can eat. It helps some, but I may as swell be eating Play-Doh. Still can't eat much, but it's a great diet. As of this morning I was down 7 lbs. since Friday.

So here we are, the four of us prepared to have Thanksgiving at home by ourselves. I think Terri is pretty well bummed, the kids to a lesser degree, and I'm disappointed but trying to make the best of it. I made fresh cranberry sauce, with a little extra sugar in it because Jason really digs cranberry sauce, but I gotta get him out of the can. Both kids wanted pumpkin pie, and I truly love it too, so Jason and I made a recipe I found in one of my Southern Living cookbooks. It's a pumpkin pie with meringue. If it turned out OK, maybe I'll challenge Annie to a lemon meringue bake-off. I'll lose, but we'll have plenty of pie! To continue though, I have a turkey (barely over 20 lbs., a record small bird for me!) and a spiral sliced ham, stuff to make a veggie tray and green beans and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and rolls.

Maybe I'll be able to eat!

Oh, and I'll talk to Sam about the pig Latin posts.