The other night, we hosted our friend Polina (aka Truly Cool Parent), who was in town for New York Fashion Week. She came to dinner with her wardrobe stylist-slash-art director Nikki. We dined on coconut chicken curry and the finest durn cupcakes in New York City (my apologies for rocking the worlds of Magnolia and Billy’s advocates).
Polina and Nikki are the queens of fashion photography in Indianapolis, so Cool Mum and I quizzed them on their line of work because the only thing we are more clueless about than parenting is fashion. We loved hearing stories as micro as working out details for a shoot and as grand as effecting cultural change in Indianapolis.
Since we moved up here, fashion has occupied more space in my consciousness. Not that it ever occupied much. (What do you mean Hypercolor shirts went out of style? You press the shirts, AND THEY CHANGE COLOR! These are shirts of the future, if anything.)
I even went on an online clothes shopping binge towards the end of last year. Winter was coming, and I didn’t want to alternate the same two sweaters that I did during our first winter here. Thanks to Slickdeals, I picked up better-fitting jeans, Merino wool sweaters, two corduroy blazers, a wool pea coat, and a crate of slightly irregular purple Z. Cavariccis (no i didn’t).
Despite my shopping spree, I still feel fashionably inadequate; my clothes just aren’t cool enough. It doesn’t help that a lot of friends here work in fashion and design and always look swank. And it especially doesn’t help that after dinner with Polina and Nikki, Cool Mum asked me if I think that my hairstyle is outdated. Apparently, she does because this is not a typical after-dinner cleanup question.
Even when I have decent clothes, my fashion sense is bankrupt. I could be the all-time champion of Project Run-away. One day I went to work sporting a nicer shirt (that happened to be striped) and my cool new pinstripe dress pants. CM pointed out (after work, of course) that I shouldn’t wear striped tops and bottoms together. I checked online, and one commenter on a forum called the combination “horrific.” That makes me long for the days when CM called my clothes choices “not bad.”
How’s your fashion sense: Fetching or retching?
For our 8 years of wedded bliss, Cool Mum and I have always been Thanksgiving visitors. Either with our families in Florida or strangers (now friends) last year in NYC. This year, we’re hosting our very first Thanksgiving – if I can get get off the computer and go buy a turkey. Just kidding, we’re all sorts of prepared, having bought everything we need from the store before it closed last night.
Just as the first Thanksgiving was a melding of cultures, the first Cool Thanksgiving will be a multicultural event (minus the taking of land and relocation to reservations). The nations of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Japan, and the Philippines will be represented, along with the European melting pot that is Cool Mum. To the right is the feast that will feed us later today. For our Japanese friends, this is their first American Thanksgiving. At least we can say that there’s nowhere to go but up for their future Thanksgivings.
The feature of the feast is Slow Cooker Turkey Breast. Last night, I picked out a frozen turkey breast with gravy at the surprisingly chill grocery store (lots of people have left NYC for the holiday). I was afraid that it might not thaw in time, but I thawed it in the sink with no problem. This morning, I put the turkey breast and gravy in the crock pot, and it should be all done by 3:00. I took a lot of liberty with the recipe, like stirring onion soup mix in with the gravy. But onion soup mix is like the type O negative of ingredients, and slow-cooking is nearly foolproof.
The sides will include stuffing that I’m still debating when to put in the turkey breast, peas, corn, and sweet potatoes with cinnamon and brown sugar. To drink, we have Coca-Cola beverages, like Coca-Cola (and nothing else), sugar-free Hawaiian punch, and tap water with ice. Dessert will be a fresh-baked, long-frozen Sara Lee pumpkin pie and Fla-Vor-Ice.
This Thanksgiving meal would probably bring Paula Deen to tears, but we’re not sweating it. We’re just looking forward to spending good time with our friends and thanking God for everything He’s done, which is every good thing in our lives.
The Cool Fam wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving! What are you doing today?
Quick: you're stuck with only one fast-food place for the rest of your life. What would it be?
continued...A great way that we've found to hone Cool Baby's language skills (and keep him from eating our food).
continued...New Yorkers are not known for their frugality, but things might be changing.
continued...
