Sunday, November 28, 2010

So Long Thanksgiving

We had a nice, and not-so-nice, Thanksgiving weekend.  For many families, at least according to the sitcoms, having the in-laws over is the not so nice part and going to your families is the nice one.  Not this year. 

For the first time, in what we estimated at a decade, Jeff's family was together for Thanksgiving.  He is the oldest of seven, five boys and two girls.  All but the youngest made it.  His significant other had just had a baby and they stayed at home.  Jeff's mom made it as well as his dad and his dad's wife.  We also had three extra students from our daughters college attend.  Two from Florida and one from Canada.  All total we had twenty-seven in our home!  A recipe for disaster, but one Thanksgiving recipe that I am happy to report, failed. 


The Burks clan

Now for the not-so-nice.  Saturday evening we headed out to have Thanksgiving with my family.  Tabitha came home with us from church, we changed, loaded the car and left to get my brother.  Then we were on the road.  We wanted to get to Elk City in time to watch most of the OU/OSU bedlam game and were making good time.  As we came close to the end of the turnpike the car started to rattle loudly.  Then the oil light came on.  It was 6 p.m. so it was already dark and that made me even less happy to have to pull over to the side of the road.  Jeff had stayed home to catch up on some work that naturally piles up during the holiday season.  I called him and got the "I put wood together with nails and glue" speech.  I then called his dad, he is a mechanic and I just should have called him first.  He brought us some oil, we started the car and it sounded like gremlins were attacking it with hammers.  Not good.  This was about 7:30.  After calling our insurance and setting up a tow, we sat there for another hour and a half.  My brother had stayed with me and we sent Tabitha and Elijah back with Cecil.  Jeff then met us at the dealership and took us home. 

Now, not that it sounds like it could get much worse, but in a way it does.  When we arrived at my brother's apartment, I sat down the dog carrier and then heard water running.  I asked my brother if he had left it on somewhere.  Then I realized it was coming from the wall.  His water heater was gushing water.  Not sure how long that had been going on, the floor was not wet yet, so not too long.  He lives on the bottom floor, with no neighbors and in the very back.  Had we not gotten back until tonight, as planned, his whole apartment would have been flooded.  I guess our silver lining was that we caught it in time.  Just another reason to be thankful!

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