Thanksgiving?

Early last Wednesday morning hubby took me to rendezvous at Tim Horton's with my sister-in-law and a friend for our journey to New Hampshire. Up at 5:00 a.m., on the road at 5:40, meeting at 6:00--it all meant for a long day. We drove from Woodstock to Montreal and turned south to eventually cross into New Hampshire. From there we flew along famously, arriving at Paula's house about 5:00 p.m., just in time for some sustenance and relaxation. I hadn't seen Paula's new place and was interested to see her cute little house in an established neighbourhood with lots of trees and a small lake just down the street. The beauty of New Hampshire!

The next day was the American Thanksgiving when all stores were closed and most restaurants. We had a great afternoon hike up a pretty steep mountain trail--a challenge for me, the oldest of the group--with Toby and Oscar, Paula's dogs, tearing exuberantly all over the lovely natural scape. I loved seeing the little green bits of lichen and moss which were much more noticeable than usual because most everything else was brown and winter ready. After the hike it was time for us to get ready for our dinner party at a friend's house. The only catch was no shower at Paula's place (under construction). Not to worry, we were invited to use the shower at her friend Bill's place. Bill was away for Thanksgiving so had given Paula the key. Kind of nice, I thought. Paula had showered at fitness earlier so dropped the three of us there, laden with towels, hair dryers, clothes--everything we'd need for our respective transformations while she did some errands.

About five minutes before we expected Paula back, the doorbell rang. When RoseMarie and I went to open it, we saw a woman peering through the sidelight at us.
"Who are you?" she blurted when we opened the door. Of course we had no clue who she might be but she soon told us this was her house and we had no business being there. Thinking we could solve the problem we said Paula had let us in and explained Bill's permission.
"Get out!" she yelled.

From that point on, things went badly. We were trying to explain and she was freaking and threatening to call the police. Donna said for her to do that if she wanted. She did. All of our explaining did no good. Her problem was that she and her husband are extranged, in the throes of getting divorced and there was no reasoning with the woman.

I was ready to leave and stand on the curb to wait for Paula, but for some strange reason Donna just sat tiny in the big black leather chair and said we'd wait for Paula. We weren't going to wait in the cold. By this time, the woman was on the phone with the police and telling them a small part of the truth. She managed to persuade them that they should come out. When she found out that Donna was Paula's mother, she said, "I pity you," and then proceeded to vilify Paula. By then, I had had enough of trying to assure the woman that everything was alright, as RoseMarie and I had both been doing, and said that we didn't need to hear her talk about Paula. And then the doorbell rang again.

This time it was Paula's face peering through the window. We let her in and grabbed our bags of stuff to take to the van while crazy woman yelled at Paula. Last out the door, Paula's arm was caught as the woman slammed the door on it. About a block from the house we saw the police who were on their way, but we kept going. In the van Donna explained a bunch of the background to the story and we came to understand why she didn't want to leave till Paula got there. Suffice it to say unwittingly we had ended up in the middle of the domestic battle of the century and Paula was very apologetic. "Not your fault," we all chimed and soon started to find the humor in the situation. When we arrived at the party we had lots to talk about but the first thing we did was accept a good drink from Hazel, our wonderful hostess for that great evening.

On reflection, I've decided that American Thanksgiving is quite different from the Canadian one I know.