Hey all… time to snoop through Noah’s diary again. Why? Because we can.
Tuesday, October 14, 2025, 8am-ish: Well, we got through Thanksgiving with minimal meltdowns… and that was just me.
As usual, Agnes insisted on cooking everything, never mind that she can’t cook and the rest of the year pretty much refuses to, except on some Sundays. But Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter she insists on taking the reins and the rest of us just have to suffer through the burnt cardboard-tasting turkey, sad mashed potatos, runny cranberry goop, oily yet powdery gravy, and still-half-frozen veggies.
At least there’s booze. That helps.
I learned years ago not to offer to help in any way because Agnes just gets really mad. If I can’t manage to have an urgent gig on Thanksgiving day, I politely choke down a plate. Some years my sister will have a sudden plumbing emergency on Thanksgiving and call me all panicked at the appointed time and I have to rush across town to “help.” For some reason Agnes never questions this, I guess because Frank isn’t very handy so maybe she figures Ingrid’s hubby is equally useless. Of course, I’m not exactly handy either, so I dunno how it is that Agnes figures I can be of assistance but oh well. Point is some years I get to go stuff my face at Ingrid’s.
Or over at Adam’s mom’s place, which is always fun because Glen usually has the game on, whereas Agnes hates sports, so Frank has to come over to our house to watch stuff in peace, but of course he can’t do that on Thanksgiving.
Ruth mostly fills up on salad with a bit of turkey breast ‘cause she always magically starts a diet October 1 that she makes a big deal about and then quietly pretends to fall off the wagon as soon as Agnes’ leftover turkey is all gone.
Ursula, of course, hates all the usual Thanksgiving fare and doesn’t believe me when I tell her it can actually be really good… just not when Grandma Agnes makes it.
At least we didn’t have the fire brigade show up this year. That was embarrassing, having the neighbors call 911 because they saw the black smoke billowing out of the kitchen window ‘cause Agnes didn’t bother to set a timer on the turkey and got distracted in nagging Ruth’s nephew Kyle to stop sassing back at his sailing instructor at the yacht club.
She hasn’t started nagging Ursula to take sailing lessons yet, probably because she knows Ursula would give Kyle a run for his money in the rudeness department, but Ruth says Agnes figures Ursula needs another year or two to “settle down” attitude-wise before they try to take her back to the yacht club restaurant.
I guess at some point this summer Agnes and Frank took Ursula to the club to meet some friends for lunch and Ursula told the club president that sailing is for boring old farts and Frank thought it was funny but Agnes got all butthurt and offended.
I mean, they have a sailboat but Frank told me a few times he wanted to get a cheap sport fishing boat instead but Agnes wouldn’t hear of it. Says those are “vulgar” or whatever.
But somehow letting your Thanksgiving turkey get burnt to a crisp because you’re busy nagging your grandkid to behave at something he’s bored at isn’t vulgar. Go figure.
The stupid thing is Agnes isn’t even from old money like she likes to pretend. He dad was a dentist. Not poor by any means, but you’d think she was born a duchess the way she acts sometimes.
I guess she gets away with it. I mean, she nagged Frank into law school and she nagged him into politics and now that he retired, she nags him about golf and sailing. And she nagged Norm into law school, too, but hasn’t managed to badger him into politics. Yet.
She was OK with Ruth becoming a teacher because she figured she could get Ruth to marry some rich MBA douchebag and it wouldn’t matter what her job was… and then I came along and ruined Agnes’ dynastic plans, haha!
Hence why she is now nagging Norm’s kids. Kyle doesn’t know it yet, but he’s gonna be a lawyer and the prime minister whether he wants to or not. And those girls are going to marry MBAs come Hell or high water.
I’d worry about her nagging Ursula, but Ursula ain’t as pliable as her Burgoyne cousins, so I think she’s quite safe from Agnes’ machinations. Plus Ursula seems to have the magical ability to ignore whatever Agnes or anyone else tries to tell her to do. She’s got that Thorsen pigheadedness about her… well, actually I guess it’s the Helmeyer pigheadedness, ‘cause she gets it from my mom.
Hopefully Valerie got that too, but I guess it’s too soon to tell. I mean, she seems pretty stubborn as far as babies go, but she’s only 6 months old so we don’t really know yet.
Oh well. Agnes can go make a pest of herself at the yacht club and the Union Club and the Victoria Foundation. Keeps her out of my hair complaining about how me and Frank’s backyard chickens ruined her lawn.
