September 24, 2002
Fractals and Thanskiving Dinner
Posted by Jess in
Geek Humor
I was sitting at the kitchen table at my parent’s house one Thanksgiving day, watching my mother get everything ready, when it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I’d seen this before. Sure, it was the condensed version now, but it was still there. It’s in my genes to observe, analyze, think, ponder, and reflect. Yes! A fractal. Let’s review:
Fractal: 'frak-t&l. noun. Any of various extremely irregular curves or shapes for which any suitably chosen part is similar in shape to a given larger or smaller part when magnified or reduced to the same size.
It occurred to me that the whole day, the rigmarole and ritual of what we call preparing Thanksgiving dinner is a pure, beautiful fractal of one whole college semester. Bear with me folks, you’ll see it too. It’s all there. Not just the actions. The feelings and emotions are there too.
We begin right at the start. Right at the acceptance letter. “It’s MY turn to do Thanksgiving dinner this year?” You’re a little excited now. And more than a little nervous. It starts at the grocery store. Like an overexcited child, you begin to buy, and leave the store armed to the teeth with your turkey, pumpkin pie mix, candied yams, and potatoes just waiting to be roasted (pencils, notebooks, manilla folders, and day planner). As an afterthought, you add in a knife-sharpener (pencil sharpener?) and pat yourself on the back for the extra credit and good thinking!
That night, as you lay in bed, you repeat the words you say to yourself EVERY year. “This year is going to be the BEST Thanksgiving dinner yet. Those previous years, when dinner didn’t come out as good as I wanted, that’s in the past. I’m refreshed, I’ve got a clean slate, and now I’m ready to cook a damn good dinner!”. Now tell me you don’t say that every year when school starts. Ye old clean slate. Whoever invented that phrase should be furious they didn’t trademark it, because it’s being ripped off by millions of college students every semester. Cue sleep, followed by pleasant dreams of a prize-winning 4.0 dinner and nods of approval from proud parents and guests. You gently brush the tassel away from your eyes on your chef hat. Your mom may or may not have tears in her eyes. Pomp and Circumstance is playing softly in the background.
It’s Thanksgiving day. You make plans to wake up a little bit early to get a nice head start on dinner. In fact, you’re so early, you skip ahead and read a couple of extra pages in the recipe book. Sound familiar? It should. Even in the 8 AM classes, in those first few days of class, I’ve never seen so many bright-eyed, bushy-tailed spring chickens eager to learn. But I digress. It’s now 10 AM, and you’ve got everything under control. The potatoes are simmering, the turkey seems to be doing well, the veggies are chopped and waiting to be cooked, your first report was actually handed in on time…and you’re currently getting an ‘A’ in Precalc.
The first creases of worry cross your forehead. Are things going a little too well? Why aren’t you busier than you are? In fact, you’re so busy worrying, it’s easy to miss that packet of rolls that haven’t made it into the oven yet. And if cranberry sauce had a voice, I’m sure it would have yelled at you to buy it in the grocery store. But it didn’t. Just like that pop quiz you missed in class, because of that day you left your day planner in the bathroom in the Student Union. But it’s only 10 AM, and you know none of this just yet.
Dare I jump to 2 PM? What were you thinking? The best Thanksgiving dinner ever? You’ll be lucky if the turkey makes it out of the oven in one piece. You can’t quite remember when things started getting out of control. Was it when you discovered the lack of cranberry sauce and had to go back out to the grocery store? “Sorry ma’am, we haven’t seen your day planner”. The recipe book has long since been lost under a pile of flour and old asparagus (chopped at 10 AM), not unlike a syllabus buried under a pile of four-day old laundry.
At last… dinner. 3 PM. Everyone’s starving, and waiting to see the fruits of your labor and holding their breaths to see how nice the turkey will be. Leave it to the University to send your grade report weeks after you come home from finals. You open the oven door with one eye closed and the other wincing (who’s got the envelope opener?)…looks good! Passing. That’s all that matters. You proudly present your turkey, and no one has to know about how close they came to almost having no cranberry sauce (you had to settle for the generic brand, but that’s your little secret). The dinner topic covers how you did the whole thing without your recipe book. Give it 20 years, and you’ll be telling your children how it’s possible to finish a college semester with no syllabus (or day planner, for that matter).
As you go to bed that night, rest well, for you have passed. Now you’re ready to relax. Next year you get a clean slate all over again. Ready? Repeat the mantra – “Next year will be my BEST Thanksgiving dinner yet. I’m ready!”
From Pomp to Circumstance, chapter 1
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Comments
Kate, you gave me a puppy, which I prompted named "reboot".
Don't you know me at ALL? :-)
lol
Jess
