"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'" ~ C. S. Lewis

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Year of the Curséd Turkey

We like turkey. It tastes good :) (If you are an animal rights activist or a vegan, you may not want to read any further. Of course, after that opening line, you're probably leaving of your own accord.)
Every year my Dad cooks an absolutely delectable turkey with the best stuffing you have ever tasted. Seriously.
This year the turkeys decided to indulge in a little turkey-style revenge.

(This guy looks REALLY angry. I would never eat you. Honest. I promise! Please, stop staring!!!)




We had a turkey in the freezer, so my Dad decided we didn't need to buy our usual 30 pounder, but would settle for the 22 lb one that we already had.

The turkey sat, wrapped in its celophane jacket, slowly defrosting for our consumption pleasure. We had no idea what horrors lurked underneath.

Dad snipped open the wrapper and we discovered that the plastic was the only thing holding the bird together. The one leg swung wildly down out of its socket, pulling all of the skin away from the meat. Dad tried to pick it up and found that the backbone was broken as was the breastbone.
We managed to get it into a somewhat turkey looking shape and even managed to stuff it, though it took more nails and string than normal to hold it all together. It was looking pretty good. It had us fooled.

My Dad is one of those, slow-cook-the-turkey-all-night-long kind of guys and his turkeys always come out tender and juicy. The only downside for him is that he has to get up throughout the night to baste it. That's never been a problem before.

At about 7:30 I was abruptly awakened from slumber by a loud noise and a yelp. My body was instantly awake. However, my brain took several moments to process everything. This is how it went.

What was that?

It's 7:30.

Dad's probably basting the turkey.

That was a loud noise.

He doesn't yelp like that.

HE DROPPED THE TURKEY!!!!!



I bolted out of bed and ran upstairs.

Because of the mishapen state of our turkey we had to put it into a different pan than usual. Instead of foil, it has a metal lid. Dad pulled out the turkey and basted it, but when he tried to slide it back into the oven, the lid caught and tipped everything toward him.

The lid fell off onto the floor, neatly catching some of the juices and Dad caught the turkey and flipped it back into the pan, saving it and the stuffing. However, he got splattered with the boiling grease, which wasn't very fun.

Then we had the fun of mopping stuffing and grease off of the linoleum. But wait! There's more!

As the pan tipped, it dumped a lot of the juices and grease onto the stove door where it trickled down inside the door. When we closed the oven it rained down into the drawer under the stove onto the pots and pans stored there. So after mopping the kitchen, we then got to wash every single pan we own, including those fun broiler pans with all of the ridges and holes. Then there's the enjoyment of finding somewhere to store them while we clean grease and stuffing out of the bottom of the drawer and wait for it to dry.

Of course, now the greases are in the door itself, so we have to pull the door off the oven, take it outside, disassemble it, clean it, reassemble it and put it back onto the oven so we could cook the rest of dinner. Fortunately we have a little side oven that was not affected by the turkey disaster, so we were able to get a jump start on the few things that would fit in there.

Did this deter us from enjoying our Thanksgiving repast? Not a whit!

Mmmmm. Turkey. You may fight back, but we will eat you anyway. Just don't try anything next year.


(Can I come over to your house for Thanksgiving?)

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

And no, that is not some strange word. But an exclamation of how a test can take over a person's life. It is now about 13 hours until I take the wondrous GRE and I am trying not to worry myself over it. Trying.

Since I graduated from college I have found myself floundering a bit, unsure where I should go next and what career path I should take. I returned to retail, working as a supervisor at Borders and, though I love my job, it is obvious to me that retail is not my calling and will not be my career.

I trifled with several different ideas: editing, graphic design, teaching, information sciences - but nothing fit, nothing felt right.

Until I had one of those wonderful "duh!" moments, when the world suddenly seems to shift into place and you wonder why on earth it took you so long to realize the obvious. I have a passion for English and literature in particular and I love passing that passion on to others. And so I am taking the first step forward.

Taking the GRE. I have studied and studied and looked at math until my eyes crossed and I am feeling fairly confident that I have done all I could to prepare. There are only so many new words you can stuff into your brain in a fairly short amount of time and the math, well, let's just say that another couple months wouldn't make much of a difference there.

I am nervous, yes, but mainly excited to be moving forward at long last. After the GRE comes grad school applications and all the other fun stuff, but for now I'm going to just enjoy this moment of queasy anticipation.

and then get some rest.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Ladybugs of Doom

Yesterday I was sitting in church, listening to the opening prayer and minding my own business when, out of nowhere, this ladybug dive bombs me from the ceiling and attacks my shoulder.
I, naturally, jump halfway out of my skin and flick it off.

The ladybug flies across a couple empty seat and lands on one of my friends. It is now her turn to jump halfway out of her skin. The evil ladybug ricochets off of her and lands on the seat next to her.
So she turns (rather frantically) to try to figure out where the hey the stupid thing went. Sure ladybugs are not dangerous, but I for one, don't want one, say, crawling up my shirt or into my hair.

With a swift movement she captures the ladybug and holds it carefully between two cupped hands, waiting impatiently for the prayer to end. As soon as it does she quicksteps it to the door where she releases the little bugger to continue its flight of doom on other unsuspecting humans.