Day 326 — Turkey Day

[for Thursday, Nov. 22]



Every year, it's different. Last year, we nearly burned the kitchen down with fiery turkey grease.

This year, both my parents were sick. My mom hobbled around in her pajamas, barely stomaching the rich and ripe smells of a dozen different dishes mingling. She was a good sport, and ate a bit of turkey and fixins. She even drank a glass of wine later in the evening.

My dad kept to himself, and was suffering from some kind of ear infection and tinnitus that was driving him mad. He had to go to bed early in the evening to prepare for work that night.

I sipped on Hogue white all day (White Harvest). There were no board games. There was clucking in the kitchen, and when everyone migrated to the den, we watched some harrowing video-clip show ("WATCH AS THIS MAN FALLS FROM A PLANE TO HIS DEATH!!!") instead of football.

It was all very low-key. A little sad.

I don't like seeing my folks feeling bad. If you're lucky (which I am, very much), you grow up with your parents as the rock from which all else can anchor, and when that rock crumbles or shakes the slightest bit, it sets everything off and you're forced to remember how transient everything is. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but that's a major bummer.

That said, there was a baby there — Peyton, my sister's step-grandson. Look at him. He is a cutie bug, isn't he? Look at me, using idiotic phrases like "cutie bug." This is what happens when you surround me — an intentionally child-free person — with tiny babies for a week. First Lucas and now Peyton. And then later Thursday night I got to see Rylee, Phil's niece. She sort of squashed whatever tiny maternal pangs had been growing in me this week. That's only because she is three. If you have ever met a three-year-old, you will understand that sentiment.

Project 365

Thanksgiving, Turner style

Top two quotes from the afternoon:

"Gosh, it seems like every time I tell a story, it's about poop."

"Didn't you go to college so you could get a good job and not have to work holidays?"

Prep

I'm about to go wash up a bunch of berries and peel a couple of pomegranates in preparation for tomorrow. I don't have any big serving trays, though; it's probably best to just cart everything — washed and cut — to the parents' and then commandeer some of their many stray serving platters.

I was thinking today about a memory I have of a Thanksgiving Day back when I was, gosh, I had to be 11 or 12 — right at that age when you're still into pretending but you're starting to grow out of it bit by bit and there's a growing resentment at having to sit at the kids' table. I remember the weather was not quite bitterly cold yet, but it was overcast and windy and quite chilly. I was wearing a sweater striped horizontally with yellow, blue, orange, and green, with matching red stretchpants and a red headband. And, more than likely, white Keds. (At least, that's what I'm wearing in this memory; there's no telling if that's true. But the rest of the memory definitely is.)

My cousin, brother and I spent the afternoon outside on my parents' deck, pretending that it was a giant ship. I was the captain. The waters were choppy and I kept having to keep orders to my crew to keep us afloat.

Inside, the women cooked and cleaned and the men sat in the den, flipping through channels and watching football.

That's one of the few Thanksgivings I can really remember, a memory so bright and clear that it's hard to believe it's as old as it is. I'm not really sure why it has stuck with me the way it did.