no turkey for me

11-24-99

haven't been uploading my entries the last couple of days. dogsitting sucks at thanksgiving. I wrote some quick e-mail entries for my mailing list and posted them today, so if you're not on the list and you're still interested you can go back two days and read those entries.

My brain hurts. There are over 30 dogs in boarding because of the holiday, noisy noisy noisy dogs. They're all so self-centered, so me-me-me, so "let me out now, let me out now, I want to come out now, let me out...." So "how come he gets to go out, I want to go out," even when they just went out.

Sort of reminds me of growing up. My brother and I used to fight about every perceived unfair thing in the whole world. "How come his bowl is bigger than mine, how come he got a red popsicle, how come she gets the front seat?"

And when the dogs can't think of anything better to say: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

I have head phones. No way would I go in there without head phones. But the head phones hurt my ears. They're the big foamy kind that they use on gun-firing ranges. They're ancient and too pinchy, they squeeze on my temples and behind my jaw, I can hear my heart beating and my footsteps sound louder than the dogs' barking. I have a migraine by the end of the day. I keep forgetting to take some of John's airplane ear plugs with me.

The logistics of tomorrow are boggling me. I have to bake two pumpkin pies and two batches of muffins, mash three potatoes, microwave some corn and some green beans, and probably do some other things that I haven't yet thought of, all between two grueling and deafening trips to the vet. Dog-feeding marathons. It takes me over three hours to let all those dogs out to poop. And I have to somehow make it to Rob's house at a decent dinner-ish hour, showered and with all that food warm and etc. I always hear people in cliche-speak talking about how hard it is to cook a turkey and prepare an entire Thanksgiving dinner; I'm not even doing the turkey and I'm feeling overwhelmed.

I'm not cooking the turkey because I can't cook meat. Long story. I used to be vegetarian, and I intend to be again one day, but the combination of John, who's decidedly not vegetarian; John's new friends, whom I don't want to offend by not eating their food; and living in the South have made it very difficult. I never was all that forceful about it; every Thanksgiving I ate turkey and I always refused—and still refuse—to be vegetarian to the point of rudeness, or of making others uncomfortable.

Anyway, I spent my early college, formative cooking years consuming lentils, pasta, beans, and beer. And saltine crackers, occasional ramen noodles, etc. I never learned how to cook meat, and I still don't go out of my way. When I cook, I cook rice, veggie chili, bread, and Rice Krispie Treats, my specialty. If John wants chicken or anything for dinner, he cooks it.

Naturally, then, I was relieved to hear that Rob wanted to cook the turkey. Every time I think about cooking turkey I remember my dad's Thanksgiving tradition of hiding an egg inside the raw bird and letting my brother pull it out. Have to get those eggs out before you can cook the turkey! I never got to pull the egg out for what is now the other reason I can't cook meat: I can't touch raw meat. yucky.

Once we went to my dad's parents' house for Thanksgiving and our Pap replaced the egg with a ping pong ball. My brother Matt was flabbergasted. Since then the trick has been to put the weirdest possible item inside the turkey for Matt to pull out: golf balls, rubber noses, Star Wars action figures....

Okay, so I inherited my sick sense of humor, fair and square. It's bad enough that we have to eat the turkey, but now we mock it before its demise....