The spoils of War

What do you think of that, Leah?
He's not looking so tough now, is he?

Turkey Wrestling

I just wrestled a turkey.  Not a live one, but one with plenty of stamina, nonetheless.   He caught my eye at the grocery store.  There he was, lying frozen in the case,  much like a 12 pound chunk of granite. A couple of heavy duty carnivores happen to live at my house, so it sounded like a good idea to pick this guy up.     Come to Momma, Mr. Tom turkey—you’re going home to become dinners and lunches, and pot pie and whatever else I can think of to feed these hungry men.

So home he came and out into the garage fridge he went to thaw.  No big deal.  His yummy light and dark meat wasn’t on the menu for a few days.  He could take 2 or 3 days to thaw.  But strangely, when I checked it a couple of days later, no thawing seemed to have occurred.  Maybe we were keeping the refrigerator too cold.  It was turned up a couple of numbers.   But a day later, that bird still felt kind of frozen.  Ok, enough messing around.  We need some meat for dinner—TODAY.  He was coming out ready or not.  Back in the kitchen,  Mr. Tom went,  plop, into a sink full of warm water.  Oh, wait, you say—that’s a no-no!  The water should be cold and changed every half hour or so!  Save it, Sister—I didn’t have time for all that fooling around.   The oven went on.  The roasting pan was lined with foil and the rack placed on the bottom. 

You’re supposed to thaw a frozen turkey while it’s still in the plastic, you know.   So I prodded him around in the sink, trying to figure out if this turkey was really still frozen or just had seriously toned muscles.   I probably should have left it in the sink for a while longer and changed the water every little bit, but I just couldn’t take it anymore.   The scissors came out of the drawer and the plastic was punctured.  There was no going back. The next  task came after stripping off the plastic--get the giblets and neck out.  (Yeah, this wasn’t my first time at the poultry rodeo—there are benefits to not being a young cook—I knew they were in there unlike so many poor unsuspecting first-timers!)   I went for the giblets first.  There was definitely some frozen material back there, but they were eventually wrestled out from under  the tail.  Now for the monstrous neck, wedged in the main body cavity.  I plunged my hand in and grabbed ahold of the curved part of the neck and started to pull.  No use—it wasn’t going anywhere.  It was still cemented by ice to the ribs of the bird.  What to do?  This thing needed more thawing before that neck was coming out, that was for sure.   Here’s where the struggle began in earnest.   “Wait,” I thought, “it’s not a huge bird—it just might fit in our biggest pot.”  A burner went on.   The pot was pulled out.  In went a few cups of water.  In went the bird.  On went the lid.  There’s more than one way to defrost a turkey.  All right, so maybe this method was becoming a little unorthodox—in the heat of battle, you’ll try just about anything.   Now many (maybe most) people would give up on the idea of roasting the bird and be content to cook it in the pot.  Well, once you declare war—you have a distinct and glorious goal in mind.    Anything less is unacceptable.   I waited a few minutes, confident that the result of this steam bath would be a loosened neck (Tom’s, not mine, preferably).   When the time seemed right,  another attempt was made to extricate the neck.  Imagine my amazement and disgust upon finding the neck was still stuck! 

OK—no more Mrs. Nice Lady.  More hot water was required and it needed to be poured directly into the cavity and onto that stubborn neck!  Thankfully we have a Keurig coffee maker which in an instant grants your hot water wish.  Down into the cavity went the almost boiling water.   The bird went back to the stove for a second round in the steam room.  The timer was set.  A few minutes later the bell rang and it was time to reap the fruits of my labor.  Oh, what was this?  Gave up, did you?  Was this an official surrender?  I thought you’d see things my way eventually ….really—it was for the best.   I placed the defeated neck on a paper plate to be dealt with in a moment.  Now of course the big, wet bird needed to come out of the huge pot and find its way onto the roasting pan rack.  It didn’t matter that the handle of a favorite long carving fork was snapped off trying to get the thing out of the pot.   I had won.  The neck was out.  Somehow the turkey made it to the roasting pan and into the oven.  Guess Tom won’t be messin’ with me anytime soon.  And yes, I revel in the fact that I am tougher than a frozen turkey. 

Welcome Daniel!

Daniel.  What a interesting baby he was.  When he arrived twenty-five years ago, little did I know that the “blank slate” theory I’d studied in psychology class was about to be exposed as an absolute farce.  His big sister Aimee was almost two and a half, so I knew the baby ropes.   All things pertaining to babies had been understood and conquered, I figured.  But looking back, an element of Daniel’s personality was evident before Daniel was even born.  Aimee had catapulted around my insides like a gymnast,whereas Daniel rarely moved.  When he did, it was in slow motion.  There were times when I seriously wondered if he was OK in there.

 

Once he entered the wider world, we were treated to a newborn that actually slept!  So, his lethargic incubation period had been a foreshadowing of perks to come!  Score.  Little Aimee hadn’t been much interested in wasting her initial months in dreamland.  

As a baby, Aimee had nursed voraciously; Daniel was as uninterested in nursing as Aimee had been in sleeping.  Aimee was happy to be held by just about anyone, but Daniel didn’t want to be held by others.   He sucked his thumb and clung to a blankie.  Aimee clung to me or her Dad.  We jostled her and tossed her about to keep her entertained.  I remember making dinner with her on my hip, because she was so unhappy when she wasn’t in my arms.  A concept formed in my mind-- Daniel found ways to comfort himself but Aimee demanded to be comforted by others.  Yes, he wasn’t a clone of Aimee--he had his own personality and his own way of doing things.

This fact was highlighted the afternoon Daniel disappeared.  He was less than a year and a half old.  We lived in a flat, so there weren’t many places in which to get lost.  I glanced up from whatever I was doing, and he was just gone.  I looked behind the furniture in the room, checked out the enclosed front porch a few feet away, sped through the dining room, twisting my head this way and that, scoped out the kitchen, and headed down the back hallway to the bathroom and bedrooms.  I can’t tell you how amazed I was to enter little Daniel’s tiny bedroom and find him fast asleep in his crib!  What?  He must have decided in his wee mind, “Hey—I’m tired—think I’ll patter down the hall on my baby feet and climb up into my crib for a nap.”  My astonishment was complete.  That he and his sister were not cut from the same cloth was now crystal clear to this mother.  No wonder he cried when I tried to rock him to sleep.  That method had worked with Aimee because she needed outside stimulation and connection.  As a matter of fact, we tell stories to this day of how hard it was to get her to sleep in her crib.  She would fall asleep with her father holding her and when he tried to unload her into the crib, she’d immediately awaken and start to fuss.  He took to laying her down as if his arms were a forklift—with her riding on top like a “load.”  He’d lean over to put her in her crib, then press his arms down into the mattress and try to gently pull them out before she noticed they were no longer holding her.  It rarely worked.  It was an ongoing battle to get her to sleep alone in her bed.   Daniel didn’t want any of that mess—he just wanted to be left alone when he was tired! Amazing!  As each day passed, the differences between the two became more evident and I realized it was fun getting to know this unique addition to our family.

                       Happy Birthday, Daniel. 

Golden Rule

It won’t stop raining!  It’s becoming oppressive!  Oh, now I feel guilty.  People in areas close by have lost their homes and I’m feeling “oppressed,” even though our power is on and our basement isn’t even flooded.  What a crazy couple of weeks this has been—an earthquake, a hurricane, flooding, and even a tornado—all these natural disasters have brought boatloads of misery to this area. 

 

While my heart goes out to all who are suffering, I find myself feeling very blessed because we’re not suffering.  Is that wrong?  People from our church have gone out to help those in need.  They have shoveled mud, hauled ruined furniture out of flooded homes, and given money, among other things. They’re going again in a couple of days and I guess I should join them.  It’s hard to sit contentedly, wrapped up in your own warm blessings when you know there are people out there feeling cursed.  And I'm well aware that the next time, the positions could be switched.  So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. Matthew 7:12 (ESV)

Die, Slugs, Die!

As you may have ascertained from the title, this blog entry will document violent acts committed against one of nature’s most despicable creatures.   It happened this way—The Man and I were working on our never-ending slate project in the backyard.  I was pushing aside the soil next to the porch to do some measuring and what should my eyes behold?  A pile of nasty, wet, slimy slugs, that’s what!  It shouldn’t have surprised me.  I’d noticed lately that something creepy had been chewing holes in the Ajuga’s (a.k.a. Bugleweed) beautiful leaves...I just wasn’t sure what.  

Hope they enjoyed that last meal....

Well now I knew.  So the hunt was on.  I started grabbing those things out with my bare hands, which I can hardly believe as I write this, but it’s true.  And let me tell you something—they are 
D-I-S-G-U-S-T-I-N-G!    Make that, times four.  And they were all over the place!  So I was parting leaves, grabbing slugs, and tossing them onto the cement.  Parting leaves, grabbing slugs, and placing them in direct sunlight, hoping they would fry and never again fill their greedy little tummies (assuming they have tummies) with my leaves!  Then I was parting leaves, grabbing slugs and tossing them onto a dust pan.  When the pan was full and they were trying to crawl over the side, I ran to the back fence and flung them into the woods.  The ones that refused to let go were treated to a smashing on the fence post. 

Well, at some point it came to my attention that I was supposed to be measuring and cutting slate.  So I went into the house to wash the slug goo off my hands.  Did you know that slug goo could easily lubricate the most complex machinery?  Well, I don’t know that for a fact, but it sure seemed to be the case as I tried to wash that gunk off.  It was like trying to wash off Vaseline!  Soap, water, scrub.  Nope—still there.  More soap, water, rub a little harder.  Some came off, but some was still left.  Reach under the sink, pull out the cleaning toothbrush.  Soap, water, scrub with toothbrush.  Ah, it finally came off.  Wow.  That’s potent goo. 

I went back outside to work on the slate.  After a while I found myself strangely drawn to that patch of Ajuga.  What if there are more slugs hiding in there?  I’d better take another look.  So more parting of leaves, more discovered slugs.  This time I used my noggin and plunged a skinny piece of slate in the leaves where the slugs were and guess what?  The stickiness of the goo worked in my favor this time.  They’d stick to it and I’d pull them out, place them gently on the cement and proceed to smash their little bodies with the slate stick!  That sounds horrible, I know, but let me ask you this—if it was so wrong, why did it feel so very right?  Aren’t there such things as justifiable rage and revenge?  After all, these monsters were attempting to chew my plants to the ground!  All I know is, those particular beasts won’t try that again.  Apparently they didn’t know who they were messing with….

    

My New Bling

What a great day!  I took a bike ride this morning.  The sky was blue.  The air was fresh and cool.  It felt good to know I was burning calories like crazy and enjoying myself at the same time!  Upstate New York is pretty beautiful in the summer—there’s no question about it.   A man was opening his garage sale, so I stopped to ask a question about the recent flooding caused by Hurricane Irene, and ended up buying a ridiculous piece of “bling” that I’ll probably never wear, but that I liked.  (Always carry money with you when you ride.  You never know what you’ll happen upon that you desperately need.)  I don’t know what it is about being on a bike on a beautiful day, but it’s just heavenly.  It leaves you feeling so happy and relaxed.  The feeling has lasted the whole day.  

 (Of course, the afternoon nap might have helped a little too….)  

Here’s my fancy new necklace! 

Don't be jealous--I'm sure there are garage sales in your area too! 

Back Pain

Back pain stinks.  WebMD proclaims, “Back pain affects 80% of Americans at some time in their lives,” so I’m sure most of you have had some experience with it.   Ten years ago I had surgery to remove a fragment that landed on the sciatic nerve after a disc ruptured.  It took a while to heal, but I’ve done pretty well over time.  A few things will still irritate the nerves and muscles, however.  One of those things happened last night.  I sat on a couch in someone’s home for a couple of hours.  That sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?  The problem was my lower back wasn’t supported in the manner to which it has become accustomed.  Today I’m feeling it.  Boy it’s annoying.  And of course, this was a busy day with a lot of driving, shopping, standing in the kitchen cooking, and more driving.  There hasn’t been much time to relax those muscles and now everything in my lower back is annoyed.  The worst part is the pain makes me want to eat chocolate.  As we all know by now, chocolate has soothing properties.  That is until you step on the scale after overindulging in those soothing properties.  Then there’s more irritation and annoyance—they’re just not in the back anymore….