corpse turkey and wet bikers

I must say a thing about the Thanksgiving turkey, because it must never happen again.

We went to my aunt's, as I said, but my mother had a coupon for a free turkey, and decided we needed to roast our own back-up bird, because GRAVY. So we got a giant turkey, and it sat defrosting in the fridge, taking up all the space I would have liked to fill with pie. 

Now, the man works for the college, and the college decided that they were going to make kalua turkey for all the homeless people. This meant digging a big pit, setting it on fire, filling it with about a hundred turkeys, burying them, digging them up the next day, and then making homeless people eat them. Better than burying the homeless people. And we had the chance to add a body to the cairn! I am particularly fond of kalua pig (which is made the same way), and I was not particularly fond of spending all morning roasting a turkey when I could be drinking mimosas, so I decided we should chuck the bird into the pit with the homeless turkeys. My mother conceded by buying turkey gravy at Costco.

Except the turkey wasn't quite thawed, and the homeless turkeys went into the hole first, so what we got back on Thanksgiving morning was a half-raw turkey that smelled like it had been lit on fire. And I spent the rest of the morning roasting a turkey and not drinking mimosas anyway. Now we've been eating smoky turkey leftovers for half a week. I finally peeled the rest of the carcass apart last night for a soup, thinking about my days with the cadavers at the Tampa university morgue, which had a similar texture and aroma. My mother said, "Enjoy the soup, kids, because we won't be having kalua turkey again for a long time!" "Yes," I agreed, "Never, in fact."

And that is what I have to say about kalua turkey. 

So, on Sunday, the bikers suited up for the Toys for Tots run.

The moment they drove off, the skies opened up with roaring rain and crashing lightning, and they returned three hours later, drenched to the skin and shaking like whippets. Gavin's gloves had attempted to meld with his hands.

I was putting up the tree when they all started peeling off layers of leather and running for the shower. If they had been a pack of burly men, it would have been a holiday miracle. I really need to remember to be more specific.

So the tree is up. The chocolate liquors are open. The Lego advent calendar has three little figures assembled on it. The baby is crawling and standing up on furniture, readying herself for the run to the stockings in three weeks. The turkey is gone. It's a wonderful time of year.