random thoughts – Day 1,346 – (Thursday) – turkey day

The crazy speed in which this week, this month, and this year is passing is amazing and Thanksgiving is now over. How did this happen? It’s a bit frightening. At least I’ll have all day Friday to contemplate the speed of the year in between some aggressive online holiday shopping.

There was family time at Mom’s and a pre-dinner visit with my sister and my middle niece. In-person conversation and shrimp cocktail kicked things off before a Facetime call with the kids in Vegas.

This year, Mom didn’t want to cook and decided we should go out to eat. Unfortunately, a lot of other people decided the same thing before she did and there were no reservations available. I would have been fine with peanut butter sandwiches or a frozen pizza, but that idea was not well received.

Turkey dinner.

The solution to not cooking the big traditional meal was to buy the prepared grocery store version of the traditional meal that just needed to be reheated. The meal was ordered from Price Chopper for a Wednesday pick-up and after fetching it, Mom learned the turkey was pre-cooked but also frozen solid. 

The instructions said to thaw it in the refrigerator for two days, which would have been a great nugget of info to have when the meal was ordered, but the person taking the order neglected to mention it. With 24 hours to go between pickup and showtime, Mom and StepDad somehow figured out how to get it safely less frozen, into the oven, and hot for dinner. 

There was the pre-cooked turkey plus mashed potato, squash, green bean casserole, stuffing, gravy, rolls, and cranberry, apple, orange salad which was a cross between Jello salad and cranberry sauce. There was also the classic can-shaped cranberry sauce, an all-purpose white zinfandel, and a toss salad. And it was good.

There was pumpkin pie and apple pie for dessert, which was enjoyed after Mom and I played a game of Scrabble where she very nearly beat my butt until I made a stellar comeback late in the game when I had a great triple word score and her letters turned to crap. Whew!

A sliver of the backyard view.

Mom’s living room windows have a view of the back yard which abuts woods. In addition to the Macy's parade on TV, which seemed to last all day long, the day included live action theatrics of the squirrels, chipmunks, and three deer in the back yard. There were no turkeys spotted back there today. Later, the TV channel was finally changed and It's a Wonderful Life was located. 

Back at home, loaded with leftovers, the carcass went straight into the soup pot. Dinner rolls were stuffed with turkey, stuffing, cranberry "salad," and a schmear of mayo. The challenge will be jamming containers of the broth into the already at-capacity freezer. That can be a Friday challenge, maybe while I ponder the crazy speed of 2023.