dropping doubts from the clouds up above
MY TURKEY ‘TIS OF THEE
We ordered and received a small version of the usual fancy heritage farm turkey so there’s Thanksgiving sorted, I guess. Is that tomorrow? If you say so. This turkey is from a farm in Kansas and was accompanied by a sworn affidavit attesting that it had a great life, better than mine in many ways, before it was lightly killed and gently shipped to my house. Dinner will literally be just us three, which makes me sort of wish that my spouse did not enjoy Thanksgiving food quite so much because maybe I would have taken the opportunity to think outside the holiday box, to order a thousand empanadas or construct an elaborate lasagna. On the other hand, I won’t have to cater to any cousin-based food preferences, I won’t have to be on guard against any casual undercutting remarks about my house or my cooking or my extreme wealth,* but on the OTHER other hand I also won’t have to drink too much wine to cope with being on guard. Less stress, fewer unhealthy coping mechanisms, how goddamn mature.
*I have an in-law who seems to like to remark on how LT and I are very well-off, and I’m not going to debate the correctness of that, seeing as I sit in the large and not-terribly-uncommon socioeconomic segment known as “much more than most/much less than some.” I just think it’s weird and rude to comment on it, however obliquely, and it gets my fur all prickly when it happens.
So we’ll have turkey and gravy and stuffing and a huge pile of every roasted root vegetable and cranberry sauce. I am not a huge fan of mashed potatoes so I am taking this opportunity not to make them. I may make some macaroni and cheese instead. I also want extra stuffing, baked in a casserole dish, so I have plenty to eat for breakfast all crisped up with a fried egg on top. (THE BEST.) The house won’t be clean, two thirds of us will be in pajama pants (LT is a real-pants adherent, god help his soul), and there is no set timetable for this feast. Slack. As. Fuck. No Puritan sensibilities here. Another nap, Goody Mimi? Don’t mind if I do; reach in the oven and baste that free-range bitch for me once in a while, thanks.
TEETH GONE
Aaron had his wisdom teeth out, all four of those impacted sideways horrorshows, and is starting to eat things besides scrambled eggs and applesauce. I had this done to me in college but I don’t remember it being such a bloody process; the gory gauze kept on coming for quite a while and the oral surgeon was very nice to take my overly-concerned phone call about it. The only odd thing my son did while still under the influence of anesthesia was attempt to unsteadily walk upstairs almost immediately after getting home—I was like, “Do you want to take a nap? I can help you get set up in bed” and he said, “I have homework.” Nah, let’s not do those physics problems right now, bro. Focus on the bloody-gauze situation for a sec.
MEDIA RECS
If you subscribe to or can scam HBO Max, you should watch Search Party, with one my most serious celebrity crushes, Alia Shawkat. It is funny and weird and intriguing and hard to describe. I am a little obsessed.
Books: everything good I’ve read lately had a title that started with “The.” May I suggest you read The Mercies, The Down Days, and The Silent Companions.
NO FENCE BLUES
Our fence was falling down so we are getting a new one. Contract was signed back in…August? When you say “back in August” in November 2020, it’s sort of like saying “back in 1615.” The fence company said they were very busy (no shit) and it would be weeks before they showed up to do a fence. Some fence guys came on Monday (surprise!) and ripped down my fence, very slowly, and put up a few posts, very slowly, and stacked a large amount of wood on the patio, very slowly, and left for a very long lunch, and came back from the very long lunch to knock on the door and say they were going to their own homes now and would be back at some point. I am wondering what that point is, and the weather is gruesome and not going to improve, and if I were them I might have hustled a little more during what was probably the last temperate day of the year. Also the stack of fence posts is right by our bird feeder and thus the stack will be pre-pooped-on before it even becomes a fence, but that’s not my problem, that is the problem of the fencers and their work gloves. I am not a fenceologist, so what do I know.
—mimi fenceless smartypants