Before I knew how everyone's schedule would pan out for this week, I purchased a frozen turkey at Costco, along with a bunch of other stuff, like a big bag of sweet potatoes and fresh Brussels sprouts. I knew we would eat with my in-laws, but I still like to cook a lot of the traditional dishes so that I have them all exactly the way I like them, and all of the leftovers are for us. I didn't have room in my tiny freezer, so I put the turkey in the fridge to thaw. My daughter wouldn't be free to eat this stuff again until Monday or Tuesday, but everyone else was limited to the weekend, and that now-thawed turkey wasn't going to wait forever. So we smoked it today, and I spent at least six hours on my feet in the kitchen doing an entire spread by myself. In the end, only one of the kids came over (my foster daughter), and we took all the stuff next door, where our old college roommate joined us, and I still got to have my second thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat. I was sore and my feet, knees and upper back were on fire, so I sat on the couch and let the guys bring me food that I had cooked for them. It totally worked. And I sent home a tote bag full of food to my daughter and the gang, so I still got to share.
November is almost over, but the whole time the turkey was smoking, the back door was open completely and the front only had the screen closed. This just doesn't feel right for Colorado in late autumn. What makes it worse is the trees are trying to bud out again, like my nectarine tree in the back, as well as some of the lilac bushes around the Park. If that wasn't bad enough, while dishes were being ferried over to the neighbor's, I heard Mr S-P swear from the front yard. He came inside and showed me a photo he had just taken of a hyacinth in bloom in our front garden. We have irises that have been sending up buds for weeks. This is just not cool, literally or figuratively. The climate has changed, y'all. It has already happened. I doubt it is finished.
While we were all next door, we decided to expand our tentative forays back into the world of role-playing games. Not only did Carol from HR and Brn the manly dwarf who wears a pink pillbox hat (a la Jackie O) get trotted out again, but Mr S-P got to make his non-player character from Friday into an adventurer and our old college roommate rolled up a really obnoxious thief. My foster daughter has experience running games, and we got to engage in rank silliness while we stuffed ourselves senseless with smoked turkey and fixings. Of all the traditions to revive, I am really enjoying bringing this one back. And we are going to do it again. Just you watch.
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