I usually don't talk about or remember even the most vivid dreams, and I hate people who do, but I'm making an exception today, because I am thankful... for my memory.
In real life, my cousins wisely cancelled their Thanksgiving dinner, the one we've been attending since 2000, where I usually bring the brussels sprouts, which I dice and saute with butter and coarse black pepper and a pinch of sugar and..damn it, now I'm going to forget the dream!
Let me get back to unreality.
It's Thanksgiving morning, and the bird is still partially unthawed, despite being in the fridge since July. I chip away at the frozen particles and the yellow plastic netting, which reveals that the turkey has a face. I'm hallucinating, because it's 4:00 AM and I'm overwhelmed that I have to get this turkey done in time to serve three people and a poodle, but I'm pretty sure I see a snout.
And I'm pretty sure I feel a velvety texture.
I set the oven timer and begin to tackle all the trimmings, a word I hate. Trimmings are what's on the floor at barber shops, sides are in casserole dishes that you've owned since 1972.
The stuffing recipe calls for chestnuts and oysters, and not only do I not have these things in my pantry, I'm not sure what these things are. I'm not even totally sure what a pantry is, or if we have one.
I'm dicing "celery" and wondering why I'm not smelling anything other than my morning breath.
I tell Jim about the squeal I hear from the oven.
He nukes his coffee and says, "don't you mean squeak? I'm sure you didn't hear a squeal. The oven is old. You are obsessed with word play, like the time you noticed "Biden" and "bidet" are only one letter off, and that makes sense nowadays since they're both going to do the same job in the next couple of months."
"No..I meant squeal. The old oven is squealing."
We carefully open the oven door to see our Bird is alive. Our Bird is a Pig.
Jim says, "well..neither of them fly..I see the confusion"
I respond: "And neither should PEOPLE now, but that's a story for another blog."
Jim thinks it's funny. Even in dreams he can be a passive aggressive a-hole.
"We're gonna need some tiki torches. And mumuus. Your nightgowns will suffice."
"That CAN"T be a pig!" I scream. "Where's the apple in it's mouth? Where is the bed of pineapples?"
He responds: "Weren't you paying any attention at all on our Maui tour? Pineapples are out..Sugar is in. So if coffee. And macadamia nuts. And golf courses."
Evan walks in and wants to know why we're burning election ballots.
Then my cousin Alicia calls, telling us not to bring the "trimmings" but the main course. Her table for 40 is set. Everyone agreed not to discuss politics.
I was sure we'd be shipped to the yellow plastic(there's that phrase again!) Fisher Price kiddie table in her kitchen, because I still had to shower and baste the pig, when I woke up to the reality of a humping poodle.
Believe it or not, this will not wind up being the weirdest story in my repertoire next time someone wants to talk turkey.
That would be the story of what happened in September, in the early 2000's, when September weather meant a high of 62 and a low of 48, not like this year's September when the thermometer reached 112 degrees in Fairbanks.
I make a wonderful Thanksgivingesque dinner with all the trimmings for Rosh Hashana, when we still had things like dinner parties with friends. When we still had faith.
I was looking forward to a lunch of succulent leftovers..the savory lumpy gravy that I warmed up on the stove top, the candied sweet potatoes and garlicky stuffing that I warmed up in our new oven.
All I needed was the beautiful fleshy turkey, carved so expertly the night before, and wrapped tightly in a jumbo bag by Jim as he cleaned up.
The bag was nowhere to be found.
It was not in the refrigerator.
Or the freezer.
Or the crisper.
Or the pantry.
Never ask your husband to help locate leftovers they lost, but I was hungry and salivating, and I didn't want to lunch on just "trimmings."
I look in the last place we ever expected to find fresh turkey meat--the trash can in our laundry room in our home on that balmy September afternoon, where Jim finds a tightly sealed bag of bones, gristle, skin, carcass...and perfectly edible meat.
He shrugs his shoulders, retrieves the good meat and says, "On "Survivior" they'd eat it.
Which we DID!
No wonder I dream about "perkies"--the portmanteau of pigs and turkeys because we were exactly that.
Like I said yesterday, 2019's holiday season was no picnic--or luau--either as we faced a world-wide theatrical release of "Cats."
I want crowds, and company, and houses that are as full as people's pantries.
As full as Amster bellies.
Looking forward to seeing everyone via ZOOM later today.
I'll end how my brilliant cousin Reid ends his Coronavirus journals:
Stay safe and sane.
And sated...stay sated too.
