Journal: 11/17/06

Six days left before Thanksgiving and excitement fraught with anticipation is building between Bill and I. This is our first holiday in two years that we have spent in our true home, Snug Harbor. Last year, while the motel renovations that laid waste to the original Snug Harbor were progressing, ultimately yielding Snug Harbor II and Bill’s own room across the tarmac from it, Joann, Bill and I were living in two single-bed rooms elsewhere on the property. The holidays were simple that year, none of the elaborateness of our first two holidays upstairs in the big apartment, but we made do.

Last year, Thanksgiving was a trip across the street to the Monterey Fairgrounds and the free (donations accepted) turkey dinner put on by the Rotary, Kiwanis and other assorted charities. Although we three felt a little strange about partaking of a meal meant for the elderly, indigent and homeless, we gave a small cash donation to ease out discomfort and were thankful for a dinner on the scale of one’s we used to cook and serve for ourselves in our own home. The experience reminded us of whence we came two-and-a-half years earlier and we could give thanks for the relatively minor inconvenience that brought us to the fairgrounds that year.

Ultimately our new places were readied, a new kitchen built from scratch, and home cooking once again became a central event in our day. At least the three of us were together last year for the holidays, regardless of our circumstances. We weren’t homeless, though it felt like it upon occasion, we were just in a holding pattern between homes.

The Turkey Arrives

Today Bill brought the turkey home. Much like thanksgiving in our first two years in Snug Harbor, great amounts of detailed strategic planning have gone into this year’s feast-to-come. Every little element has been picked up, stared at from every angle, sniffed at, weighed and when satisfied or appropriate changes made, placed gently back into its respective position in the grand scheme of Turkey Day. It is during the holiday dinner planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas that we are revered (or reviled) for the sheer degree of our anal perfectionism, and the amount of time spent accomplishing it.

Remembering feasts of the past, Bill wanted to get our turkey early and solidly frozen so it could spend five days in our refrigerator thawing at a temperature guaranteed to keep bacteria at bay. We didn’t want to wait until the last minute because we fanaticized about a twenty-five pound bird and experience told us that two days before the big day, everything in the store freezers would be well picked over yielding only scrawny, twelve-pounders or worse. The Bill and Scot shopping philosophy goes like this: when the price is right, buy the biggest. At Safeway, the price was right; any turkey over twelve pounds cost only eight dollars. Additionally, we have the will to eat and freezer space for, six months of leftovers.

The turkey weighed in at twenty-three-and-a-half pounds, the same as we’ve had for past Thanksgiving dinners. Bill even worked with one of the meat-counter people a couple of days ago to make sure that the right bird would be waiting. I helped him take it out of the car’s trunk and put it into a pan, and even shrink-wrapped, I could tell that this turkey stood a good chance of being the best one Bill’s ever cooked. Homemade Thanksgiving this year looks to be a reality.

There is always a counterbalance to euphoric expectancy and that is reality; much like gleeful Christmas suspense to children is mitigated by the knowledge and earnest counting of the school days left to slog through before opening presents. For Bill and I, it is that this year he and I will be by ourselves. Joann and Bill’s friend Jeanne will be absent from our table, but not our hearts.