And We're Off!

This is where the madness really begins. The day before the last Thursday of November. Today is all about getting the food underway. Tomorrow is about the food. Friday starts the insanity as adults across the nation belly up to buy the latest gizmo, the year's must-have toy, the perfect gift.

Today we start flying down the slide that ends in January when we hit the ground, tapped and tired. The rest of the year will be a blur of projects and purchases, food and drink, decorations, plans, dreams. I do love it; there's nothing like the holidays to bring out the best in even the worst of humans. By today the grocery stores are calming down and only the last-minute types will be in there, ranting and panicky.

Which reminds me of the years I spent in Turkey Hell. Every Monday before Thanksgiving, the turkeys would arrive at our meat department. About 450 of them. All fresh and high-end locally farmed birds. Sizes from 12-28 lbs. They each had to be taken out of the boxes, weighed, tagged and either put on the sales floor or back in the meat locker (I heard they're selling for $2.99 a lb this year). It was insane and exhausting and by Wednesday night we'd be down to a few 18 lbers, none of which were the size the last stragglers wanted. These would be the first customers to tell me I'd ruined their holidays.

My favorite Turkey Hell story was a call I received about an hour before closing on one of those Wednesdays. A man began shrieking that he'd "paid good money for a fresh Vermont turkey", and his was frozen. It was a cold snap and he'd put his turkey on the porch overnight, where it froze. I offered to exchange it for another bird if he could get to the store before closing, but he wasn't having it. "This bird is frozen!" he said. "I think the coop should take some responsibility!"

Makes you wonder how some people made it to adulthood.

We had a few inches of wet snow last night. The Shire has a mantle of white, sparrows and chickadees zooming around. It's a pretty scene out my window. Thank gods I'm back and moved in. This would be miserable to be moving in, though there are some slated to do so today, here.

Okay, time for another cuppa and then it's get the food going. If I don't get back until after the festivities, Happy Thanksgiving to you all and see you soon.