I have a perfect aunt and a non-perfect uncle. I alternate holiday meals between them since I am a pitiful middle aged woman who can't cook anything more complicated than microwave popcorn and Progresso soup from a can. So who did I choose to spend time with yesterday? Or more accurately, who took pity on a poor middle aged woman who can't cook anything more complicated than microwave popcorn and Progresso soup from a can? My non-perfect uncle, and I only mean the non-perfect thing in the most affectionate way. So what happened while I was there with my mother? Lets see....
He showed me a large cat cave he built on his deck for wild cats in the neighborhood and I dubbed him the Ty Pennington of the Extreme Makeover for Cats. He seemed to like the title.
My 10 year old cousin thinks she's Harriet the Spy and runs around with "spy equipment" recording herself whispering into a tiny microphone saying things lie: "I'm in the kitchen now The turkey is cooking. I think I need to roll around on the floor and act like a kitty."
I got to play with my uncle's weasel whose name is Gunther. Stop now. Not that weasel.
Ever watch 3 people attempt to wrestle a turkey out of a pan while the entire kitchen is nearly engulfed in flames? Guess you weren't at OUR Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. As usual, my uncle always thinks he can lift a 25 pound turkey out of a pan with a spoon. Honest to god! A spoon. Uncle K is the greatest guy on earth. He's a great Dad. He takes care of his wife with MS. He is a self employed sole provider for his family and sometimes works like 60 hour weeks and has the best sense of humor of anyone in our entire family. And he cooked the entire Thanksgiving meal by himself, despite the fact that he's a total jock. But when he went to lift the turkey out of the pan, he tried to do it with a single plastic spoon. So even though I'm a total retard in anything regarding cooking, I told him he should probably consider doing a little samurai sword thingie with the turkey, maybe impale it from two different angles and then hurrumphing it over to the big serving dish. But while doing this, of course, you would have to yell "Hiiii-yaa!!!" So he started laughing, as he searched for two potential sword type knives and finally found them. Unfortunately during all this, some pan in the oven was heavily smoking. So he was yelling at my older cousin to remove the pan, which she never did and soon the entire kitchen was so thick with swirling smoke I couldn't even see my aunt sitting on her lawn chair over in the corner. And then all my other cousins, who were in watching HBO or football in the living room were soon yelling, "Hey Dad, did you realize there's smoke in the house?" Like Duh! But getting the turkey out of the pan and into the dish did seem paramount at that particular moment. Forget that people were falling to the floor in apparent spasms of asphyxiation. So he stabbed the turkey with two large knives from either side and I guided the turkey's ass...or maybe it was its head. Who knows, it was too smokey and who knows which end is which anyways. My other cousin, who didn't know enough to take the smoking pan out of the oven and go throw it out into a snow bank was tilting the pan behind me. I didn't want any turkey grease to splatter on my new sweater. But with one giant heave-ho, we did finally get the bird onto the plate. And fortunately it didn't slide off the pan onto the floor or anything. And then it was onto...
Hey! Lets take the drip pan thats nearly on fire out into the snow bank! So my uncle did finally grab it with about 10 potholders since it was about the same temperature as molten lava. And then we had to clear out the smoke which included turning on several fans, and opening the sliding glass door even though it was only about 15 degrees out and there were indoor cats to worry about getting out and wild cats out on the deck to worry about getting in and there was Gunther the weasel running around and my other cousin had brought his pitbull Jasmine who kept trying to jump up on the counter to purloin the 25 pound turkey. And then my little cousin Harriet the Spy was walking around with her secret microphone saying "I'm here in the kitchen and its smokey. I think I should call 911, but only if mom says its ok. I love my cat Oreo. I wonder what kind of pies we're having".
So all in all, it was just a usual Thanksgiving at my imperfect uncle's house. He even slyly mentioned that this would never happen over at my perfect aunt's house and he's right. But to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.
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