A smell from the deepest pits of R'lyeh; A Thanksgiving Story

On Thanksgiving morning my uncle and I bundled up and drove the truck down treacherous roads, seeking to bring Great Granny and her stalwart caretaker Peter cupcakes decorated to look like a turkey. This mission was clearly of the utmost importance.

We trundled out there against the advice from Peter, the world's nicest man. Peter speaks in halting English, primarily learned from the elderly people in his care. I wasn't quite sure, but it sounded a little bit like he said he didn't think coming out to Great Granny's in that weather was a very good idea. (Anybody else notice how frequently people suggest that maybe what I'm doing is not a very good idea?) I told him we'd see him shortly and in spite of weather like this:



we successfully delivered our precious cargo to Great Granny out in the sticks, then returned home triumphant to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The moment I'd shucked my winter gear and placed my boots on the heat vent, my Auntie called me to the kitchen.

"Smell this," she said. I'm pretty staunchly opposed to sniffing on command, but, it was Thanksgiving. As I opened the oven door, she continued, "Does it smell bad to you?". It wasn't the worst smell ever, but my super-sniffer warned me away. I agreed that it did not smell right. It, being the Thanksgiving turkey.

A mere 3 hours from guest arrival my uncle and I rebundled and headed outside to fight nature and last minute crowds in search of replacement poultry. The supermarket was nearly deserted, and one lone thawed turkey awaited us. A gorgeous twenty two pound bird... with an estimated cook time of 6 hours. A 5 hour gap between guest arrival and dinner sounded a little too long.

So we bought two chickens and a ham, just to be on the safe side and headed home. The first thing we noticed upon the return to the house was that the attic ladder was down. Curious.

As we entered the house the smell wave hit us like a garbage tsunami. I want you to understand that this smell was epic. It was profoundly terrible. At first I thought that all four dogs had eaten something squishy and dead, like a raccoon corpse that didn't agree with them, and resulted in four dog simultaneous in-door pooptastrophe. Times eleventy million.

This smell was Lovecraftian in it's horribleness- like something dredged from Cthulhu's anus.

This smell was our turkey. The turkey my uncle had declared he was going to cook to one hundred and eighty degrees and then consume in an effort to prove that brining the turkey in scalding hot water would not, in fact, kill every one of us.

Our turkey which, upon our return was already sitting outside in the snow, still in its roasting pan. Our turkey, which was so funky, so gnarly, so horrific that the dogs wouldn't go near it. Our dogs, who drag squirrel corpses under the porch to age like kimchi before rolling around in them and eating the squishy bits, and leaving the the empty squirrel fur and bone sacks lying about like deflated maggot balloons, found our Thanksgiving turkey so terrifyingly stinky that they wouldn't go near it.

Auntie had opened every window and door (it was less than 30 degrees), lit every candle in the house (including the holiday candles looted from the attic), and lit the fireplace. Yet the stench was oppressive. Two and a half hours later, when the first guest arrived it still smelled bad enough that he asked what had happened. My dearest friend, the nicest, most polite person in the world- he is from Kansas people, and his mother is Mennonite- asked about the unholy stank.

Other than the unspeakable horror that was the turkey, everything else turned out well. I trussed and roasted the chickens, and we baked up the ham.

Dinner was even on time and, by then, either we'd all adjusted to it, or the noxious cloud had finally dissipated.

But I will never forget the putrescence visited upon us on that day. This Thanksgiving the thing I was most thankful for is that I didn't have to wash the roasting pan.

Notes from the Janitorial Cupboard: Everything is A OK.

The custodian in my office, Jim, was, by odd coincidence, the custodian at my high school when I went there. He is and has always been one of the best, happiest, and kindest people I know.

Recently we commented that we had thought he might be on holiday, as we saw someone else doing some of his duties today. He told us that he's just training a substitute.

I said, "Ah, no holiday fun for you?"

And he replied, "I always have fun. I make my own fun. You know as a Vietnam Vet, as long as no one is shooting at me, I'm happy."

I've always believed in choosing to be happy, and today I add to that appreciating daily the many blessings in my life.

Happy Saturday!

Giving thanks.

Almost as good as giving cookies.

This year I'm thankful for:

• my family- I know that what seems like obnoxious nagging is actually attempted assistance; from people who are wiser than I;
• my boyfriend- for knowing what I want, when I don't, and for the abilility to say "no"- not to mention being generally adorable;
• all of my friends- for always being eager and supportive;
• in particular Steve- for understanding that poop jokes are always funny;
  
• my granny- for always being willing to drop everything to find a recipe for me;
• my job- for existing where there is scarcity;
• and to Angie- for making me go to the gym and making me laugh. You are one of the nicest, if not the nicest, people I know.
  

What are you thankful for?

At the gym Kanye-style!

I tried a new machine at the gym last week. IT WAS AWESOME:






















I'd never used the Adaptive Motion Trainer before because it looks too much like this:




















Scary right?

No?

Ok, well, here is what it looks like when someone is on it:





















Still no? Well, it is yellow and gray and taller than me. I assure you that the yellow really stands out at the gym where everything is gray or black.

Anyway, I got on there and once I got it going, it was like when I was young and lithe and could run with leaping strides. Those days before I jacked up my knee and foot from running with leaping strides.

And my knee was fine and my foot was fine. And I was leaping like a GAZELLE. And I was (loudly) telling Angie, my gym buddy, "I AM LIKE A GAZELLE! LEAP! LEAP! LEAP!" Angie choking on her water, as I moved my arms diving through the air in gazelle hoofs-like motion.

"I AM THE GAZELLE! GAZELLE! WOOSH! I'M FLYING! GAZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLE!!!!!!!!!!"

"WOosh! Gazelle. gazelle... Holy shit. I'm so tired. How long have we been on these things?"

"10 minutes"

"FUCK."

So fine, I only did a mile, but for 50% of the time I was a gazelle.

Toilet Spider, WTF?!

Today at the Workplace WC, I turned to flush the toilet in my usual stall, and a SPIDER crawled out of the tiny gap in between the wall and the toilet and, given that spiders are pervs, undoubtedly took a picture with his tiny spider iPhone to send along to all the other spiders in the building or post on some sort of creepy spider file share of ladies' bottom pix.

Really, Spider, the toilet? You looked around and said, yep, this is where I want to live, in the toilet? Spider, you are all kinds of screwed up.

Later, I (because I'm an idiot) had forgotten about Toilet Spider (how did I forget, you ask? please see earlier parenthetical note) and when I went to flush, there was Toilet Spider, totally dead. His crunchy little spider corpse floating in a puddle of (I assume bleachy) water that sometimes leaks from the tank.

What did you see Toilet Spider? What horrible thing did you see that made you want to end it all? Please tell me it wasn't my bottom. Please tell me that it was just your time, but that you were happy to end your life on the positive note of my bottom.

Also let that be a warning to all other spiders; this bathroom is deadly. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Someone here is an ENORMOUS girl.

Most the time I'm just one of the guys at the comic store, but periodically I GIRL IT UP, HARDCORE.

Very much looking forward to:




Should I chase this with a poop joke to restore my credibility? Good call.

Texting, the Gateway to Gateway Drugs

CNN recently aired a story about a survey's results indicating that teenagers who spend large portions of time using social networks/texting are more likely to smoke, drink, use drugs, and have sex (possibly more interesting sex than I'm having) (kidding, Muffin).

So, what I'm hearing is that kids with more active social lives fall victim to social ills? That kids who spend more than 3 hours a day screwing around on the internet, unattended by adults, are more likely to have risky behavior?

Shocking.

As it turns out, popular kids with uninvolved parents and too much time on their hands do most of the cool kid dangerous stuff. I hope that this study was not paid for by the US government. That would be depressing. In related news, how about we do a study relating the relationship between time spent watching Babylon 5 and wedgies.

More critically, while the article clearly states that the relationship between texting and sex is not causal, in the TV segment, the host actually asked how to manage kid's texting to prevent teenagers having fun sex/a drink/drugs. Surely, if you turn off her phone's text function, your little princess will never have sex or drink. She will also cure cancer, sprout wings and fly, make cupcakes too beautiful to eat, and create peace in the Middle East.

I think that the horrific teen trend we should really, as adults, be concerned with is trampolining:

Love is...

giving away the last dumpling for his chicken soup.

Status of "American Ingenuity" jeopardized.

Remember that one time when I cleverly stopped my trunk leak by caulking it?

Remember the incredulity of the guy at Home Depot, as he said, "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Now, this is going to come as a HUGE shock, guess what was not maybe a very good idea? Did you guess caulking my trunk? Good guess.

My tail light is out. But I sealed the aperture with caulk. So now I have to disconnect my car battery, remove the caulking, fix the light, and then re-caulk that space and reconnect the battery.

Why disconnect the battery? Because knives + wires = bad news bears.

Why re-caulk? Because I don't have a better idea about how to fix my leaky trunk. (Which sounds like an embarrassing disease for elephants.)

The internet, which was silent on this issue when I was googling the hell out of it, now tells me that I can remove my light wells and then caulk with some specific sort of putty. Thanks for nothing, internet.

That's a ton of work well beyond my level of caring/ability. I think I'll just re-caulk it and hope that the light doesn't go out again before the car shudders to a stop on I5 in rush hour.

Happy Vetran's Day

A beautiful short animation of a brilliant piece of writing.

Gettysburg Address from Adam Gault on Vimeo.

Regional restroom sherpa available!

Remember those halcyon days of yore when I daydreamed of how I would spend my 30th birthday?
No? (Scroll down, could be fun.)
Well, they were awesome. After much debate, I decided on a weekend in Leavenworth, frolicking in the sun, eating delicious Bavarian pastries, petting goats, and making smoochy face with Muffin.

That would have been pretty sweet. Instead I led Muffin on a tour of every restroom between Seattle and Leavenworth. Thanks to food poisoning, courtesy of The Bite of Seattle, I spent the entirety of my 30th birthday disrespecting countless bathrooms, drinking ginger ale, and weeping softly into the luxuriant hotel pillows.

Luckily, by Sunday I recovered in time to enjoy the many splendors of Leavenworth.

I didn't want one, but Muffin demanded we have a commemorative photo taken.



















Rawr, hands off, ladies- that's my Muffin!

Things I Don't Understand: Activia

So now they make special yogurt for people who can't poop. Who out there is really not pooping? Are you pooping? Cause I'm pooping.

In the landmark text Everyone Poops, it is asserted that we all poop. Was this all lies?

Is there an epidemic of not-pooping, of which I have been entirely unaware? Such a nonproliferation of poo that Jamie Curtis was hired to tell us what to buy to make pooping occur?

ATTENTION AMERICA, EAT SOME FRUIT.

That is all.

And now for something completely different....

How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

It's a really obscure number; you've probably never heard of it.