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.

Quiana is super-boring.

Above you will find Cthulhu Seagull.

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Some thoughts:

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I hate nice summery days because that means there will be no parking in my neighborhood. Thanks, stupid lake!

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I would like a Dr. Who cookie jar. I have been thinking about this a lot. A LOT. This is precisely why I need a bigger kitchen.

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I think when I move I want acutal decor. Like a real grown lady person, who just happens to own a Dr. Who cookie jar.

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I have a shower curtain which has a map of the world printed on it. What I need is a shower curtain with little flaps over the names of the countries so I can quiz myself. We can call it Potty Quiz. Hey everyone come to Quiana's, it's Potty Quiz Night! Hooray!

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I'm thinking of going to the Tri-Cities for Memorial Day weekend. Someone should talk me out of this.

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Ants have invaded my kitchen (via messy neighbor's kitchen) and cannot be gotten rid of. They are just wandering aimlessly across my floor. There is no food for them so they just do a few laps and wander off, but I am not down with things with more than four legs. This can be expressed with the following formula: >4 legs= inarticulate shoe flailing.

So tonight I will buy Raid and use toxic chemicals to obliterate their Alzheimer's-esque wanderings.

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I have a very important final interview at my Ballardian Fantasy potential workplace tomorrow. You should hope I don't say something weird, like nipples. On a non-nipular note, I only have one suit and have now interviewed there approximately 3 billion times, do you think that it is noticeable?

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Sorry about all the re-posting and forced spacing. Blogger is all jacked up again.

Still only half as scary as CatBus.

I think whoever photoshopped this doesn't know how to spell Cthulhu in Japanese... what a loser.

Goodbye Blog, Hello Cthulhu

I am going to be out of town to organize and attend my uncle's memorial service. I probably will not update my blog until Monday.

In my absence, I leave you in the capable tentacles of Cthulhu.

















I, for one, would like a cookie.