The Great Dark Meat Turkey Caper

Thanksgiving day Pilot man produced a glorious, deep fried to perfection, turkey. It was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. That is until we stood around and stripped it of all it’s deep fried turkey skin.

Oh my stars and garters deep fried carcinogens never tasted so good.

Over the course of the afternoon we all ate our fill of the bird…and the stuffing…and the mac n cheese….and the Onions Mornay….Party Potatoes…..salad. My waistline is expanding just thinking about it. All delicious and highly carbohydrate and fat centric. Just like Thanksgiving should be. But finally we were done overeating. And as we usually do in my family, we picked the turkey off the bone (well, Mimi actually did this) and put all the meat, neatly separated into light and dark, into plastic zip bags and temporarily stored on a blanket on the floor in the garage. It stays quite chilly in there despite the heater and therefore is a perfect place to store food items that will eventually be consumed but cannot currently inhabit a refrigerator that is already bulging.

And then we went about out business. We collapsed in a turkey induced coma for the rest of the day. We drank more wine and local, Chicago craft brews. Oh did we have excellent craft brews. My favorite happened to be Finch Brewing’s Fascist Pig Ale. It helps that my niece, Arin, is training to be a Cicerone (a beer expert). She knows her beer. The owner of said brewery is a friend. It is good to have friends like that. My cousin, John, also brews beer. Delicious beer.

Where was I going with this story?

Oh yes.

SO, Friday we actually went out to dinner. The local gyros place, The Smokehouse, was calling our name with a fierce intensity that could not be denied. Oh it was  good. So, so good. So garlicky and lamby and……

I digress again.

What I wanted to say is that we did not consume any turkey on Friday. So imagine the surprise, consternation and general shaking of heads when it was time to prepare traveling lunches for Saturday and we discovered……

The bag of dark turkey meat had been ripped open and, other than one little piece that was wedged in a corner, had been totally consumed.

What the HECK! Could a raccoon have done this? The damage was too great for a mouse or even an army of mice.

And so the blame fell on…..

Wrigley the Rambunctious Labradoodle. Wrigs is owned by my aforementioned niece. He is bigger than Max, has more energy than Max, is younger than Max and, when confronted with a bowl full of cat food (my nephew Austin also brought along his cat Chinese Food) cannot be swayed from consuming the entire bowl of kitty nibbles (Sorry Jana, I said the word nibble).

Of course it would HAVE to be Wrigley that had done the dirty turkey deed. Max would NEVER do that.

No I wouldn’t, Alpha, and I am disgusted that you would even contemplate such a thing.

And so we blamed Wrigley. He had gone back to the Windy City and wasn’t there to defend himself. I was self righteous in my condemnation. I was steadfast in my denunciation.

So, when Max started acting rather odd on Friday night, I didn’t really think about it. He was constantly wanting to go out and then stay out for long periods of time. That is not usually his pattern. He goes out, makes a circuit of the yard, leaves a peemail for the dog next door and then comes back in. Well unless there are “bigger” issues to attend to. But Friday night it was all yard all evening long. And after we “put him to bed” in the basement he kept barking as if he wanted to go out. Finally I just told him to cut it out and go to sleep.

Saturday morning we were up and out the door early, heading for home. Max was a bit sluggish and acting odd but we had things to do and home to get to and we just chalked his “mood” up to having to run around with Wrigley for several days, so I didn’t really think about it.

And then he started the farting in the car. Folks, HHBL drives a Prius. It is a small car. And Max is a big dog. You get the picture.

I began to wonder about that absent turkey.

THEN, when I walked Max at one of our stops, he actually did a “dukie”. Please tell me that I don’t have to explain what I mean by that. Just know that it the twelve years that we have been traveling with Max he has never, not ONCE, done a dukie in a foreign dog walk. It just doesn’t happen.

Until Saturday.

But the final coup de grace was when Mimi called Saturday evening to ask if Max was feeling all right. She wondered because when she had gone downstairs to the room where Max stays………she had found that he had dukied in a number of spot.

Folks, Max hasn’t had an indoor accident since he was 10 weeks old. He prides himself on that.

And then I knew….

Without a doubt…..

Turkey Thief

Wrigley, Aunt Debbie owes you a big fat apology and a chew toy. You are a good boy. You wouldn’t ever think about eating an entire bag of turkey.

Did someone say turkey? I LOVE turkey.

Grand Theft Ornament

Thank goodness that none of the participants last night was actually a police officer. Otherwise,for certain, we would all be in the slammer now on charges of theft.

I will warn you that the photos below incriminate many and are not of my best quality. I was just laughing too darn hard.

I didn’t take a picture of the food either. Even with a wide angle lens there might have been difficulty getting all of it in one frame. Every year I think, “I will add just ONE more dish to make sure we have enough to eat” and in the process forget that everyone else brings something as well.

It was an egregiously large amount of food.

I also love that by this time everyone knows how the whole evening flows. The first guests arrived and I indicated where to put their wrapped ornaments and where they should throw their coats. But then I was pulled away to the kitchen. No worries! Someone else just directed the next people on the proper procedure. Everything worked like it was supposed to.

We ate. We talked….a lot and loudly. And then it was on to the main event.

Michelle (in the plaid jacket) started the evening off by unwrapping a freakishly cute Santa. Oh he was SO cute.

And I didn’t even get a picture of her holding up the cute Santa……because she didn’t own him for very long.

Kim had #2……

And she got right up and stole that ornament right off of Michelle’s lap.

Kim looks SO innocent and sweet. Do not be fooled.

Yeah, Kim. Enjoy owning that Santa…..it won’t be for very long.

Michelle then opened a very cute snowman snow globe sort of thing…..

She didn’t own that for very long either.

Every year there is someone who just seems to get ornaments stolen from her….this was Michelle’s year.

Dottie picks an awesomely cute snowman dressed in a Santa coat ornament.

Then someone stole the Santa ornament from Kim so she got right up and stole that Snowman Santa from Dottie. The strike was swift and precise…..just like she had that backup plan in her head.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Dottie next opened the darling velvet Christmas Stockings. They would have looked LOVELY on the tree that she has set up in her basement……if she had been allowed to keep them. She was lulled into a false sense of ornament security until it was Hope’s turn. Hope, oh Hope. You look so young and innocent. And yet your heart was full of ornament thievery.

Michelle had the Snowman Snow globe snatched from her possession and then opened up these rather fabulously cute animal print ornaments…..

Which Kim promptly stole from her when someone else stole Kim’s ornament. Michelle and Kim don’t know each other all that well, having only really interacted once a year at the ornament exchange. But Michelle now feels fairly confident that she will remember Kim’s name FOR. ALL. TIME.

Lin opens her chosen box, which contained these really cool silver ornaments…..

Which Susie is now holding up as she stole them from Lin.

Lin then picked another box which ended up containing a decidedly wonderful squirrel ornament. I didn’t even have time to take a photo of Lin and her ornament before…..

It was appropriated by Heather (sister of Heart Filled with Thievery Hope). And I wasn’t even able to photograph her possession of that ornament before……..

Michelle turned around and stole the squirrel from Heather. And since that was the SECOND time that the squirrel had changed owners……

Michelle was safe and got to take the squirrel home.

Heather picked another ornament……

Which Kim promptly stole after her ornament ended up in someone else’s grasp.

Frankly, at one point, there was so much stealing going on at such a swift pace that I personally lost track of what was happening.

It might also have been because I was laughing so hard that I was about to “drop my contents” as The Pioneer Woman would say.

Carolyn spent some time shopping at the Store of LaurenLeap.

Shoo! Go Away! These are not the ornaments you are looking for!

And about this time Max the Magnificent figured out that he can push the laundry room door open and just come to the party. But he was VERY nervous. There was a great deal of yelling and I think he wasn’t sure whether it was a Brown’s football game, we were all mad or just crazy.

So he wandered into the kitchen to laboriously lick the floor.

And finally it was done. And everyone, hopefully, went home with an ornament that they will like.

And none of us was arrested for Grand Theft.

I count that as success.

Thefts of Epic Proportions….I Hope.

If you guessed that today is the first Monday in December and it is also the annual Ornament Exchange……

Then you would be CORRECT!

I briefly thought about canceling or postponing the shindig. Very briefly, like for a nanosecond. And then I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, or bra straps, or some kind of straps, and knew that there was no way that I was going to cancel. I needed my friends around to steal ornaments and get my life back into some semblance of normalcy. So what if I only had two days to get all the cooking done and the cleaning and the decorating.

I can rest on Tuesday.

And besides, Dad would tell me not to cancel. The man always liked a good party, especially if it had wine. Which this party does not because we already get all wild and crazy without the added benefit of alcohol.

Hoo Boy if I added alcohol then I would DEFINITELY be the topic of discussion at the annual neighborhood Christmas party next week.

I am sure I will give you the whole rundown on all the stealing that goes on. I share everything else with you.

Well, I didn’t share the dark chocolate that I ate this afternoon. Don’t judge.

So, without further ado………..I thought I would show you the 2013 ornament. Oh they are SO cute. And boy I am glad that most of them were done before I unexpectedly went out of town for two weeks.

And if you are actually attending the party tonight then you need to stop reading……

Stop reading NOW if you are attending. Don’t make me come over there, I still have too much to do.

Seriously, every year I just get tickled when I see the ornament.

I am so odd.

A whole basket of elves just waiting to go home with someone.

Now back to preparations. I am hoping to have a cup of coffee and put my feet up for a bit.