T Minus 1 and Counting

Today was the day before Thanksgiving, so there was lots to do. I made mashed potatoes, bought whiskey, made a pumpkin cake, and brined a turkey. I've never brined a turkey before, but this is how it starts:

It ended with a turkey, the brining solution, a gallon of icewater, and 6 cups of apple cider in a big plastic bag, sitting in the fridge. But what happened in the middle is the part you should be glad you missed. In spite of the fact that I had taken the turkey out of the freezer on Monday and moved it to the refrigerator, the turkey was still mostly frozen. The brining directions tell you to remove the bag of giblets from one end of the turkey, and the bag with the neck in it from the other end. Well if the darn bird is still frozen he doesn't want to give up his giblets or his neck and in this case, the neck wasn't actually in a bag, it was frozen to the inside cavity of the bird. I ran the bird under water to loosen up the bag of giblets and finally managed to work it out of the beast, but it took me a while to realize that the foot-long round disgusting thing inside the bird was actualy the neck and that I had to get it out. So I ran the water through the cavity for several minutes with my arm in the bird up to my elbow trying to get a good enough grip on the neck to pull it out. As I was doing this, I kept thinking about what a turkey neck looks like when it is still on a living turkey and not chopped off the body (and headless) and stuck to the inside of itself (yes Winnie, it would have been worse if it had still had its head). I was thoroughly grossing myself out thinking about how I was yanking on an actual turkey neck when the neck came loose with a suuuuuuuck-POP (why was there suction? why?) and I was standing there holding the neck with no turkey attached. Aack. I was so traumatized I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of the turkey sitting in the bag so that you could see that I really was channeling the Pioneer Woman today.

But I did take a picture of Mace playing with his Pop-Pop:

Apparently, Mace had gotten tired of pushing the dump truck around and around and around the house and decided to sit in it instead. What happened next is anybody's guess -- though I think tomorrow morning I will try to nail down whether Mace approached Pop-Pop with the broom and the idea or whether Pop-Pop wanted to push and just happened to have a broom in his hand (YaYa will tell you that this is unlikely).

Happy Thanksgiving!