Phoning it in: Vengeful Turkey (again)

It's nearly Thanksgiving and I've been considering family, things for which I'm thankful, and all that sentimental bullshit.

And I'm writing NONE of it here, because I'm also busy as hell right now at home. I'll try to put a real post up over the weekend. In the meantime, something I posted originally a couple years ago about one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories.

Miss you, Grandpa.

I come from a large extended family: my mom's the oldest of eight, dad's the oldest of seven. Holidays at my grandma Kit's house (mom's side) are crazy: cousins, animals, aunts and uncles all running haywire. Stories are told and retold, children are in and out of the house all day followed by the dogs, cats are hiding in terror, and horses are hitched up for rounds of sleigh rides. It's all loud insanity and it's wonderful.
When I was about five my grandparents lived on a large farm in northern Minnesota, outside of Cloquet. It was more than a hobby farm, less than a farm-for-a-living spread. After all, they had seven kids still at home (four of them teenage boys) to feed so anything they could supply from the farm was much more cost effective for a second grade teacher and a heavy equipment driver for the county. In addition to the herd of horses, cats and dogs for fun, I remember cows, chickens, goats, sheep, guinea hens, and turkeys. There were probably other random animals from time to time...I know one of my aunts had a pet raccoon for a while.

One turkey in particular took an instant disliking to my small five-year-old form. He decided I was a blonde devil and for months I couldn't walk near the barn without him attacking. In case you didn't know, 25lb turkeys fully live and loaded have VERY STRONG wings: he'd extend them out to each side and run at me, screeching and beating his wings at me until I was cornered against the barn. I loathed that stupid bird. My aunt Elyse, only seven years older than me, had to beat him away from me with a big stick. That bastard gave me nightmares every time I stayed at Grandmas for the entire summer.

Thanksgiving came and we were all sitting around the large kitchen table. It was a cacaphony of children and adults all talking at once, passing food, slipping treats to the dogs under the table, and laughing. I, being the oldest (and therefore exalted) grandchild, sat next to my Grandpa, a big, gruff man who was really a big softie with the grandkids. He watched me take a big bite of turkey and waited until I swallowed. Then he told me that was the big nasty tom from the barn. To this day I think he was telling me just to see how I'd react, being a girl mostly sheltered from the more unpleasant farm duties (we never went there on butchering day after the chicken incident).

I cheered and asked for more.

"What's with TODAY, today?"

I have nothing for a real post today.

That's a lie. I could probably entertain someone with some random stream-of-consciousness-crap that bounces around like a superball on speed in my cranium. However, I am lazy. And it's election day (NO MORE Romney supporter calls to my house: yay!!). And therefore I give you the posts I've seen recently that made me cry, either through excessive laughter or well written sentiment.

(Please note, the mental image I get when I write "sentiment" is Johnny Depp as Willie Wonka...remember how he looked like he swallowed a bigass frog every time he tried to say "parents"? Yeah. That's the face I make...also, I just got COMPLETELY distracted looking at pics of Johnny Depp on the interwebz.)

Work, shmerk, people.

Anyway, read these. Seriously.

Cerebral Milkshake: I Will Inject You With Kindness
Superbetsy: Star Wars Kinect
Rubypearl: I Wonder Who Does Laundry at Castle Greyskull?
Non-Girlfriend: Loss is Loss
HyperboleAndAHalf: GOD OF CAKE

Honestly, I could put pretty much anything Jenny writes up as either funny or touching (there's that frog face again), so I'll just say: if you aren't already, read The Bloggess.

That's all I have. Go forth and have a fabulous Tuesday.

PS: spellchecker HATES this post. Mwahahaha.

I'm Wonder Woman...without the sexy costume.

My grossly neglected dogs (who have punished me for recent lack-of-attention by killing birds, eating bad Halloween candy and vomiting aluminum wrappers all over the floor under the table, and other manifestations of evil) had a vet appointment today. Both survived their respective tortures: Chewy is prone to ear infections: he has one (and it's pretty gross) so they shaved the hair in his ears, cleaned the infected one thoroughly (takes 2 people, dude) and clipped his nails for me.

Thor needed his nails clipped: he's a goddamn drama queen and SCREAMS when the techs clip him. Not the normal Shepherd whining: full on "OHMYGODTHEY'RERIPPINGMYSKINOFF!!" screaming and howling. Sigh. For fucking TOENAILS. Diva.

I felt guilty, therefore after becoming a narcotics dealer at Walgreens I picked up McNuggets for them. I was rewarded with drool down the back of my neck. Assholes.

Anyway...today is spoda be cleaning day, right? Because having been gone for two months my office and the corners of my house are...dusty. I have fabulous aunts who came to clean last weekend, but this place needs more than a quick once-over...so today was going to be cleaning extravaganza.

Because I'm supposed to be writing for NaNoWriMo...and I'm a MASTER (Mistress?) procrastinator. Seriously. If this was college I'd wait until 11/29 and try desperately to cram 50,000 words between 10pm and midnight. Hey, it worked for my Greek and Roman history classes...Except when I argued that Achilles was a bitchy whining teenager who basically took his friends and pouted on the beach because Agamemnon TOOK HIS TOY away.

Agamemnon: dude, your sex slave is hotter than mine and I'm an asshole, so I'm taking her.
Achilles: Fine, dick. I'm taking my Myrmidons and going home. Fuck you and the ship you sailed in on, and good luck taking down Troy without me.

Note Achilles didn't really care about the GIRL (although Hollywood desperately tried to make it look that way in Troy, which was horrid and should never be watched by anyone unless it's ONLY to see Brad Pitt and Bruce Banner (who's real name escapes me) nearly naked). He cared that Agamemnon took the equivalent of a blond Tonka truck away before he was done.

Yup, MASTER PROCRASTINATOR over here. I got a C on that paper...because my professor was offended that I called Achilles on his crappy behavior. I'm not sorry.

In case you're wondering, the cat hair in the vet's office has me sneezing like a goddamn faucet today (yay for unsexy snotface) and yet I STILL managed to: become a drug dealer (only to my husband, who is legally on prescribed narcotics, police-type readers. I swear: I have the prescription), torture the dogs, clean the upstairs bathroom, tell my mom Happy Birthday, take out the garbage AND make homemade apple crisp.
All of this while my fucking pants keep falling down. Sigh. Inappropriate, but husband finds it amusing.

That's right. I'm goddamn Wonder Woman without the neat lasso...or Amazon heritage.