The Thanksgiving Feast

So I'm going to write down a point of remembrance that one year I told Nikki and Jen I'd make turkey for lunch the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I had no intention of making it then of course. I just wanted to buy something pre-cooked at Ralphs or Whole Foods or something. Only when I picked it up, it was not cooked. Only the side dishes were. Yikes. And so amidst the groans of disappointment, I vowed that for the following yearS, I would make good on my promise to cook a turkey meal for lunch. And that was how this tradition was born. It had been pretty successful too, even in 2018 when I cooked it a few months after having moved out of Lisa's house. I didn't get to do it last year because Lisa had left for a week in Hawaii early. But this year, what with COVID and all I figured there was plenty to be thankful for. Hey, we're all healthy and working right? And so I made it a point to do this tradition this year. Which is why I woke up at 6 AM to prep the turkey and put it in the oven. it's supposed to cook for at least 3 hours. And then I went to Lisa's at 7:15 to pick up Johnnie and get him some breakfast. No Elysee today I'm afraid. I'm way too busy and distracted. Today McDonald's will do. Besides I needed to buy him something I can share for MY breakfast too. As it was the turkey temp checker popped up by 9 AM. Wow THAT was early. Is it really cooked already? Out came the digital thermometer. Yep, it's 170 degrees in all parts of the turkey. Oh it's cooked alright. The skin just didn't brown on the outside. Note to self for next year: butter the skin! By 10 PM I went through the rest of the side dishes bam-bam-bam. Did the green beans and onions. Mashed up the potatoes via the Instant Pot. And finally the stuffing. My famous stuffing LOL. I got done cooking everything by 10:45. I had pretty much left Johnnie alone all morning and fortunately he seemed to know his dad was busy and needed to get out of the way. Me being always on time pretty much all the food was at Lisa's office kitchen by 11:30. Mission accomplished! There were 8 people working today. 9 people eating including myself. I bought some chicken McNuggets for Johnnie's lunch. And so the bottom line? They must have liked it because they ate up most of the food! I will say that I had to ask myself last year why doing this was important. This year of course it IS even more so important. But I acknowledged to myself that I do it because I still cared about Lisa's office. I cared about her staff and hey if I get some compliments along the way, would that be so bad?! It is good to do something when there is nothing in it for you and you gave it your all anyway as if everything depended upon it. And so Johnnie and I left right after the lunch and by the time we got back to the apartment, the L-tryptophan and last night's lack of sleep got to me. I needed an afternoon nap badly.  And I knocked off. Johnnie watched his videos and I took a nap. When I woke up it was already almost 3 PM. I knew Lisa would be done with her patients by then but since it IS a Saturday I figured she'd hang around the office until she got done with her notes. It was all ok by me. I wanted to spend time with Johnnie since I wouldn't be seeing him tomorrow anyway. We went to Panda Express to get him his chicken for dinner by 4:30 PM. Lisa finally came by to pick him up right around 5:30 PM. He was still eating by then and so I told her I'd just drop him off when he got done. In the meantime, I did finally get the opportunity to clean the kitchen. I mean I used pots and pans I hadn't used in more than a year! And lots of them too! I didn't even know I still had them. Probably used them last the LAST time I did a Thanksgiving lunch for Lisa's crew. All in all it turned out pretty well although I thought this was not my best turkey. I didn't get the outside browned nearly enough. Gotta work on that for next time huh? anyway I not only cleaned up all the pots and pans, I even cleaned the entire kitchen, floors and all. And I got it pretty spotless. you would never know it had been used to cook up an entire Thanksgiving dinner for 9 people not a few hours earlier.  And then I finally dropped off Johnnie. Lisa had  been playing the piano but she was clearly tired and ready to go to bed. It was all good. It had been a long day for all of us. I was ready to go to bed too. After all, golf sunday tomorrow. But for some reason I found myself watching more episodes of Chuck from more than 10 years ago. Something about a normal guy who morphs into a superhero, this time a secret agent and does all this amazing things appeals to me. Another one of those a Hero's Journey stories. And he gets the stunning amazing-looking girl secret agent too. Who just happens to be assigned to protect him. Gee. I wonder why I would want to fantasize about that! I fell asleep on the couch same as last night. Not even the whizzing of cars on Sawtelle, even in the wee hours of the night/morning and the crisp cool air kept me awake. It really had been a long day...