Shoot. I’m behind on my blogging. Again. I have lots of Christmas stories to tell, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell the story of our Thanksgiving disaster.
We decided to host at the cabin this year. Our great pals Kitty and Joe and daughter Gigi joined, along with my brother and his brood.
Joe and I were put in charge of food because I love cooking and Joe used to have a miserable job in fine dining. Joe and I share a deep German Lutheran work ethic and a Clark Griswold obsession with making family holidays perfect, so we had not one, but two meetings regarding the menu and preparation.
I was put in charge of the bird. Because I live in Evanston and am a moron, I bought a local, artisanal turkey which cost more than my first rent in Chicago. His name was Jeff and had been hand fed corn, received daily shoulder rubs and listened to true crime podcasts on his Apple Earbuds. He also was fond of David Sedaris short stories.
Since Jeff was fresh and not frozen (as if), we need to get him up to the cabin the night before Thanksgiving. This would allow him to get acclimated to the slight difference in elevation in Michigan.
I packed Jeff in a giant cooler filled with ice and filled the rest of our minivan with my children and Steve’s children. I brought the kids because we’re 50% sure our cabin is haunted I was not going to deal with the Corpse Bride of Lawrence all by myself.
I’m not sure if you remember, but the day before Thanksgiving this year was a weather mess. Wind shoved us all over the highway. Diana called to inform us of reported power outages all over the state.
I was crawling out of a deep yelling at Elijah earlier in the day hole, so I tried to be the picture of positivity. “Hey gang! If the power is out at the cabin, everything is going to a-okay! If worse somes to worse, we’ll just skip skip skip back on home to Evanston. Sure traffic is terrible and the weather is near deadly, but we’ll sing songs!”
We turned into our driveway and everything was pitch black. But the cabin is in the middle of a forest, so pitch black is kind of the point. I opened the front door and noticed a lack of telltale security system beeps. Maybe we didn’t pay our bill? I slowly, painfully flicked a light switch.
Nada. Jeff began to sweat.
I called Diana and yelled at her because it was all her fault we met and fell in love and got married and had two wonderful children and made a beautiful life together.
I drove into town and we went to a bar that was untouched by the outage. The Michigan power company website promised our power was almost back on. I couldn’t tell if this message was passive aggressive Midwestern torture or legit.
I floated the idea of driving back to Evanston to the kids. Steve’s son Finn spoke for the group with a barely audible, “No.”
I couldn’t enjoy my fried perch, knowing Jeff’s time was rapidly running out. And my perfect Thanksgiving was in mortal danger. What would Joe say?
After dinner, I suggested we head back to the cabin for one last look before the big fun drive back. Finn repeated, “No.”
Once again, I entered the darkened house. This time, I was greeted by the security system, letting me know our power was on and if I didn’t use the right code, the authorities would be there in roughly four hours.
Thanksgiving was saved! The next day was perfect. Family, friends, wonderful wine and laughs and beautiful food.
Jeff ended up pretty dry.
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