TJ, JT, VL, Gurgle, Gurgle, Gobble, Gobble, Z-Z-Z … November 23, 2011

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In Washington, D.C.

I had the audacity to presumptuously plan to take four days off for a Thanksgiving vacation to spend with my family in the Nashville, Tennessee, area, renting a home so that we might all gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.

I don’t know what I was thinking.

I learned a long time ago that days planned off or vacation possibilities are one of Mother Nature’s favorite targets.  She seems to have a personal giggle-fest over our notions of rest and relaxation or any form of escapism and saves us little pieces of tedium to interrupt our purported bliss. Maybe it’s because I still plan to do things while taking the time off that causes the difficulty.

I had to get a piece of our equipment fixed, so I placed an ad on Craig’s list, and promptly received a phone call from TJ. He seemed like a really nice fellow, knew his stuff, and was in need enough of the employment that I felt good about engaging him, if you know what I mean. So I handed my very important instrument over to him for repair.

He brought it back to me yesterday. Broken.

Understand, he had worked on it but had failed to achieve the task–making it even worse than it was before. Some form of remuneration was in order–just to be polite and to cover his expenses. So I ended up paying sixty dollars for someone to break my equipment. (I think I could have given it to a three-year-old with a candy cane and come out on the better end.)

Then an old friend of mine came over–JT–a veteran of a thirty-year acquaintance, and we had a delightful time talking about family, dreams, the past and hopes for the future.  He is a wonderful soul with a lot of talent, whose works may never be heard by the masses because America is not really in search of talent, but rather, in admiring and uplifting the greatest yield on ego. So as he left, I was invigorated but also a bit saddened that some of the things he may desire to do will lie in the planning stages on a table in a corner room.

Back to my piece of equipment that needed to be repaired (which is called a VL70-m box). Once we discovered that it had been sabotaged by the minions of inefficiency, Jan immediately got on the phone to track down other possibilities, revealing a myriad of potential, none of which were particularly attractive to either my vacation plans OR my wallet.

Thinking I had acquired enough activity for one day, the house we had rented for the four days suddenly sprouted a demonic presence in the form of a gurgling toilet.  Now normally, I don’t like my appliances to have personality–call it my quirk–and when I place toilet tissue into a receptacle, I do not expect it to be gurgled back up to me. This toilet seems to be offended by the mere suggestion of doing its job–so anything deposited within its porcelain sanctuary may eventually come back to you later on. For the time being, I have decided to leave it alone in its solitude, shutting the door to the bathroom, gagging the gurgle.

On a brighter note, I did begin cooking my turkeys for the Thanksgiving festivities.  If I must say so myself, I do a pretty good job preparing my bird. Most people over-cook their turkeys or cook them much too hot in an attempt to get that famous browned-skin look on the outside, which means the innards has surrendered and dried up.

Here’s what I do: I thaw the bird to a point that I can remove all the inner workings and leftover parts that are basically unidentifiable by even a poultry forensics expert. Then I take a couple of apples, a couple of oranges, a couple of onions and a few stalks of celery and stuff them inside. I take one bottle of zesty fat-free Italian dressing and pour it over the top of the bird and I cover the creature with aluminum foil and put it into the oven at 250 degrees for about eight hours. In the last hour I remove the aluminum foil from the top and turn the oven up to 300 degrees, basting every twenty minutes. This is for about a twenty-pound fowl package. If it’s smaller, of course, you can cook less. I then take it from the oven–and I choose to de-bone it for ease of serving. I cover it with some of its juices and put it in the refrigerator, and upon re-heating the next day, it is moist, tender and sweet beyond words. The turkey was the last event of my day–and a successful one it was, to counteract the attack of the repair man, the visit from a friend with unrequited talent and the grumblings of a spotty potty.

I was tired. Z-Z-Z.

I realized I had two more days of this alleged vacation–and honest to God, I began to think about how anxious I was to get back to work so I could really rest up. I admire all of you who pursue a life of domestication. It has never been particularly kind to me because houses always need repair, families always need counsel (or money), friends are looking for hope when what is available is reality and repairmen … well, they often don’t.

So believe you me, I will enjoy the rest of my time with my kind kin. But when the hour of departure does come, I will provide adequate tears for the appearance of separation, but inwardly I will smile, knowing that I’m escaping the gurgle-gurgle … and even the gobble-gobble.

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Here comes Christmas! For your listening pleasure, below is Manger Medley, Jonathan’s arrangement of Away in the Manger, which closes with him singing his gorgeous song, Messiah.  Looking forward to the holidays with you!