47 Thanksgiving Turkeys

    The first was in Schaghticoke, in a Main Street apartment.  His 46 successors roasted in Valley Falls, in two different ovens.  The smallest was about 19 lbs, the largest almost 23, and this year's just under 22 lbs., a weight which fits comfortably (from the non-turkey viewpoint anyway) into the larger of 2 blue granite roasting pans.  I don't remember why I have 2; probably both were gifts.  Ma may have given me hers when I started cooking the Thanksgiving turkey for her house, but I seem to recall she had a big old stainless steel roasting pan.  Dave could have brought home the larger pan after we'd had some difficulty squeezing an early bird into the smaller pan.  It used to be a concerted effort for us to get the bird into the oven, but no longer.  I have found it easier to work alone, though I need help the night before when someone else has to hold down the handles of the lifter cooking rack, a wonderful convenience which Dorothy gave me some years ago. 
    The turkey went into the oven at 6:44 this morning, 21.8 lbs of fresh Premium Butterball Young Tom Turkey, raised without hormones and with no artificial ingredients.  According to my old Better Homes cookbook, it will be done in about 6 hours, but the Butterball enclosure says 4 and 1/2.  I usually opt for the longer time ,out of guilt, because I always stuff the bird, though all the advice-givers say not to.  As far as I know, no one has ever got sick from the stuffed turkeys I have cooked; I hope this year is the same. 
    I just read the headline of a post where some football personage is planning to serve tofu or something to his family because of what his children had seen on TV.  Yeah, maybe.  It's better not to think about some things too much.  I just saw a re-run of Mike Rowe's "Dirty Jobs," where he artificially inseminated turkeys and he made the same vow.  No more turkey for him, he said.  When my first two kids were tots, and television shows significant to them, they watched some show about a turkey and his harrowing escape from his Thanksgiving destiny.  A cartoon, I recall, but realistically done.  They both started crying, and pleaded that for Thanksgiving that year, we get a turkey "that was already dead."  And so we did.

Bill who?

    I haven't been following the story very closely, but am subject to the media blitz surrounding it. I don't much care because everything happened so long ago, including Cosby's celebrity.  In view of today's climate, who cares any longer who slept with who anyway.  Oh, of course, it's the pills and the lack of consent.  I just saw one faded beauty who described what happened. She, a nubile young thing, was in his room and Cosby presented her with 2 large white pills and told her to take them.  She did, apparently without question, and the next thing she remembered was waking to find Cosby having sex with her. And she didn't even enjoy it.  She admitted to the interviewer that she called Cosby later and went out with him again.  The interviewer asked if she had intercourse with him again and her answer was "Probably," but she didn't remember. 
    Most of the aging accusers are younger than Cosby, who, as most successful men, prefer the bounty of youth.  Now, as the ladies struggle to hang onto their looks, they view Cosby as old and unattractive and wonder how they could have wanted him, though actually he wasn't bad looking way back then.  But he is wealthy and they are not, and it's been a long time since they were sought after.  Humans are fallible, and many of them, male and female, are just plain pigs.

Fog Line

New term to me, but okay, I get it.

Rust Thou Art

     We had our fuel oil tank replaced last year.  It was old, original with the house, but it looked to be in fine shape, from the outside anyway.  But sophisticated diagnostic devices detected unseen rust on the inside of the tank.  I didn't understand how a vessel containing oil would rust, seemed counterintuitive to me.  The technician explained that heating oil contains some water, which condenses at the top of the tank and subsequently rusts.  We'd had the bladder water tank serving the main water pump replaced several years before, for much the same reason. So we're not in denial about  the power of rust.
     Last night we ran out of water, in the midst of a bathtub fill, suddenly and inexplicably.  No water anywhere, not in the bathroom or the kitchen.  I went into the basement and checked the circuit breakers; they were all in the correct "on" position. I flipped the switch on the water pump, to no avail.  What to do at this time of night?  Who to call---a plumber, electrician, well-driller, real estate agent?  I chose the obvious, and called Joe T., whose response time was well within the limits of  emergency responder.  He suspects the water pump needs replacing.  It is evidently not really old, but is visibly rusted.  As he was leaving through the front door, our outside light failed and, I, as has become my custom, reached up and tapped it to turn it back on.  Joe checked, said the bulb was loose, and the cap-screws holding the globe were rusted, making it hard to remove and tighten the bulb.  But he overcame the rust and Lo! There is light. 
   So I sit here this morning, parched and dry, and waiting for water, and pondering the  effects of rust:   insidious, destructive rust, that eats away from the inside out.  All are subject----fuel tanks, oil tanks, water pumps, water tanks, joints of any kind including knees, the mind-----Oz never did give nothing to the tin man.
   

To Hell with the Vine

I ain't gonna do it.

Cry for ?

I found this when sorting through old papers:
    June 17, 1994
       Today I heard of a woman who had to leave her home where she had lived her life up to now.  The reason was that she couldn't stop crying.  She cried, all the time. No one could stand it.  So they sent her away, to someplace else.  I wonder what kind of place it is, where people go who can't stop crying.   Are there people there who can stand the sound of crying?  And is this place filled, crowded?  Is there room for more?  And from this place of constant sobbing, does anyone ever leave?

Resignation

     I've seen  the show, "The First 48" a few times, and all I can think of is that Dorothy would have liked watching it.  She, until the end was approaching, enjoyed crime shows.  For the 7 or 8 of the final years of her life, she would be in my house during the weekends, and on Sunday evening she would watch CSI, or whatever the show was called, while I worked on the New York Times Crossword.  She seldom cried, she said, but the hauntingly eerie theme music at the end would bring her to tears.  She said she didn't know why.  I thought I did.
   Pretty much whenever I watch TV attentively enough to find any point of interest, I find myself mentally commenting to her.  I don't address her directly, not yet anyway, but my problem in life is that everything is essentially meaningless unless I can relate it to another person, and she was my last resource in that respect.  And there is no one left to take her place.  Whenever I look in a cookbook to follow a recipe, I want to talk to her; I know I can't but I try anyway. 
   One of my deepest regrets is not going with her to one of those "mystery nights" that she mentioned she thought would be fun.  It was expensive, about $500 each for  a weekend at a Lake George hotel.  I wish, too late, that we'd gone. 

Language

Term  was gas emissions; I heard gassy missions.   When I studied French in college, I couldn't discern when one word ended and another began,  And now, English.