Turkey

Our first Thanksgiving was both wonderful and slightly disastrous.  It started off with me taking a shower while Matt made cinnamon rolls and got the turkey ready for the oven.  I then shoved a bunch of herbs in its tummy, buttered it up, and popped it in the oven.  Since we had a while to wait we ran some errands.  When we got home we checked the thermometer and it said 153 degrees.  153 degrees!  That's only 12 degrees away from the 165 that the thermometer police said it would be done at!  So I rushed rushed rushed to get the stuffing and potatoes and cranberry sauce and green been casserole made.  (Super traditional, right?)  While I was working on the sides Matt was helping me by peeling the potatoes and basting the turkey and whatnot.  I made the master plan and he did the grunt work.  I was the brains; he was the brawns.  Insert obvious statement about how this is a metaphor for our marriage here.  Anywho, Matt was basting the turkey and keeping an eye on the thermometer and he told me that the temperature was actually going down.  Down!  Throughout the course of the sides cooking the turkey dropped down to 137 degrees.  No, up is the right way, turkey, not down.  You don't cool down until I take you out of the oven and put you in my belly.  Then you may cool down, but not yet.  So long story short we had to end up eating all our sides at like 3:30 because they were done and starting to get over-cooked  but the turkey didn't come out until after 6:00... at which time we figured out that Matt had only taken one of the two giblet bags out and the bottom 1/4 of the turkey was still a little  pink.  Which is why it took a 12 lb turkey almost 7 hours to be almost-done cooking.  So we salvaged what we could, which was actually kind of delicious, and threw the rest away.  We have a whole gallon size bag full of turkey, so it didn't all turn out bad, but still.  It was kind of an ordeal.  Happy first Thanksgiving, us!  We'll call this one First-time's-not-the-charm.

What's most important, though, is that we really made this Thanksgiving together.  I know I said that I was the brains and Matt was the brawns, and that's true, but we each brought our best attributes to the table... literally and figuratively.  I had the ideas and made the plan.  I knew what to buy and where to buy it and what to pay for it.  Matt helped us follow through and stay on track - making the plan come to fruition.  He also did some of the things that I just didn't want to do without complaining like I would have.  We both worked together to make it easier on the other person the whole way through.  In fact, in the end we had almost no clean up because we had each anticipated and acted on the other's needs so well.  It was kind of a cool day working side-by-side with him.  Maybe someday this can be the new metaphor for our marriage.