Life in a Nutshell

Thankfully Yours

Thanksgiving Day 1997

It's Thanksgiving, I'm so excited. It's the first time I'll be making a holiday dinner for my new husband. We've been married for six months and life has started to make sense as a married couple.

The wedding "thank yous" have been mailed. The first arguments are over and the apologies have been given.

He's my husband, how amazing to say that.

He's working today. He's a produce manager for a local natural food store. So today is a busy day for him. There are always lots of last minute shoppers and caffeine addled soccer moms needing the perfect green beans, potatoes or whatever else can be forgotten on a holiday.

I work at our local newspaper. I wanted to get a job as a graphic designer and was hired as such, but when I started, they needed an advertising representative more. So last year, I switched over and it's not bad, not bad at all.

I work with business clients for classified advertising, I answer the phone, sell ephemeral space, design layouts and ad campaigns. It's fun and enjoyable. Evidently I'm funny, engaging, friendly and a good salesperson. Who knew?

My husband and I graduated from college last year, both with art degrees.

I know, right?

Are you laughing? You should be. An art degree is pretty laughable in the real world. That's why we both work in areas that have nothing to do with our education. That and Scott has realized he can't sit still for eight hours a day. He's an active guy, and stifling him in an office setting is miserable. He realized that he would much prefer an active job and lifestyle. I can appreciate that, but he's still really talented.

Because of our pitiful newlywed financial state, we live in a small one bedroom apartment, I remember affectionately as the "hovel."

It's literally a box, with hideous olive green shag carpeting, dark wood trim, and harvest gold appliances in the kitchen. This apartment has been uuuuused. It shows.

This Thanksgiving we were excited to invite a few friends over for dinner today. We didn't have a dining table, but a couch and a coffee table would work just fine. AND as a bonus there was an X-Files marathon on all day! Wooohoo. I was a fan.

It's ten a.m. and I'm dubiously eyeing the fourteen pound turkey carcass in my kitchen sink. I can cook. I've been cooking since I was twelve. I can bake too. Trust me, I think my new husband appreciates my baking so much that he regularly removes me out of the kitchen when I'm in it.

Scott gets off at work at five p.m., so I have most of the day to get things perfect, at least that's my intention.

You know all about what happens to good intentions, right?

But...I've never roasted a turkey before. So I'm on the phone with my mother who can't come down from Portland today because she also is working. I'm asking her for advice on the steps and tools I'll need to get this beast in the oven.

"Now, do you have a roasting pan?" she asks.

"Yes, I have one of those disposable ones, will that do?"

"It should work, just be careful, they can be tippy."

Then she adds, "Be careful of the timing, and don't forget to remove the giblets from the body cavity. Oh and by the way, do you have a baster?"

"Yep, I have one!" I hold up the trusty kitchen tool.

"Good, be sure to baste the turkey with the pan drippings, every twenty minutes, after the first hour."