2004-11-29 - 10:13 a.m.

Yeeha. How about Thanksgiving? I subscribe to that newsletter. Who doesn't? Well, lousy Canadians I suppose, but what are they good for, save making ginger ale? So three major things happened during Thanksgiving "break". #1 - We fried up and ate ourselves an 18 pound turkey with all the fixin's. (Oh Lord, do I ever love me some fixin's!) #2 - I worked about 347 hours. #3 - My eye exploded. Maybe you heard? And now, on with the show.

How about some flip book fun that chronicles our Thanksgiving funnery?! Although, I suppose a static computer monitor doesn't lend itself well to flip bookery. Maybe in the future it will. If we're not too busy eating moon pies. Annnnnnnd . . . go!

Chef Chen nervously checks out this "turkey fryer" he's heard so much about. We just cross our fingers that no "accidents", born of too much Miller Lite, result in fried Kenichi

Kenichi patiently awaits the frying of the big bird (not the Big Bird, god, we're not animals) while Peter is in the shed unhooking the propane from the grill so we can fire up the ol' Bayou Classic

Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm - that's a lot o' vegetable oil. And can you believe that pot is actually considered tha medium sized Bayou Classic? The large is for when you want to fry turkeys over 20 pounds. Hot dog, that's a lot of turkey

This was the spread that Titie put out while her and Al-Y were cooking next door. As you can see, Alex, Peter and I helped them by eating from said spread and watching Sopranos

And it begins . . .

Titie begins pouring the sweet sweet Wesson into the B.C.

Sweet Mama Jamma, look at the size of that bird! And no, my dad wasn't there, that Cutty Sark belongs to Alex. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who's been to a party that Alex has attended as he treats that Cutty Sark bottle like it was his Flour Bag Baby assignment from Health Class. He has to make sure to take it with him, and be careful not to drop it, and to kiss it good night, you know the drill - but yeah, that's a fucking huge turkey, and there was some worry that it wouldn't fit in the B.C. - but Titie had faith, and we should have believed her, as it . . . well, you'll see

Peter s-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-y begins the turkey's descent into the Bayou Classic. See, you have to lower it over about a 90 second (plus) span or the oil will bubble over, hit the flames under the pot and blow us all up. And getting blown up does not a happy Thanksgiving make. As you can see by this picture, and a few of the subsequent ones, Sarah's mind is being totally blown by the proceedings

At this point the B.C. is snap, crackling, and popping like nobody's business. And I'm wearing a t-shirt and sandles because of the unseasonably warm weather. But yeah, a general rule of thumb around the B.C. is to have as little exposed skin as possible. Although Alex seemed to think the general rule was to have as many lit cigarettes near the propane as possible

The turkey frying action is starting to bore Sarah and soon her attention will turn to that GIGANTIC dog bone to the left that is roughly 47 times her size

Almost there!

The kwazy turkey steam/smoke that's flooding into Peter's eyes? Yeah - he no like that. Also, his arm is probably about to fall off

Everyone pays their last respects to the turkey. At least for the next hour

Ah. Thar she blows. A hump like a snow hill

Al-Y's breaking the first rule of Turkey Frying Club. Don't drink near the Turkey Fryer! But honestly, that's the #1 rule in the Bayou Classic rule book. I quote, "Sober Adult Attention to be applied at all times". Man, those goofs at Bayou Classic are always trying to bring us down. Not to mention what a good blackmail pic this is. I'm sure some of Aly's Vegan organizations would love to see their Queen proudly standing next to a machine that fries an 18 pound turkey in 53 minutes

An unidentified member of the Thanksgiving party [who just happens to be in a ZQF birthday t-shirt & sandles] fishes the giant fried poultry from it's oily depths. I know what you're all thinking. It looks overdone. I assure you. It ain't. That's just how they look when they're fried

I just had to get a shot of Titie's beauteous dutch apple pie before we carved it up like a . . . thanksgiving turkey. Hmmmm, I probably could have gone for a better analogy there. But mmmm, mmmm, was it damn tasty

And break! Look at this veritable smorgasborg! Peter wanted me to note that while this picture was being taken a.) his favorite Kinks song started playing on the stereo and b.) he is playing the part of "Cornish Hen" in this picture. I know, doesn't look much different from "Peter Farmer". But that morning Peter had decided that he needed a super hero identity and obviously landed with Cornish Hen. More than a few times during the rest of the day one could hear, "This looks like a job for . . . CORNISH HEN!" Also note all the sweet potatoes next to Titie! Don't they look like Chinese Chicken Fingers! Sigh. They're not though. Just sweet potatoes. But they were still good. Also, note the picture of what looks like an angry Zeus to the right of Peter, ahem, Cornish Hen's head. That is the picture that made Alex exclaim, "That guy's just gotta have hooves." Of course

So that was Thanksgiving. We ate and ate and ate. And there were three pies for dessert, which somehow, against all odds, we ate as well. And then Aly and I brought much of the leftovers to work in tupperware (or tupperwareS, if you're from Maine) and proceeded to have Thanksgiving a few more times that weekend. Mmmmmm. Thanksgiving. Waldi, or "The Bengineer" as the Cornish Hen rechristened him this weekened, was sad that he missed out on all the Bayou Classic action. He's hoping to use the B.C. at least once before I return it.

So then I worked like a 100 hours in 4 days and it was really busy most of the time, but it was deathly slow at the very end of Friday night - which made sense, seeing as most people started shopping that day about 4 hours earlier than normal. And there was this lady that came in on Saturday who is a total pain in my ass and I can't fucking stand her at all. None of us can. And she was a day late for the train sale and I didn't want to give it to her. Despite her protesting, "I spend a lot of money here so you should honor me the sale price." Oh yeah beeyotch, because that line will SO work on me. I don't go to her work and be a fat fucking annoying bitch and return more than I buy. Regardless, I had to do all I could not to punch her in her big fat face. She insisted, "I got the postcard in the mail and I brought it with me, so that should count!" Right. Because that makes a lot of sense. So I ask her, "You have the postcard on you?" "Yes." "You got it in the mail and brought it in with you today?" "Yes, I did. It's in my purse." "Oh, good. Does it have the dates of the sale printed on it?" Yeah, she didn't like that. I eventually hunted Jim down (after she FOLLOWED ME OUT BACK when I thought he was back there) so he could deal with it, and when I got back with him, she was at the counter with a stack of Thomas shit telling Jason, Shannon, Alison, and Tim that I said she could get it on sale. Right. And I think Helen Hunt is hot. Um - no. So I just let Jim deal with it and went out back to sadly resign myself to the fact that the rules would bend for this rich bitch and she'd get the sale price and be rewarded for being such a fucktroll. Except. She didn't get rewarded. Jim came back and told me that he told her if she wanted the sale she could come back in April and get it then. Fucking. Sah-weet. It totally restored my faith in humanity. Well, I never really had any faith in humanity to begin with (especially after Election Day), but I suppose every little bit helps. So yeah - that definitely didn't suck as much as it could have. [Of course, he probably neglected to tell her there wouldn't *be* a store to come back to in April, but, blargh to that] But still, we worked a lot and didn't see Secret Crush too much. And my eye exploded. Oh yeah. Didn't I mention that?

So yeah. I was going to bed on Friday night and the Bengineer had decided to stay in LA for yet another night of Phase 10 fun. It was almost midnight and I had to be up at 6 to get ready for work the next day. My eye felt slightly irritated earlier, like I had an eye lash in it or something. But I figured it would just work itself out. Well, I look into the mirror after I finish brushing my teeth and that's when I see it. The white of my left eye, from the ear side corner to the blue of my eye is filling up with blood. But it's not blocking my vision because it's on the "inside" of the eye, you know, under the lens part. Apparently making a cantalope model of the eye for Mr. Bliss in 10th Grade didn't help me remember the names of the parts of the eye. But I did get 110 on my Fish Test, so I'll always have that. Anyway, so back to my eye filling with blood. I'm freaking the fuck out. Then I see there's some yellow added in too. Oh huzzah! Maybe a bonus infection. I'm ever so glad that my eye has decided to go all Spin Art on me right before bed. Well, the timing didn't really matter. I can't think of a good time for one's eye to "go all Spin Art."

Did I mention that I'm freaking the fuck out? Because I was. I pulled down on my lower eye lid and saw that it too was filling/full of blood. I pulled back on the corner of my eye where the blood seemed to be coming from. More blood seeped out. Does all this sound gross? Yes? Well, imagine if it was YOUR EYE. I ran across the driveway and tried to wake Peter and Titie up by knocking like a mad knocking man and calling both of their cells - to no avail. I was *this* close to going to the hospital. I was going to drive myself to walk-in care. But I have no insurance. Which means they would have said, yup, you're eye is bleeding, $700 please. So yeah - that was no good. So I washed it with warm water so many times that I got dizzy. It especially hurt when I blinked and when I shut my eyes. Thank god I didn't need to sleep or anything. And then I went to bed at about 2:30 and got up 3 1/2 restless hours later. You can imagine how energetic I was for work. But I was happy that I could still see. It felt like there was soap in my eye. Permanently. The blood was out of my eye where you could see it, but when I pulled the lids back for Al-Y at work, she said there was still blood. And then made me promise "never to show" her that ever again. It still hurts. The blood is almost all gone. It still feels like soap in my eye. And I still have no fucking clue what the fuck happened. My mom said, "Don't worry. It's probably just a minor hemorrhage." OH. Well if that's ALL. No worries.

So my eye continues to hurt, I march closer to having no job, the Red Sox continue to get taken apart piece by overpaid piece. I say, Theo, hurry up and sign Veritek, let Pedro sign with the Mets, the big fucking cry baby hypocrite, and make sure Kapler shows you where to go for the best "massages" in Tokyo. Well, I'm off to - you guessed it - work.

It's been real,

Zombie Smurf

ps - Many thanks to Drewbeann for her somewhat invaluable help in the editing side of this here entry. Those transplanted Americans in England, what won't they help edit?!

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