I have this whole other entry buzzing around in my brain right now. It's like a swarm of bees and I'm afraid I'm not ready for the consequent stings if I release the bees. That and there's a lot of fact checking and source identification. It's a research paper really. Maybe over the weekend I'll put on my school girl outfit and work on it, but right now I've got other things to do. Like cook a turkey. Yeah, that's right. I conned my parents into coming up here for Thanksgiving. I kind of bribed them by saying "I'll even cook a turkey!". Some times things just fall out of my mouth. I know you've heard me say that something like 80% of your thoughts are not your own. I think I'm conduit for those thoughts. To be fair, when I said "turkey", I really meant a large turkey breast. I mean, how much turkey are three people going to eat? But because of a series of unfortunate events (roofers that refused to show up to work, I'm looking at you), we were not able to get to COSTCO until Sunday. They were out of turkey breasts. I elbowed my to the "all natural" turkey section and dug through the turkeys until I surfaced with the smallest bird, an 11 pounder. At $.99 a pound, it came out cheaper than our original plan. So..yay!

I've never cooked a whole turkey. One year, I cooked a turkey breast for Chris and (he said) it turned out fabulous. But a whole bird is different. I don't even own a meat thermometer. I have a candy thermometer. I have priorities people. Two weeks ago (before we even had the turkey) I dreamed that I had forgotten to thaw the turkey. Two nights ago I dreamed about making brine and storing it in pitchers in the refrigerator. I woke up the next morning wondering if this was even a possibility and if I even had a pitcher (I think I have a Kool-Aid type pitcher....dear God what has happened to my kitchen?!?!). Today, I've reached a sort of Zen calm about the whole thing. The turkey will go into the brine tonight. Mom's going to bring a meat thermometer so that we can be sure I won't kill anyone with raw turkey. It'll be fine. What? I have a tendency to channel Lucille Ball? That's crazy.

I am marking off a lot of firsts this year. First house; first thanksgiving in new house; first turkey. Let's just hope it's not my first time to kill people with food poisoning.