Thanksgiving never had it so tough

I’ve learned one thing about myself this Thanksgiving – I don’t handle obstacles well, especially when it comes to food.

I had a plan this year. It involved a raw turkey and lots of butter. But when we went to pick up the bird, it was partially cooked. This was not a good thing. Not because Chef was going to cook a bad bird, but because all of my plans and timelines were now thrown out the window.

But I persevered. I decided that I would treat this as a boon. Less cooking, less stress! I now only had to focus on the sides. Chef said about a hour and a half at 350 would bring the centerpiece to perfection.

I trusted in thermodynamics which almost led to my downfall.

The oven was turned on at 1, in time for Thanksgiving dinner at about 3:30. But when is was 2:15 and the temperature of the damn bird had not raised a single degree, I was beginning to stress, JUST a little bit. I was 2 minutes from a holiday meltdown when our first guests arrived. I pulled it together and turned around to see the thermometer click over a new temperature. Success!!

Dinner was over an hour late, but what a feast it was. We had a 20 pound turkey for six of us and sides to feed about twelve. The best part was a great evening with friends.

After the main course was done, it was a good thirty minutes before any of us could even think about eating or drinking anything else.

But somehow we managed to make a serious dent in chocolate roulade, cherry pie, coconut bars and cornflake cookies. I only broke two plates, the first of the wedding gifts to get broken in over five years.

Hopefully next year you can make it too!

Fuzz’s Third Life

Husband and I are recovering from massive heart attacks.

After a wonderful evening, I looked around and said “Where’s Fuzz?”

Never have more fateful words been said. But to properly set the story up, we need to go back almost 10 years…

It’s February 2000 and I’m sobbing on my bed. Crying harder than I’ve ever cried before in my life.

“Why?” you might ask. Well, I have just lost my boyfriend’s cat. He fell out the window. (According to Husband, he was pushed.) When I poked my head out the window at him, he looked up at me, lifted his little kitty paws and shot me double birds. And that was the last I saw of him. I spend hours outside searching. Husband flew from Michigan and searched for days. After 8 days, we had pretty much given up hope. But then, the maintenance guy at my apartment complex called and thought he saw Caymus. I broke all land speed records getting back and diving under the building. I almost broke down when I didn’t see him. It was only as I was climbing out that I caught sight of his little fuzzy butt. Ten days later, we had found the prodigal son. I was already booked on a flight over to Michigan and it wasn’t hard to make an extra reservation for the wayward son. (The trip to MI is another story for another day.)

Fast forward ten years but this time, we didn’t see him escape. It could have been when Husband was ferrying steaks or vegetables in from the grill. It could have been a quantum anomaly and he just tunneled through the wall. Who knows, who cares, Fuzz was gone. After a thorough search of the house, Husband and I spent turns wandering around outside, waving flashlights and shaking the food container.

We were both inside, Husband in the basement, giving it one last try. Surely 13 pounds is a little too large for quantum effects to be relevant and the cat is in the house. I had just decided that I would spend the night outside, shaking the food to lure Fuzz back, when I open the door to the back patio and who the hell is waiting to come inside?

That’s right; we have our full complement of three cats again.

All that is running through my head right now is “Thank god I didn’t lose the cat this time.” I tried to come up with a second idea but really, that’s about it. That and “Fuzz is home.”

If you want to hear about my adventures, wait for the book.

Moral of the story? It’s really important to have a recall for your pets. That’s why we haven’t let Max outside, even on a string. I know that if Indi got out, I could get her back, no problem. Maybe not right away, but she’d eventually come back. Caymus will come running for food. But Max? Not sure about him yet.

Nightmares for Grownups

I remember the nightmares I used to have as a kid. The most vivid one was where Godzilla stepped on me. I was wearing a yellow birdwatching dress (whatever that is!). And then the usual one – going to school naked. My twist on it was that EVERYONE went to school naked and you got to pick out your clothes from a big closet at the front of school. All my friends found clothes quickly, but I couldn’t and had to go to class naked.

I still have nightmares, but not very often. Most of them are straight from the terminator. Something is chasing me that can’t be killed and it has glowing red eyes. But I’m usually too tired to remember my dreams.

But last night I had an honest to goodness grownup nightmare. My research group all quit to go work in the Humanities. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the Humanities.) Perhaps this is my subconscious mind working a few things out?

Gratuitous kitty pic:

“Yeah, I agree Max. I hate it when she starts telling us her dreams.”

I’m more than a two page letter.

I was going to do another post, but I forgot my camera adapter at the office, so this one will have to do.

More tenure tribulations coming your way. I had the pre-turn-in-your-tenure-package meeting with the provost and the head of the tenure voting committee. Everything was going well until the head of the committee said:

“We’re going to summarize your life in an one to two page letter, so make sure you include enough detail in your package.”

I almost missed the rest of the information from that point on.

Summarize my life from my tenure package? Really?

I wasn’t planning on including the fact that I am passionate about gardening and would rather spend the day in my garden just puttering than doing just about anything else. How are they going to find out from my teaching evaluations I am madly, deeply and crazily in love with my husband? They probably already know that I have an unreasonable attachment to my cats just by coming by my office. (Sorry Husband. I still don’t have a picture of you in the office…) Although, come to think of it, I don’t think any of them ever have come by my office.

In fact, I barely know any of the committee that is going to be making this decision. They’ve not going to come by the office to shoot the breeze. And to be honest, I won’t stop by their office either. At this point, it would look like sucking up! They won’t stop by one of the classes that I’m teaching to get a view for themselves how I handle a classroom. If one of them walked into my research lab, I would probably fall down in shock. Everything will come down to a written statement by me that describes what I think they want to know.

I guess this makes a case as to why I should write a really kick ass tenure package, but it bothers me that a written statement and a one hour interview is the only way that these people are going to know anything about me. When I interviewed for the job, I at least got to do it in person. I had an hour, face to face, with EACH person in the chemistry department.

Ah well. Maybe one day I can change the system. But not now. I’ve learned my lesson about saying yes to things. After this is all over, I’m going to keep my head down and work in the lab. I’ve missed doing science and creating new knowledge.

I almost died TWICE today.

But as you can tell from me writing this post, I survived. Barely each time, but I survived.

First, I almost got eaten by an alligator. Really.

We were in the Everglades, for this Marine Biology course (don’t ask me, I just drive the van). One of the students and I were sitting by a marshy area, waiting for an alligator to eat a bird.

That little tricolor heron came within three feet of the alligator about a zillion times. He would get all freaky and dance away, but we were convinced that the next time nature would take its course. After about twenty minutes and no meal, we decided to head back to the group.

On the way back, there was a little alligator sunning itself beside the walkway. Several Japanese tourists were offering themselves to the alligator gods, but I guess they were unacceptable sacrifices.

We decided to walk on by and when I got in front of him, I turned to look.

I must have been a more acceptable offering because the damn thing opened its eyes and got up and started walking towards me.

A million things went through my head, rather quickly. First, I turned to look and there was no place to run in zig zags. (Alligators can’t corner.) Second, there wasn’t any place high enough for me to get on so he couldn’t eat me. Third, I was thinking that humans aren’t really that high on the food chain, are they? There was no emotion, nothing in those black eyes.

Thankfully, he just kept walking forward.

Past everyone and down into the water.

It was a SCARY moment.

We saw some other, cool, non-life-threatening things out there, including:

Turtles. We thought this one was funny because he was coasting on his belly.

Colorful birds. I can’t remember for the life of me what this is.

Endangered, hiding birds. (It’s the head of an American Bittern. A prize to the first person that finds his head!) I had to ask a photographer what he was staring at to find him.

There were tons of birders out there today. Lots of big, impressive cameras.

They seemed to love the back vultures. I thought they were pretty ugly.

I’m pretty happy with my new camera (Nikon D60), but I don’t like the auto mode. The aperture is a little too small in the auto mode. I like a little more depth of field in my photos. I’m getting better at using the aperture mode, but it still takes longer than it should to take the photos.

The second time I almost died was in the van on the way back to camp. I let the students DJ and they made me listen to Brittany Spears. I had them change the music in the nick of time, but it was close.

Whew.