“Thanksgiving is just a lot of work.”
I sent that message while trying to determine whether we had a wire rack that would fit inside the big turkey roasting pan.
The turkey had already become a small project.
Nearly a week earlier, I was asking about a trash can large enough to hold it. Not just large enough to fit the bird. It needed to be roughly twice the size so the turkey could be fully submerged in water. There were questions about cooking temperature, timing, and where all of this equipment was going to come from.
By Wednesday, I realized I had forgotten something important for the brine. That meant another trip back before meeting Amanda in Cold Spring, collecting the turkey, and possibly making a Home Depot stop.
I made a shared document called “Turkey Party 2022.” A holiday meal had acquired project documentation.
Thanksgiving morning brought the wire-rack question. I offered to bring the equipment I had and run over to take care of the turkey if that would help. I did not want the meal to become one more source of stress. There were plenty of other dishes, people, and pieces of timing to manage.
The camera roll is much calmer than the messages.
Eva found a small bed beneath a carved wooden bench and settled in. She had no opinion about brine ratios, roasting temperatures, or whether the pan needed a rack. Her contribution was to wait near the action and remain available if anything edible hit the floor.
The turkey got cooked. The wine made it out. A pie arrived and was eaten before I remembered to send a thank-you.
The shared document stayed in Drive. Eva kept the simplest Thanksgiving job.