Things started to go a little off-script when I got out my cellphone, because my aunt said I should call my parents. I did. I chatted with Mama for a while (she's feeling better, Dad is not getting worse and therefore shouldn't need to go to the ER) (there was an incident involving a log, followed by urgent care and antibiotics), and then Dad got on the line. This resulted very shortly in him inquiring after my aunt's menopause status, which I helpfully hollered into the kitchen. My aunt emerged and began a monologue, ending up with the part where if she hadn't been through with it already, she would have told him that it was "none of his f-- ... *business*."
Since I'm a helpful child, I edited back in the word she'd edited out.
My aunt took over the call, but the signal was crappy, so she called him back on her landline. That was about 2-ish, and the stuffing was in progress.
My best friend called back. He'd just beat the rest of his family at Scrabble. We giggled at each other.
By 3pm, she was lying on the kitchen floor with her feet propped up on the counter, still chatting away nineteen to the dozen with her oldest brother.
Then we discovered that the turkey was not thawed.
We'd bought it and thought it was not frozen. No such luck. So water baths and microwaves happened, and there was assorted dithering. Finally, the turkey wound up in the oven by 4:30, a mere half-hour before we'd planned to get it out.
My aunt and I got our coats and such on to hit the park she was talking about before the sun went down. This was delayed when the poodle made a mad dash out the door, thinking in his poodley little brain that of course we were bringing him along, and it took some time to get him rounded up and back inside. There was another slight delay while my aunt rescued the errant garbage can lid that had blown across the street the previous night in the lashing wind and rain.
We got to the park just as it was technically closing. Never one to let that sort of thing stop her, my aunt parked in the church's parking lot, and we walked down the trail anyway. As the light faded, we saw a cluster of buck deer, notable by their horns. We shone flashlights on them, but my cellphone camera really sucks. They looked at us a bit, but were mostly licking each other's faces.
We came back, and the turkey was really not done. I provided IRC and Twitter with running commentary.
The turkey finally finished cooking at 10pm.
teshiron and ursamajor suggested that we may wish to try Chinese takeout next year. The stuffing was, of course, not quite up to temperature yet. My aunt put it back in the oven. Some time later, I wandered over and demanded to know how the temperature had dropped. My aunt had in fact turned off the oven when taking out the turkey. Ooops.
