beetiger

I had big plans for everything I was going to do this week, while I had the house to myself. Somehow, the idea of having the house to myself for the week loomed large, like some wondrous opportunity to manifest all of my dreams of productivity. I would finish writing and laying out the next two World Tree supplements, rearrange all of my closets and spice cabinets, catch up with every old friend I'd been neglecting, get my finances in order, build menu plans for the week with all of my favorite foods, organize my study, have some quality time with the cat, learn to draw, write publishable erotica, build a new website, photograph the new baby snakes as soon as they got born, do ritual for the full moon, roast a turkey so I'd have lunchmeat all week and the carcass for soup-making, and have incredible amounts of highly satisfying tinysex. After I dropped Bard off at the airport Sunday morning, I went into a paroxysm of productivity, doing laundry, cleaning the house, making Baba Ganoush for lunches, which Bard won't eat due to his eggplant allergies, thawing one of the turkeys from the freezer, taking out the garbage.

The energy bottomed out later that evening, and since then, I really haven't done all that much except what's been most necessary. I've fed the cat and snakes, paid a few bills, watered the plants, gone to a meeting or two I'd promised to help with, had our weekly Monday night gamers over for pasta and Chez Geek, chatted on the phone with my family, gotten into an argument with my publisher, and hung around some online, though not for any particular roleplay or anything. It's not really a big deal, though there are a few chores I'd really ought to get to, still. But my Sunday energy had bitten me, in one way: there was a thawed turkey in my refrigerator.

I'm not eating a lot of meat right now, at least not a lot of meat that's processed through large slaughterhouses. A recent rereading of Fast Food Nation reminded me just how unpleasant the meatpacking industry is, to the people involved as much as to the animals. Food already in the frezzer's grandfathered, though. We had three turkeys in the freezer, since the grocery store we shop in offers regular customers a free one every Christmas, and Easter, and Thanksgiving, and Mother's Day, and pretty much any holiday you can imagine people might be home eating turkey. It's hard to avoid not taking something free. But our freezer had no more space for turkeys. So when I decided in my productivity fever that I was going to make homemade soup for Julia when she came to visit this weekend, I thought I'd might as well use turkey rather than chicken, since I had it.

Like it or not, that raw turkey was there, and so roasting it was this evening's task. It's not a huge turkey, only about eight pounds, not that much bigger than a large roasting chicken, but it's still somehow strange to cook a whole turkey for dinner when you are home alone, especially when there are plenty of really nice leftovers already in the fridge. I felt some combination of ridiculous and self-indulgent, pulling the slippery skin apart from the flesh with my fingers, pressing the flesh with big spoonfuls of homemade pesto from last year's harvest, thinned with wonderful olive oil from Tuscany I had been given as a gift, cooking the giblets in a tiny pot for making basting liquid and pan gravy. The smell of the pesto was intoxicating, summery richness. The appearance of my fingers working under the skin of the leg suddenly reminded me of a latex glove.

Two hours later, the house smells wonderful. I'm making just a simple green vegetable to go with it, and some wonderful organic bread I have in the house for starch, something else to pour gravy over, since I did resist the temptation to make cornbread stuffing. I'll treat myself to a candle, slow jazz on the stereo. Later tonight, soupmaking. Turkey liver for breakfast. Turkey sandwiches for lunch.

Anybody in driving distance of my house is welcome to come over. There'll be plenty.