Diary of a Wolfeman

On the assurances that my older brother would spot me the gas money for the trip, I packed up the kids Wednesday afternoon and headed over the hills and through the woods to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. Definitely a good decision. A better decision was equiping my rather hyper daughter with a portable DVD player and several movies for the trip. I would have killed for one of those when I was a kid.

My younger brother is currently home on leave while recovering from a wound received in Iraq – seems some fucktard got himself a rocket launcher and tossed an incredibly well-aimed shot into the compound the family Marine was stationed at, and he took some shrapnel in the ankle. This was just before the push into Faluja, so they shipped him home to heal, since he wasn’t able to fight at the time. He managed to make it back to Mom’s house the day I left, so things worked out rather nicely. It’s not often we can get all three of us boys in the same room nowadays.

While here, he decided to put some of his combat pay to use and grab some wheels to drive himself back to base with. If you see a mostly black 1979 Trans Am with blue stripes on the hood on the 5 in the next week or two, get out of his way. He’s got places to be and terrorists to obliterate. We talked about what he wants to do when he gets back over there, and he says he’s going to volunteer to be a Forward Observer – the guy with the radio and the laser designator, otherwise known as the most dangerous person you could ever face. That laser designator is guiding large pieces of ordinance into your front door. Smile for the camera.

Ma, of course, outdid herself once again with one of the tenderest, juciest turkeys to date. This huge bird (22#) came out of the oven so perfectly cooked that I almost pulled the carcass out of the meat while trying to get it out of the pan – I ended up having to drain all the goodies out and invert it onto a breadboard, then lift the pan off. At that point it was still too tender to flip over manually, so I had to repeat the procedure onto a second breadboard before I could carve it.

Hey Ma – that ziplock of leftovers you sent us home with didn’t make it back to the house – Ratty and I munched ’em the whole way home :)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.