Here: Use the Special Glasses. Don’t Look At It Directly.

I didn’t go work on Monday.

Seems I had developed an eye problem. Seven inches of snow had fallen over night, and I couldn’t see going to work.

That’s what the Personal Day is for, yes?

And as the day wore on, I realized how much, personally, I like days off: the house is clean, dinner is on the stove, the candles are lit.

I stopped running in circles, and I done bin cozified.

When one is caught up, and one finally has the time to sneak a cigarette on the Frozen Porch of Sneakitude, one discovers the time to really look around.

Did I see the beauty of the swirling cape of snow that has engulfed Minnesota, the tiny snowplow clearing one of the three ice rinks across the street? Did I see the cars on the wrong side of the road, the ones that would be towed by the City of Minneapolis?

Did I see the man who fell on his butt in front of the house, promptly jumping up, brushing himself off as if it was something he had meant to do?

Well, yes, I did, but I also caught sight of my largest pot, three-quarters full, tucked into a corner.

You know the pot, right? The one that had been sitting at one end of the porch, full of turkey soup, since the day after Thanksgiving?

I wouldn’t think too much about that if I were you. While the contents of the porch have been frozen solid, for, oh, most of the last two months, it’s also been warm enough to sit out there – almost comfortably.

“Comfort” being a relative term, particularly if you’re Minnesotan.

In other words, you could try the soup, but I don’t recommend it without proper medical insurance.

But why? Why is there a large pot of antique turkey soup on my porch?

Right up until the day before Thanksgiving, I had been operating under the impression that the holiday festivities would be held at my house. A turkey the dimensions of a good-sized dog had thawed in the fridge, there was 20-some pounds of Yukon Gold taters in the pantry ready for peeling and in keeping with Murphy’s Law, that anything that could go wrong would go wrong, I had developed Swine (H1N1) Flu – or, as it is known around our house, The Heinie.

As much as it killed me to cancel, I was forced to call my mother, two hours away, who, with 24 hours’ notice, pulled together what was, by all accounts, a fabulous turkey dinner with all the side dishes and pies that the family has come to expect.

On Thanksgiving Day, therefore, as I lie on the couch, feverishly watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, covered with recumbent cats, my brains leaking out of my ears, Big Willie roasted our turkey, made mashed potatoes, gravy, and did, for one and-a-half people, what we had planned on doing for 15.

The leftovers were divided into a variety of Tupperware and Cool Whip containers for lunches, and it was Thanksgiving every day for a week.

While grateful, this felt wrong to me, somehow.

Feeling that I had not pulled my weight, I hauled my feeble self off the couch and did what I felt I needed to do:

I wrestled that turkey carcass into the largest pot I had and I made soup; and, the refrigerator full, I put it on the porch for cold storage.

Then I felt dreadful for two days.

And neither Willie nor I mentioned the turkey soup out on the porch again.

So you can imagine my surprise this afternoon.

That soup is still out there.



Funny, isn’t it, the things you see when you stop running around?