Some of yesterday’s errands required follow-up today, including cancelling that order. There is some irony in the fact that although I took both my mother-in-law and my wife to the store last night, both of them managed to forget to bring the free turkey coupon they had earned by shopping. My mother-in-law will thus not get hers, but she was going to give it away to us anyway, and we already have turkeys in our freezer we can’t use so we were probably going to give it to the church to give to a family in greater need than ourselves. Today I took our coupon and picked up our turkey.

I could make a crack about picking up turkeys, but it would be unkind and untrue; I need to make a long trip to get John. Were I to say he will be helping us prepare Thanksgiving dinner, I would be underestimating his contribution–it will be I helping him, I am certain. The five hour round trip is going to take a chunk from my busiest night, but there’s nothing for it. I’d considered picking him up tomorrow, but the heating contractor called today and said he would be installing the new furnace tomorrow, so that’s several major projects added to the middle of the week, and I’m going to need John all the more for it. Even now, kids are moving things in the basement to create access, and dinner is about to come out of the oven, and I am almost ready for my mission.

My wife is ill tonight, so I will be making the trek solo on the outward journey; this will give me opportunity to review music in my mind, I expect, perhaps even to sing some of it. Baxter and I have been having trouble arranging a meet between ourselves, and the more so because we want to include Brittany and Adam so we can get a solid start on Collision, but at least I’ll have a good handle on the repertoire myself by the time we start.

–M. J. Young