... I am thankful to be a "Kook"

Today is Thanksgiving. It is also our first Thanksgiving in Wilmington, away from our families. Jason is on call this week, so we will be sticking around town and creating our own Thanksgiving magic. We have another couple coming over to join us and it sounds like it will be a fun, relaxing day. But as with most holidays, today has me reminiscing over past Thanksgivings and what I am particularly thankful for.

As I think about past holidays, one in particular always sticks out as especially humorous. It also reminds me why I am thankful to be a Cook, also frequently referred by ourselves as the "Kooks" (the Cooks are my mothers family). A few years ago, the Cooks were gathering for our annual holiday meal. I don't recall if it was for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I clearly remember there was a turkey involved. Here is why...
This particular year, my mother had volunteered to cook the turkey. Well, my grandmother being who she is kept calling my mom wanting to know if she had started the turkey yet. To quote my aunt on this particular detail, "she wants everything done hours ahead of time and cooked until it's black". Now, my mother being who she is, does not like to be pestered about anything, so with each phone call, the tension grew. Until finally, my mother showed up at my grandparent's house, turkey in tow. When I say turkey in tow, I mean in the roasting pan, already in a brown-in bag, ready to go in the oven, raw as it can be. She drops the roasting pan on the table, exclaims "I'm not cooking this f***ing turkey" (yes, we Kooks swear, even more so during the holidays), and walks back out leaving my aunt, my grandparents, and a raw turkey staring at the closed door.
Of course, my aunt, being who she is, tried to remedy the situation by taking the turkey back to my mothers (if memory serves, she walked to my mother's house - which is next door - in her slippers and robe, roasting pan in hand), trying to convince her to just go ahead with the plans for the day and in fact, "cook the f***ing turkey". Predictably, this did not work. My aunt returned to my grandparents house, mad as a hornet, and proceeded to cook the bird.
In the end, a good time - and a good laugh - was had by all (including my grandmother and my mother) at the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing. It has joined a very long list of family anecdotes that make up the Kook family, and in truth, one of many reasons I am so thankful I am a part of this crazy, wacky, ridiculous family. We have had our share, and in some cases, more than our share of hard times and struggles. But I would never trade them in. They put the fun in dysfunctional and the "Kook" in kooky.