Sacred Time before Dawn and two Sleepy Dogs

We are coming up on a sacred time and place in the next two weeks.

Its the morning of Thanksgiving, along about a half hour before the sun comes up. That's about 5:30 Phoenix time to be exact. The house is quiet, the dogs get me up, we all go out to get the paper, pee in the front yard, and come back in for our coffee. The dogs like theirs with cream and Spenda, much like me. They have no thumbs so they share from my cup. We do a quick walk and ball throw, breakfast for them, then they go back to bed.

I have work to do.

About 6, after a quick second cup, I begin the assembly of Thanksgiving. As tradition has it for the Williams men, we start our prep time with a wee dram of some fine scotch. Its not much of a tradition, actually, I kind of just modified one of my older brother's lead where he drinks some of the cooking sherry he uses when he makes the stuffing. A hit for the celery and carrots, a hit for the cook. Easy peasy. The only time he ever drinks it is Thanksgiving so the bottle is about half empty and about seven years open on the shelf. Me-well, if you're going to drink in the morning and its not under the 7th Avenue bridge with two guys named 'Moby' and "Hot Fork" sharing a bottle of Thunderbird, you should be drinking some good stuff.

Problem is with all the kids grown and the actual celebration now over at someone else's house, custom has it the home team makes the turkey. That would leave me with mashed potatoes, about twenty pounds worth. That means standing at the sink skinning and cutting them up for the big pot. Clearly that is not something you need to get up at the butt crack of dawn for. Furthermore, if I sleep in and then start the aforementioned program, that just seems wrong, like I AM either Moby or Hot Fork.

And there is a decorum to marry what you drink to what you are building. For example, turkey or ham and their preparation are always married to the whiskeys-American, Scotch, or those bastards on their own island-the Irish. You also are allowed to mix these whiskeys since they are all, well, whiskeys, especially at O-Dark-Thirty. Drinking glasses are of course optional. Vegetables and their associates, cranberries, may be prepared with either red or white wines. Dessert pies are assembled with coffee and Kahlua, pastries are created and made with anything an Italian general would drink after they surrender. The heavy carbohydrates like rolls and potatoes (yams or russet) take on Southern Comfort, bloody Mary's, and if your Russian or from anywhere in the Ukraine or the island Baltics you have your vodkas and ouzos. Beers are reserved for our friends with South American cultures and anyone in a union.

So, it could just be me, the paper, a couple of drowsy dogs, and a bottle of seventeen year old scotch I stole from a dear friends wake. Its okay, he would have been proud I did so.

I wonder how it would go in my coffee?