Give My Wife a Hand (Turkey)

I ate enough yesterday to feed a third world country. I didn't mean to, but my wife and mother-in-law made such a spectacular Thanksgiving Day meal, it just sort of happened. I felt like that anaconda that swallowed the alligator most of the night. Thankfully, I haven't met the same fate and burst open yet.

I do have one other worry. They say eating turkey makes you tired. If that's the case, I may end up being a real-life Rip Van Winkle. If I don't post for 20 years, you'll know why.

Besides feasting and frolicking with family, Thanksgiving brings out another tradition in me. I'm a pretty crafty fella and every time the holidays roll around, I get flashbacks of doing grade school projects. I usually perform these tasks for fun and to surprise my wife. She loves it when I make her handmade cards, and doing one would keep me out of the potential food coma for a little while longer.

I only met her when I was 28, so she never knew me as little Rocky. But I'm still a big kid at heart, so I make her warm and fuzzy handmade stuff (usually out of construction paper) on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc., so she knows what she would have gotten from me on those holidays if we had known each other in grade school. Hopefully she would have loved me back then no matter how many cooties I had.

This year, I made her a "Hand Turkey" again. If you are unfamiliar with these, it is where a first or second grade teacher would have you place your hand on a brown piece of construction paper and spread out your fingers. Then you would draw an outline of your hand before cutting it out.

The spread fingers are supposed to be the turkey's feathers. The thumb is supposed to be the head. Then you decorate your Hand Turkey according to kiddie fashion sense.

Check out my 2005 creation. And you know what they say about guys who make big-ass hand turkeys. ;-D

I gave it to my wife and excitedly told her I made it all by myself with no help from my parents. She was so proud of it; she hung it up on our refrigerator. She was also impressed that I used safety scissors, cleaned up my mess from the dining room table and hadn't eaten any paste (it would have spoiled my appetite).

I like making cards for my wife because I usually don't fare well in trips to the Hallmark store. I can't ever seem to find cards that tell her what I want to say. Then again, maybe that shouldn't be a surprise. I say some pretty goofy shit.

I've made some other construction paper masterpieces for her since we've been together. Two of her other favorites follow...

First, I present this lovely Valentine I made for her in 2003. It is a big bumblebee that features the punny phrase "Bee Mine." That one really gave her a buzz.

I'd like to go into Martha Stewart's office and throw that card on her desk and say "You don't need your Apprentice TV show to recruit talent for your company. I think my bumblebee resume speaks for itself. I wrote 'Bee Mine' with Egyptian crayons and the paper is yellow-dyed papyrus. I am one crafty fucker. Hire me."

Second, there's the Valentine I made for my wife last February. It marked our seventh year together, and I was "itching" to do nothing but make her this card to show my love. I fashioned a heart to look like a shovel with the phrase "Seven years later and I still dig ya." She dug it.

She's a great sport, and she definitely tops my "What I'm Most Thankful For" list. I'm glad she appreciates my sense of humor and style.

She also always encourages me to keep pursuing my dream to write for a living some day (I actually did this as a journalist once - now I'm hoping for more of a David Sedaris or Chuck Klosterman type career). She suggested I start a blog, which has been a tremendous creative outlet for me. I'm so lucky she supports my dream and my attempts at humor writing.

So besides love her to death, the least I can do is make her a few silly little cards.

I'm also thankful to have an audience. In all honesty, when I started writing this blog, I figured only family and friends would read it. I never would have imagined I'd "meet" so many through this blog.

I have been truly stunned by the number of people who have visited my blog, and am even more surprised by the people who come back to read more. It is such a humbling compliment and at the same time a wonderful source of motivation to get this kind of support from people I have never met in person.

It really means the world to me to make people laugh or put a smile on faces through my writing. That is such a rewarding feeling. Especially when these same people are such talented artists of the written word themselves, and hook me on a daily basis with their work. If you can't tell, I really enjoy the blogosphere.

Thank you for reading, and commenting. I'm not sure how long it will take for me to "make it" as an author and get published, but I am certainly enjoying the journey so far.

Belated disclaimer: OK, sorry, I should have warned you that sometimes I am just like a maple tree. Big and sappy.