I write to you today with a heavy heart. We are approaching my favorite holiday of the year, yet thoughts of family, friends, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie are of little comfort this season in light of my inner turmoil.

Over the years, I have enjoyed watching the annual presidential pardon of a turkey at the White House. That changed for me a few years ago, however, when I came to an unsettling realization: the turkeys pardoned at the White house every year  are all beautiful. And, well, I hesitate to mention this, Mr. President, because I don’t want to be accused of playing the race card here, but I also noticed that the U.S. government only pardons white turkeys. I am sure there is a logical explanation for that, but I am struggling to come up with one.

Now, the pardoning of beautiful, snow-white birds wouldn’t be a cause for concern were it an annual swan-pardoning ceremony, but turkeys, as a general rule, are more colorful. Not only that, but “pretty” isn’t a word that most would use to describe the average turkey. Let’s be honest; they’re some jacked-up-looking birds. The vast majority of them have been “hit with the ugly stick,” as my grandfather would say, and I imagine it takes a serious effort to locate one that looks like the ones that the White House manages to locate every November.  I am simply concerned, Mr. President, about the kind of message are we sending the young foul of America when only the turkey equivalent of a super model is ever honored in Washington.

Just imagine little Tom Turkey, excitedly watching a youtube video of you pardoning one of his kind. He dreams the dream of one day visiting the White House, being pardoned by the president, and living out the remainder of his days in the lap of luxury at Disney World. Then imagine those same dreams being hopelessly dashed as Tom glances in the mirror at his disheveled feathers and spotted complexion, and comes to the realization that his only fate is an oven. (That is, unless he can afford snood-reduction surgery, wattle implants, a personal trainer and regular feather-bleaching treatments.) Is this the ideal that we want to  Tom and other innocent gobblers like him living the remainder of their lives struggling to live up to–an unrealistic picture of perfection that only .001% of turkeys will ever attain?

I implore you, Mr. President, to take the real turkeys of the world into consideration. Ugly turkeys are worthy of a chance at happiness too! I hope you will find it in your heart to consider this matter, and this year pardon a true, homely representative of the Turkey community.

Respectfully yours,

Kelly Downing

Amy’s project and blood:water mission reminded me of how blessed I am to have access to clean, safe, delicious beverages whenever I want them, without having to walk for miles to get them. And when I found out that $1 = 1 year of clean drinking water for an African, I definitely started to think twice (or ten times) about popping in to Walgreens for a $1.49 diet root beer. Or paying $1.19 for 16 ounces of water in a plastic bottle, when it is perfectly safe for me to drink straight from the tap for free.

I wanted to do something to contribute to the cause, but since there are some minor, ahem, differences between my waist and the dainty waists of the ladies wearing the belt, I thought I’d go a different route. Instead of taking a turn with the belt, I decided to commit to one month (9/20 – 10/20) without buying a beverage, and give what I would have spent on drinks to blood:water mission instead.

So how much money do I spend on drinks, anyway? I don’t have a daily Starbucks habit. I tend to drink water most of the time when I eat out. I drink coffee every day, but I usually don’t pay for it. And yet when I combed through the last month of my online bank statement, I counted $68 that I spent on beverages alone. Now, that amount is a bit inflated thanks to a trip to Universal Studios, where drinks are sold at around a 7,000% mark-up, but still. Nearly $70 on drinks in one month?! If $1 can provide clean drinking water for one African for an entire year, then the money I spent last month on drinks could have provided clean water for someone for essentially their entire life.

Um, yikes.

It’s a little sad that I even consider this a “challenge,” but it felt like it when I started. The first day I gave up buying drinks, I had a meeting at Starbucks, of all places, where the vanilla rooibos latte sweetly called my name the whole 90 minutes I was there. I put in ear plugs. A few days after that, I was at my last Marlins game of the season, melting in the billion-degree heat, and actually stole a chug of red Gatorade from a five-year-old to keep me hydrated. (I am not proud of my actions. And I am very sorry, sweet Luke.) But while I “struggle” with the temptation to spend $4 on hot water and a tea bag, and turn up my nose at the water fountains in Sun Life Stadium, scores of people in Africa are struggling to walk for miles every day just to get access to dirty water.

That is craziness. And I want to do something, however small that something may be in the grand scheme of things.

So who wants to join me? Who wants to give up frivolous drinks for a month and support blood:water mission?

I’d heard this rooster in the neighborhood before, but only when I was outside at daybreak. I even recognized its crow, because I had made fun of it once. It sounded like he was going through puberty, or that someone was strangling him as he crowed (which, incidentally, is exactly what I wanted to be doing). Never before had I heard the rooster from my bed, though, so I figured it must have found its way into my yard somehow. And from the sound of things, it was the patch of yard directly in front of my bedroom window.

The minutes went by and the crows continued, non-stop. I tried turning up the fan for more white noise. I covered my head with my blanket. Then with my pillow. I yelled “shut up!!!” a few times (I’m not very rational when sleep-deprived). Since going back to sleep wasn’t really an option, I began timing the rooster crows like a woman in labor would time contractions, until there was a crow every 3-7 seconds. Non. Stop.

Finally, I gave up and got out of bed. As I was getting ready for work, I walked into the laundry room beside my bedroom, and I heard the crowing even louder. I’d had enough. It was time to shoo this troublemaker off of my property. The only problem was that I couldn’t find him in my yard. There was no rooster anywhere, and worse, his crows were actually quieter outside than they had been inside.

It couldn’t be.

Could it?

I went back inside to the laundry room where the crowing had been loudest, and decided to open up the door to the garage, on the off-chance it might have sneaked in somehow. I turned on the light and peeked around the garage at the boxes and tools and lawn mower, and then chuckled at my silliness in thinking that there might actually be a live a rooster in there. I live in a bustling city, after all, not a trailer park in Kentucky (not that there’s anything wrong with trailer parks in Kentucky. Just sayin’).

Just as I was about to close the garage door, I caught a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye. And there it was. On top of a shelf that stood against the wall of the garage, perched atop my George Foreman Grill, was a rooster.

I guess it got in there when the garage door was open yesterday, and got trapped inside. So, naturally, I did what any good animal rights activist would, and had a little photo shoot rather than freeing it.

Relax, PETA. I freed it five minutes later, after it began hopping around in an agitated manner, as though it was about to attack me.

Do you think the rooster realized the symbolism of his perch of choice? Does he know how many of his kindred have sizzled away beneath the shiny metal lid of that Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine? Was the 2 hour crow-fest his way of mourning their loss? Of punishing me for their slaughter? I’ll worry about that later, because I’m exhausted.

By the way, I’ve decided to eat at KFC for lunch today. But only because I’m not exactly sure how to capture and feather a live rooster.

After buying my car last year, I silently suffered through months of radio and a temperamental 6-disc CD changer before I’d finally had enough. It was time to fix the iPod issue, and bring my 80 GB world of music into my car’s stereo system. And because I have always lived by the mantra “Why pay somebody else to do what you can do yourself?” (read: since I am impatient and impulsive), I decided to try and figure out a way to install the iPod myself. I mean, how hard could it be?

(Just between us, I ask myself that question often, and the answer is almost always “very, very hard/bordering impossible.”)

I did a little online research and discovered that nobody on earth had ever successfully installed an iPod in a 2003 Accord with Navi and had lived to tell about it. Or blog about it. But several handy people had installed them in 2003 Accords without navi, so I decided to follow those instructions. Um, how different could it be? (See above answer to “how hard could it be?” Replace words “hard” and “impossible” with “different” and “the complete oppostite.”)

I decided to give it a shot. And since it was frustrating when I couldn’t find the info that I needed online, I have decided to blog about my experience so that the same thing doesn’t happen to the next person who decides to attempt it. You’re welcome.

So here are my step-by-step instructions on installing an iPod in a 2003-2006 Honda Accord with navigation… And by “instructions” I simply mean the play-by-play of how I did it myself. I am in no way encouraging you to do anything even remotely similar to this. Seriously. You shouldn’t. Instead, please contact a professional. Call the Geek Squad. Give up iPods for Lent. Professional driver, closed course. DO NOT ATTEMPT.

(Dear Lawyers of my blog readers: That is what I–and 9 out of 10 judges–refer to as a disclaimer.)

Now let’s get started.

THINGS I USED:

- Blitzsafe HON/AUX DMX V.2X (I got it here)
- RCA to 1/8″ Phono adapter cable (I got mine at Best Buy, but you can find it here)
- Flat head screwdriver
- Phillips Head screwdriver
- These Instructions

The first step is to use these instructions, complete with helpful photos, on the proper dismantling of your center console. You could print the instructions, or you could do what I did and read through them once, then go to your car and try to do everything from memory. Your call.

Proceed to dismantle the console according to the instructions. That should look a little something like this:

And this:

The passenger side floor is a fabulous place to put all the removed items. And the screws you take out can be kept safe in one of your car’s cup-holders. Responsibility is my middle name.

Note: If you have read my disclaimer and are proceeding with the iPod install anyway, please take extra care when disconnecting your seat warmer switch connections from the gearshift cover (pictured below). Your bottom will thank you in December. And please disregard the flecks of dirt and grass you see on the carpet of my car. This picture was taken mere moments before my daily obsessive vacuuming out of my vehicle. I am all about keeping my car clean and dirt-free. Ask anybody. Neat-Freak is my middle name.

Once you have successfully removed the entire center console, it will look something like this:

And here is where things will start to get dicey.

Take a deep breath. I’m here for you. We’ll get through this together.

At this point, the online instructions you’re following will tell you that the back of the factory radio is now accessible to you. Except it won’t be. Instead, you’ll look closely and realize that the back of the factory radio would only be accessible to you if you were similar in size to one of the Who’s that Horton heard.  Or one of the ants that lived in the backyard of one of the Who’s that Horton heard.

The picture in the instructions  won’t match, because the picture in the instructions is of a CD player in an Accord without Navi, and your car has a completely different CD player. In short, your car’s navigation system is in the way, and there is NO WAY you are getting to the back of the factory radio unless you can find instructions online for removing your entire dashboard. I couldn’t, so save yourself the search time. And instead…

Go ahead and cry for a while:

This isn’t exactly a 100% necessary step in the iPod installation procedure, unless (like me)  you have just managed to hold in a legion of curse words while simultaneously resisting the animal instinct to axe your car into a pile of leather and metal scraps. Such mental and emotional restraint will result in tears. There is simply no way around it. Let them flow. Then ask a neighbor whom you’ve never spoken to before to take a break from his mowing to hold you. And then go do something else. You know, walk away from the project for a while to clear your head.

It took around three weeks for my head to clear. Your head may vary.

Note: While taking your break, if for any reason you have to take your car in to the dealership for service, you may want to put the center console back together first. If you don’t, the following may occur:

a) The dealer will yell at you.
b) The dealer will ask you out on a date.
c) The shop foreman will offer you a job.
d) The mechanic will reinstall the center console incorrectly, with various edges jutting out unattractively, and you’ll have to take it apart again to put it back in the right way.
e) All of the above.

Once you’ve mentally rested for a while, and you get that fiery feeling of determination back, return to your center console. If, like mine, your console has been re-installed incorrectly by a mechanic, remove it once again. You won’t need to use the instructions this time. It’s like riding a bike.

Get back to this point:

And now, take a deep, deep breath. We’re going to get very, very technical here. If you’re not an engineer of some sort, this part may overwhelm you a bit. But I’m here for you. You can do this. I believe in you.

First of all, you will need an additional tool. It is called your hand. Firmly shove your right hand (or left, if you’re extremely flexible) into the gaping hole where your center console used to be located. Reach up into the upper left-hand side of the navigation system, on the back side of the CD player. Feel around in that space for a second or two and your hand should come across a bunch of wires and connectors that feel like they’ve been duct-taped together.

Now pull.

Yes, pull. You will have no idea what you’re pulling on, but pull anyway (after going over my disclaimer a few more times, that is). You will feel like you are irreparably damaging the inner workings of your car, and you probably are, but pull anyway.

After a few firm tugs, or twenty, you should at last see a wire harness connector that is not connected to anything. (!) At this point, the windows of heaven will open, angels will rejoice, and you will weep great tears of joy and relief.

Open up your Blitzsafe converter and plug in the RCA connectors. Then, plug in the Blitzsafe converter’s connector to the connector that you just yanked out of your center console. The converter has a “Y” wire harness, but you will only need to use one end of it, and one of the 14-pin connecters will remain empty.

Next, place the Blitzsafe converter somewhere on the floor of your center console where it will not interfere with the pieces you are about to put back in. You can use electrical tape or cable ties to make everything neat and tidy, or you can just shove it in there somewhere like I did. Before you begin to reassemble the center console, run the wire of the RCA connector from the Blitzsafe converter through the hole in your center console’s storage bin (that is where you will hold the RCA adapter to plug in your iPod).

At this point, you should plug the RCA adapter into the headphone jack on your iPod to test it. Turn on your car, turn on the iPod, and press the CD/Aux button on your car’s stereo. The radio should display “CD-C” or something like that. And when you press “play” on your iPod, you should hear beautiful music begin to play. Unless the volume on your car stereo is turned all the way down, in which case you will hear nothing, unless you turn it up.

Troubleshooting is my middle name.

Once it is established that your iPod does in fact play through your car’s stereo system, it would probably be a good idea to turn your car completely off. Alternatively, you could leave the battery running and listen to your iPod while you put your center console back together, have your battery die completely, pee your pants from the fear that you’ve just blown up your engine trying to install your own iPod converter, then force yourself to calm down and think rationally enough to call your brother to come over and give you a jumpstart. Not that I speak from personal experience or anything. I’m just giving you options here.

Once you have successfully put your center console back together, there is only one thing left to do.

It looks a little something like this: