I have been away

I went to Florida. See? This is what Florida looks like.

 Bermuda grass in my brother Mike's back yard. Salt marsh beyond.

 More of Mike's back yard, with oak trees covered in Spanish Moss. 

 The neighbor's house and more Spanish Moss, oak trees, and this time a banana tree and some Spanish Bayonet. Very Floridian.  

 Here is New Smyrna Beach on the east coast of Florida. Looks like a beach. 

 The tide was near high. Here's some sea foam. It isn't green. I didn't taste it, though it looks like merengue. 

Palm trees! This time in the Orlando area in a Publix (grocery) parking lot. 

I went to Florida by myself, the immediate family stayed home. Light came home from Pennsylvania on Wednesday, but I left for Florida the Sunday previous. Stayed at Mike's house for one night (he wasn't there. It was peaceful and I enjoyed it.) Then went to Mama's for a couple of days. Then Mama and I (in separate cars) went to Gainesville so as to spend Thanksgiving with my brother Jim and his family. Jim and his wife host Thanksgiving dinner nearly every year, with the family and various friends in attendance. Since I live so far from the rest of my extended family, I have never been to one of Jim's Thanksgiving meals. I was thrilled. See, pictures! 

 A blurry picture of my mother, not posing. In the first picture I took of her, she had her posed smile on. It isn't as nice as natural. But then she did the whole "I'm drinking a glass of wine" thing, so what's a daughter to do? 

 This is my step-mother, the recently widowed one. She's doing as well as can be expected. She lives next door to Jim. I stayed at her house. 

This is part of the thanksgiving spread, the appetizers. I was too excited about turkey and a nap to take any pictures of the actual feast table. The food was excellent. I love a well cooked turkey. And stuffing. And turkey gravy. And a nap afterward. 

The real reason I went to Florida for Thanksgiving is that we, the family, buried my dad's ashes the day after Thanksgiving. But I'll leave that for another post, because I want to, this might get too long, and Light (who is here visiting still! I get to see her!!) is waiting for me to finish this mess and go out with her to visit a friend. Light is, however, glad that I'm getting another post up, because that strange oriental gentleman with the underwear on his head from the previous post scares her.  

And here we are again

I have my computer back now. It had a nasty Trojan (is that supposed to be capitalized in this context?) that was erasing my registry or something. The nice fella at the repair shop fixed it, maybe. He said it was a particularly nasty one. The first time I started up the computer it did well, but since has been very slow to start. I may need to call the guy on Monday. Nevertheless it is good to have my own computer back.

I had the esophagogastroduodenoscopy on Wednesday. Did I tell you about that? I know I mentioned that I was scheduled for the procedure. It's an upper G.I. endoscopy. The doc snaked a tube with a camera on the end down my throat, into my stomach, and on to the first section of my intestine (the duodenum). It all looks good, he said. He took a few "clippings" from my stomach for biopsy or something because he said it was ever so slightly darker pink than perhaps it should be. I suppose I'll hear something from my family doctor once the results come back. I'm not worried.

My body heard that we are anemic. So what does the uterus do? She decides to bleed profusely for a couple of days. Not cool, uterus. It's not even time for that yet. You're supposed to wait another week or two, according to our most recent schedule.

Have been pretty depressed this week. Why? I dunno. Why does depression happen? I think that's the wrong question to ask, though I can say that hormones probably contribute to this episode. I don't want to go out anywhere or do anything. I had an appointment with my psychiatrist for this coming Monday but I called to cancel it Friday. I intend to reschedule, but the office was closed when I called so I have to call back to reschedule. There was a menu option to cancel appointments, though, on the answering program. I appreciate that.

I'm supposed to go to Florida for Thanksgiving. Have we discussed this? We're to bury my dad's ashes on the day after Thanksgiving. Light is coming home to South Carolina for this holiday, and Twitch got Tuesday through Friday off work so he'll be here from Charleston. All of this means that if I go to Florida, I'll go alone. Anyone who's read this blog for any length of time knows that I'm all about solo road trips! This time, though, I'm just not feeling it. A practical reason: my truck needs a work-over from the mechanic. That "check engine" light that started blaring on my way up through Vermont is still shining as soon as the truck warms up. We haven't had room in the budget to get it checked out. And otherwise, I kinda don't really want to see my Florida family. Especially not all together at one time. I usually do OK one on one with each of them, mostly, for brief periods. I'm supposed to spend a couple of days with my Mama in the Orlando area before T'giving, then go up to Gainesville for the holiday. Friday we'll go from Gainesville to the little town where my dad's family has cemetary plots. His parents, grandparents, and uncles are all buried there and it's where he wanted to be placed. Then either Friday or Saturday (depending on how long this thing lasts Friday) I'll drive back home. If I go.

I will get to see Light if I go to Florida because she doesn't fly back to Pennsylvania until the Monday after Thanksgiving. I'll miss Twitch, but I've seen him fairly recently anyway. He's only about four hours away, which makes for a nice drive especially if Superman and I go together without other passengers.

And now that I've discussed the Florida trip, I'm more willing to go. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not making any decisions about it now because the hormones and depression influence me too much. I'll think about it in another week or two. Of course that gets really close to travel time, but I've told the family that I'm going, and if I end up going, they'll not know I almost didn't. You know what I mean?

My last post was way too long, so before this one gets any longer I'm going to end it.

Reporting

We survived Diva's visit. The whole thing was slightly surreal.

Since she's been gone we got an Xbox. She was excited about that, and Sproing taught her how to use the controller to play a couple of his games. He was very patient with her. They got along very well, as I mentioned in my previous post.

When it was time for dinner everyone came into the kitchen to eat. We had two tables set up, one of them a door set on saw horses. That's always fun! It means Thanksgiving to me. Anyway, we all came into the kitchen, got plates and served ourselves. Except Diva. She sat in front of the TV in the living room. We had to call her again, then she came in and sat down at the last available spot at the table. She just sat in front of the empty plate with a creepy blank look on her face. I said "Honey, take your plate over and get some food." She stared at me for probably 30 seconds before getting up. She got one thing then came back to the table. I suggested she go back and get some more stuff, and Superman helped guide her through the decision making process. She ate what she got, and expressed a liking for the sweet potato casserole when Sproing put up a fight about eating the 2 tablespoons of sweet potato I gave him.

I napped for an hour after dinner, then got up to go with Superman to return Diva to her rightful place. 70 miles 4 times in one day is a pain in the ass. He and I had a very nice time together on the way home, and an even nicer time once we got home.

Diva is crazy. She often does not show emotion, or if she does it's inappropriate to the situation. She has what psychologists call flat affect (a'-fect; n). It is one symptom of schizophrenia, as is command auditory hallucinations, which she's had. That's when she hears voices telling her to do things (like kill us in our sleep). She's not been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and she may be too young (will be 13 next Saturday) to qualify for that diagnosis. I won't be at all surprised if we hear that she is schizophrenic.

It was stressful having her here, and I think we won't do that again. C and N both recommend that she not ever come back here. They went out after dinner in order to get away from her presence, as both of them were very uncomfortable with her in the house. I locked the doors to my bedroom and office while she was here, and asked the charge nurse at the facility to check her for contraband when we took her back. After we left her, Superman visibly relaxed. He didn't realize how guarded he was until he no longer had to be.

In other news, N wanted to hit the Black Friday sales today. C, who isn't a big fan of that sort of thing anyway, had to go into work and make donuts to keep the citizens of Greenwood fueled up for their power shopping. Since N doesn't have his drivers' license yet, I got up early and took him shopping. We left the house shortly after 6:00 and were gone for 2.5 hours. We hit Wal-Mart first, then went to what passes for our mall. I got a couple of Christmas gifts for Sproing and N bought himself a few garments. I got up really early. I can feel a nap approaching rapidly.

Mid Thanksgiving report

So far so good.

C's boyfriend N accompanied me to pick up Diva. He and I have never had a lot of time alone to just talk. The trip to the loony bin is 1.5 hours, which we spent in enjoyable conversation. I find that conversations in the car seem to be most productive.

We retrieved the girl child and came home. She's grown recently. I nearly didn't recognize her when she came out of her dorm, a new hair-do being part of the camouflage. She looks pretty good, though the poor thing has a terrible acne outbreak. Her 13th birthday is in 9 days. Welcome to teenage-hood.

As soon as we got home I locked the doors to my bedroom and my office. Light locked the door to her room. And yes, we're keeping a close eye on her. She and Sproing are getting along famously! This makes my life easier.

Light is doing most of the cooking. Superman managed the pork loin. I helped cut up the bread for the stuffing. I wrote out the recipe for the stuffing for Light. It's a good thing she and I think so much alike, else she might not be able to use it at all. The recipe I wrote is more of a guideline, really. There are practically no measurements, and the spice list is open source, so to speak.

I am very tired. And hungry. It's 3:15 and I had no lunch. Neither did anyone else, of course. Dinner should be ready soon. That's been the response for the past hour, but from the sounds of things I think it really will be soon. After we eat and I make a half-hearted attempt to help clean up, my plan is to take a nap. Superman and someone will take Diva back to the loony bin.

That's about all I have for now, and Superman just came in to tell me that dinner is almost served.

Merry Thanksgiving to one and all, even the beloved Canadians who had their Thanksgiving weeks ago.

I had a good day... and drunk blogging

I've had a spate of bad days over the past couple of weeks, but have felt pretty good most of this week. I had 2.5 glasses of wine and some spiked coffee this evening, and my head is floating about half a head above my head now. Feelin' groovy.

Superman left here Sunday to visit his parents. I may have mentioned before that his father is in poor health. Today (24 Nov) is his 79th birthday, and Superman wanted to visit and be there on his dad's birthday. He had a good visit with the folks. He left their place around noon and drove to the city where Twitch attends school to retrieve the boy. They got here at 9:17 this evening (he notices stuff like that). Superman is compressed, and has been attempting to decompress since he got home, having spotty success. I'm glad he's back home. Things went pretty well while he was gone, but it is very good to have him back where he belongs.

So Twitch is home now, and Light got home yesterday (Tues.). Tomorrow morning I will drive to Columbia to retrieve the Diva. She'll come home for Thanksgiving dinner, then go right back to the loony bin. I'm a bit uncomfortable about her being here, but I feel obligated to include her in the holiday observance. I think I'd feel more uncomfortable (read: guilty) if we excluded her. The plan is to keep a wary eye on her at all times, and no one will be alone with her. It's a tricky thing. Yes, there's some resentment being served with our holiday meal.

Speaking of the meal, Superman and Light will be doing the majority of the cooking. I'll go get Diva, and hopefully he will drive her back in the afternoon. After being on the road for 9 hours today he might not be thrilled about another 3 or so. Eh. It's what we do.

Twitch is home. He can be an annoying pain in the arse. Sproing is having some trouble settling down tonight, and Light is in the room that Twitch and Sproing share, singing to her little brother. Sproing loves that. They developed that habit last summer and it was a good way for them to build on their relationship. Twitch was at school through the summer and missed that fun. Well, he's trying to go to sleep now and is entirely put out about all this melodic sweetness. Oh, get over yourself, young'un!

I mixed up a batch of ginger snap cookies this evening, and the batter is currently in the refrigerator acquiring the necessary firmness for shaping and baking. Shape and Bake, not the same as Shake and Bake. I also baked two pumpkin and one pecan pie. That's about the extent of my contribution to dinner. When I get back with Diva tomorrow (probably close to noon) I'll do some further consultation and perhaps pitch in with some real work. We'll see what needs to be done.

This post is boring me. There is some other stuff I want to talk about but tonight is not the time to do so. I need to discuss art and psychology and uncertainty and internal conflict and that sort of thing. Hopefully I'll get back here to do that before next week. I have a bunch of homework to do this weekend, too. Right now, though, it's time to go to bed.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, a happy Thanksgiving if you live in a place where that applies, and peace and security within your life.

(From my perspective this post seems fairly coherent, as if I weren't under the alcofluence of incohol at all. I'll have to check back tomorrow for a different perspective.)

It was a good day

I wasn't looking forward to Thanksgiving. It's another big obligation, and I don't feel festive. But it played out unexpectedly well.

I got up early but not too early (7:00) and made pie crust. It's not a daily routine, and the newness of it set the pace for the day. I showered and put on my posh frock, then Superman and I drove up to see Sproing at the laughing academy. We joined him for a holiday lunch. He said it tasted better than the stuff they usually eat. There was turkey, green bean casserole, cornbread, cranberry sauce, etc. I ate a small helping of some of it. I didn't overdo! I was pleased.

The visit with Sproing was really good. We enjoyed each other's company. He was more like my boy than he's been in a few months. I miss that boy. The little snit who has been in his place is NOT my boy! But I saw a lot more of my boy today. I had a chance to explain to him why he is there, and what it takes to get out. He's been of the opinion that if he just does his time, eventually he'll get out. I was able to demonstrate, I think successfully, that the determining factor is his behavior, his willingness to meet the goals that determines when he comes home. I've been trying to get that message across to him since he first was incarcerated, but today was the first time he'd listen to me. I don't know what the next visit will be like. He might be the monster again. But I'm more hopeful than I've been in a while.

Superman and I had a wonderful time being together for the 3 hours we were traveling to and from Sproing's current residence. We talked a lot about a lot of things without being interrupted by children. It was great!

Once home, I prepared the turkey and put it in the oven to roast. While it cooked, I took a nap. Isn't that lovely? I recommend that as a method for roasting meat. Superman woke me when the turkey was done. I then made the guts of a lemon meringue pie, having baked the crust earlier this morning. Light and Superman, with some help from Twitch, cooked everything else. It's a good thing, this sharing of the kitchen. We were all conscientious about keeping the dishes washed up, so that after dinner there was very little clean-up to do. From that perspective, it's the best holiday dinner we've had in forever.

After pie (pumpkin, lemon meringue, and pecan) and coffee and the rest of the clean-up, all of us except Twitch played a game of Apples to Apples. It was fun. Superman won. I lost pathetically. Since then I've been cruising the blogs, watching silly YouTube videos, and having a generally lovely evening.

I hope your holiday has been pleasant, and the weekend ahead is just as great, if not more so.

Thanksgiving at the House of Java

My kids are home for Thanksgiving. I drove for 6+ hours yesterday evening to gather them. It's a good thing I like to drive, eh?

Here's Light. This is what she was doing when I got up this morning.

Here's Twitch. This is what he was doing when I got up this morning.

The best part is the sound effects, which you can't hear by looking at this picture. He snores. It's cute, as long as it doesn't disturb my sleep.

Diva is, of course, at home. She and Twitch have been griping at each other since they woke up. The only one missing is Sproing. I'm sad that he isn't able to be here, and by that I mean that he's not well enough to be home. I'm glad, since he is as messed up as he is, that he's not here to wreck havoc with this delicate balance of the family dynamic.

I'm glad to have them here, with a caveat. I like the still-picture of everyone together. As the day gets moving and we are interacting, I'm having trouble with my emotions. I'm tense, anxious, hypersensitive, impatient. I thought I was getting better, but evidently I can't handle the stress. I've been "better" because the stress is lessened. Or maybe I'm having a bad day and need to eat a healthy lunch to get my humours in balance. Perhaps a nap will help.

Ah, Superman is home for lunch now. He's going to fix a good-for-me sandwich, and after lunch I'll take a nap with my special nocturnal afternoon-nap kitty. (Samhain)

The Boy, a brief update:

Superman, Diva, and I went to visit Sproing Wednesday evening. We had a family therapy session from 6:00 to 7:00, then the semi-weekly visiting hour. Therapy went well, I think. Sproing didn't join us until the last 10 minutes or so.

Then we all went into the dining hall for the visit. It lasted maybe five minutes. During therapy we discussed Thanksgiving plans. Ideally he would come home for the day, maybe a couple of days, at Thanksgiving. But he's got to prove he's ready for that responsibility, and his therapist has set the qualifications for meeting that goal. He blew his opportunity the first day, so he isn't coming home for Thanksgiving. That was confirmed for him in therapy, so he went into the visit with a sour attitude. He started complaining about being there, he wants to come home, everyone there picks on him, etc. He was headed into the "you hate me" lane when I said "It's time for us to leave now. You need to go back to your room." Like I said, maybe five minutes.

If you recall, last Wednesday's visit was a disaster. When I talked to his therapist on Thursday she recommended that if he starts with the disrespectful attitude, we should kindly but firmly end the session. And that's what we did. I'm ok with it this time, especially since I was able to see him while in the therapy session. He looks pretty good. I can tell that he is growing. His face is getting a bit longer and thinner, though I wasn't able to assess whether he's gotten any taller. He'll be 12 years old in a couple of months, so this growth is to be expected. His emotional development, as we see, is stuck in idle. It's a process, and he has to get to the point where he's ready to do what needs to be done. Right now I'm just glad he's in a high maintenance facility with professionals to care for him, and NOT here at home for me to deal with. His mental condition is out of my league. Has been for years, frankly.

Thanksgiving, the short version

We had a good Thanksgiving. It was just the immediate family: Superman and me, Light, Twitch, Sproing and Diva. C and S spent the day with friends. 

Light did most of the cooking. Superman and I did a good bit, too. It was crowded but friendly in the kitchen today. Too hot at times, but everyone had a generally pleasant attitude. 

We didn't dine until after 7:00. Light had us scheduled to eat earlier than that, but things took longer than expected, as they always do (in my experience, anyway).

Dinner itself was 5/6ths pleasant. The other 6th was Sproing, who was sporting his ODD 'tude. It was trying, but we somehow survived. 

This is the abstract, the severly abreviated version for those of you with more interesting things to do with your time than read the ramblings of a tired old mother. To get more of the flavor of our family Thanksgiving, continue reading about it in the following post.

It was a good day

Things like this can go either way, you know? So much depends on one's attitude. It was a good Thanksgiving. 

Light did most of the cooking. She loves to cook, and doesn't have any way to cook at school. That works out really well for me, because she's eager to cook when she comes home. Today she made pies (pumpkin and pecan), rolls, green bean cassserole, and some other stuff, too, I think. I did the turkey, and showed Light how to make my stuffing. It turned out really well. I like my stuffing. Superman made cornbread to go in the stuffing. He is the best cornbread cook in the house. I made the sweet potato casserole with the sweet potatoes Superman cooked. Oh, and he fixed Brussel Sprouts using a nifty recipe he found earlier this week. The Brussel Sprouts were GOOD!! I mean, like really good, not like Brussel Sprouts which taste nasty. Maybe I'll have him post the recipe as a guest blogger here. What fun. 

Anyway, there was lots of food and it was all good. Mostly, anyway. There were just the six of us for dinner. I haven't seen C and S since mid-morning. I'm not sure who they were with today, but they've got many friends and an extended family-of-choice around here. S has local family of origin, too, but he doesn't usually spend much time with them. C's family of origin no longer lives here. He stayed, they moved. Eh. But I digress. (as usual)

We didn't have dinner until after 7:00. Light set the menu and the dinner time. She had us scheduled to eat at 6:00, but as these things do, the cooking lasted longer than expected. She's a good cook, but not too experienced. She moves much slower than I do in the kitchen. I didn't realize that until we tried to work together today. She takes her time with all the chopping and mixing, etc. I move like a whirlwind with my chopping and stirring and stuff. I'm dumping things into pots and bowls in a blur of activity. She carefully measures each ingredient and meticulously stirs the mix. It drives me crazy to watch, so I mostly stayed out of the way.

It was warm today. We almost got up to 70 degrees! With the oven blasting it got really hot in the kitchen! Way hotter than it should be this time of year, by golly. Superman and I had the window open in our bedroom most of the afternoon. 

I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning. I'm not overly fond of parades, generally, but I love to watch this one every year. It's tradition. We don't watch football around here, but we do watch the parade. Well, I watch the parade. I turned it on in the living room so the kids could see it, but I'm not sure they really watched. 

Diva was really tired today. I think she was up a lot the night before. I know she got up at 3:00 a.m. and I gave her some pain medicine then. I don't think she went back to sleep after that. By mid afternoon she could barely keep her eyes open. She almost fell asleep at the dinner table. Poor kidlet. She's doing much better. She still can't talk well and is a bit sore, but not bad at all. Night time is the worst. She drinks enough during the day to keep her throat well hydrated. It gets dry and very sore when she sleeps. 

But she's so quiet! This is a new state for her. She and Sproing are exceptionally loud. Children are loud. My children are very loud children. Except now Diva just shuffles around the house barely making any noise. Well, except when she wimpers and whines. That's annoying!!! I told her even if her throat hurts she is not allowed to whine! Sometimes that works. 

Sproing wandered off this afternoon to see one of his friends. He didn't return home until amost 5:00! Lordy, child, where have you been? What if we'd planned supper for earlier in the evening? Oh, well, as it was we didn't eat until 2.5 hours after he got home. And while he was gone the house was fairly quiet. It was lovely. As soon as he got home, though, things got really loud again. He was hungry, and he doesn't do well when he's hungry. Superman and I tried to get him to have a snack, but not eat too much. That was tricky. And it didn't work. He griped, yelled, argued, and screamed from the time he got home until he stomped off to bed. He was contentious at the dinner table. He argued with anything else anyone said. He refused to eat the stuff he'd asked for. This is typical Sproing behavior. It's tiring. He jumped up and stormed out of the room at least twice in the course of our dinner. Matching him scream for scream makes things worse. Mostly we were quiet but firm with him. Then he screamed at us. 

But it was a good day. He was screaming and acting out, but I was calm. I didn't get overly upset. Superman was really good, too. He didn't rise to Sproing's bait, either. We were both calm but firm with him. He didn't follow the plan quite so well, but we did our part. The boy is kinda funny sometimes. Between 5:00 and 8:00 this evening he was "going to bed! I don't want supper!" at least 5 times. The second time he left the dinner table we were all about finished anyway. I made him wash one of the serving bowls then he went to bed seething with anger. About 5 minutes after he got into bed I went in and sat on the bed beside him. I asked if he'd like me to scratch his back. He didn't answer, but I did anyway. I know he likes it. Then he started talking to me. He told me why he was frustrated, what it was he really wanted when he was screaming earlier. He actually listened to me! It was a good conversation! Both of us really like it when we can talk reasonably like that. He just hasn't figured out how to talk that way in every situation. It's almost as if he can't just talk until after he's screamed and pitched a fit. I don't know why. But the less upset I get about the drama, the less drama there is. As I said, today was a good day. I stayed cool!

But damn, that boy wears me out!

Blogging in the dark

A Thanksgiving Message

It may take a while for me to post this message. It is 1:45 on Thanksgiving afternoon and the power is out. My laptop has battery backup so I can at least write this.

I am thankful I didn't have anything in the oven when the power went out.

We have so far had a very productive day. Most of the kitchen is clean. The older kids started on that before I even got out of bed. Light led the charge, bless her.

I am thankful that Light is doing so well the day after her wisdom tooth extraction.

I have prepared pies. I am waiting for power to heat my oven to bake the pies. There are other things on the menu besides pies, but that's what I did first.

I am thankful the power just came back on! I will wait a few minutes to see if it stays on before I go back to the kitchen. That is the excuse I'm using to stay here and write instead of going back into the hot, stuffy kitchen. J

I'll have to give some background info on the kitchen in order for you to appreciate how wonderful it is to get the kitchen clean. I'll do that in another post. Briefly, though, lots of junk from some of the cabinets has been on and under and around the kitchen table, some in boxes, some stacked on the floor, for a while now. Today it is ALL gone! Well, gone from the floor and table. Much of it has been put away, a significant bit was thrown away (yippee!), and some of it is just stored elsewhere (not where it should go) for the time being.

I am thankful my kitchen is as clean as it is.

I finally remembered to get the turkey out of the deep freeze yesterday morning. It is, of course, still frozen. I went out last night and got a nice big beef roast. That is our Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey will be our Saturday-after-Thanksgiving dinner.

S and C have gone to visit S's mother. She is staying in a little wide-spot-in-the-road town with her most recent ex-husband and their young son for the holiday. The boys are planning to be here for our dinner, but when the power went out they decided to go on out there (about 45 minutes away) to see the mom, since dinner here may be a bit later than originally planned. I hope they have a safe trip and an enjoyable visit with S's family. (A pleasant visit is not a particularly likely outcome, though it is possible.)

I am thankful that the boys can go visit S's family.

C is grumpy and out-of-sorts today. It is grating on S's nerves. I asked C about it, and the basic problem is that he misses his mom. She now lives in Virginia, I think- anyway, very far away from here. This Thanksgiving is not going the way he really wants it to. All the cleaning and arranging and busyness here today is accompanied by some fussing and arguing, particularly between the younger two and everyone else. Typical. He's really irritated by all that. I'm glad they've left for now, and I hope C is in a better frame of mind when he gets back. I hope S is still in a good frame of mind when he gets back. When visiting his family, anything can happen.

OK, enough procrastinating. Time to get cooking.

P.S. Vuboq: In the holiday tradition as you posted yesterday, I am drinking towards a Traditional Thanksgiving Stupor™.

Happy November

We made it through October, which is one of my favorite months, but I think I like November better. But I couldn't tell you why. Maybe it is because of fond memories of going to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving. Although Christmas, for me as a child, was extremely exciting, I ultimately liked Thanksgiving better. I wouldn't have been able to admit that when I was young, but I understand now that our family Thanksgiving- the predictability, the smells, my grandmother all in a huff trying to get dinner on the table- all these things were of great comfort to me. Yes Christmas is exciting, but there is the stress and drama of wondering if I would get the gifts I wanted, waiting for a hundred forevers until I could open the presents under the tree. Looking back, I only remember stress, not any innocent childish joy. That probably says a lot about why I'm as fucked up as I am now!