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“Gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”

November 27, 2014

I remember my mother the most on Thanksgivings. She spent all morning in the kitchen getting ready for dinner. When I was little, I watched the parade with my sisters and brother, but when I was older, I helped my mother. I loved those times together, just the two of us peeling and cutting and cooking and chatting. I’d set the table. On holidays we always ate in the dining room. The best dishes, a tablecloth and real napkins, not paper, were on the table. The middle of the table was left empty so all the dishes of food could fit. We always called it the groaning board. My father would sit at the head of the table because he always did. He ate quickly so as to get back to football. The rest of us lingered for a bit then it was time to clear the table. We’d clean up, put the dishes in the dishwasher and wash the pans, mostly my mother and I, then we’d bring put the pies.

Thanksgiving is the least adorned holiday of them all. We don’t buy each other presents or decorate the house. There are no new outfits in spring colors. The highlight of the day is dinner and being together around the table as a family related by blood or friendship. Of all the holidays, it is the one in which we share so much in common. Traditional dishes unique to each family are served but so are turkey and mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy and all those pies. It is the time for us to remember the people we love who are no longer with us and to appreciate the ones who are. We give thanks for the good in our lives, the food on our tables and the glory of every day. We talk together and laugh together at dinner. We pass the rolls, the green bean casserole and the canned cranberry sauce with the ribbing. We eat until we can eat no more. We finish by doing some cleaning up then relaxing in the living room until we have some room for dessert.

This morning I will watch the parade, the same as I have done as long I can remember. I’ll talk to my sisters to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. I won’t dress fancy for Thanksgiving, none of us really do. I’ll sit with my friends and enjoy every part of the day. I am thankful for the life I have been lucky enough to live, for the people I love and the people who love me.

I am thankful for all of you, my Coffee family.

Categories: Musings

Comments: 26 Comments

“I’ve learned that you can tell a lot a person by the way he or she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas lights.”

November 25, 2014

I am getting use to these warm days, a mistake. Winter is the slyest of seasons. One warm day can be followed by frost and even snow. Today is dark. Rain is coming and tomorrow will be an ugly day.

For the last few days a box or two has been delivered. Inside is a Christmas present or some stocking stuffers. I have been computer shopping. It is not as much fun as wandering through stores, but it is less expensive. I find all sorts of sales and free shipping. One item was close to $30.00. With free shipping and a coupon I found on-line it was only $19.00. Next I’ll make a list of what I still need and with list in hand do some shopping on small business Saturday. I’ll wander on 6A and see what I can find. One stop will be for me. In Orleans is a henna shop, and I was thinking my hands could use some decorating for the holidays. They’ve been painted twice before with henna: once in Morocco and once at a fair. They looked exotic and I loved the patterns.

Traditions are important to my family especially at the holidays. Certain dishes have to be on the table to make the meal complete. We get to open one door a day on our Advent calendars. My sister gets a Life Safer book just as she did in her stocking every year. I give my niece and nephews small bags with a few gifts including a new ornament, toothbrushes and fun soaps. That started when each of them turned three and I sent a filled piñata for Christmas Eve fun. They are now filling piñatas for their nephews. I love that I started a tradition.

Some of my neighbors have already put up and lit their Christmas lights. I don’t think it’s too soon. Darkness comes early, and the lights makes us almost forget we have a long winter ahead of us.

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“The Wild West didn’t have much in the way of forensics; when you saw the bullet hole you’d say, ‘That’s prob’ly what kilt ‘im.”

November 24, 2014

Last night or rather early his morning, at 1:30, I sent Gracie outside and went with her. I stood on the deck a long while taking in the quiet of the night and watching Gracie wander around the yard. It was so warm I didn’t want to come inside fearful that winter would sneak back while I was sleeping. It didn’t. Today is rainy and dark, but it is still warm.

This morning I was ten again. I turned on Cozi Tv and watched The Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger and The Roy Rogers Show. The Cisco Kid was resplendent in a black shirt with gold designs on the front and back. His cowboy hat was a sombrero. Pancho, his sidekick and comic foil, was more than I remembered. He was quick to draw to save Cisco and was silly but not stupid. He too was Mexican in dress and was wearing a brown billowy shirt and a sombrero. Spanish was thrown in here and there. Adios amigos was the last line as they rode out of sight. Tonto may have mangled English as a 1950’s stereotypical Indian, but he was smart and knew what needed to be done. His stunt double and he did not at all resemble each other. I wondered if I noticed that when I was little. I got a chuckle out of the discussion between Tonto and the Lone Ranger. Tonto wanted to know why the man was wearing perfume. The Lone Ranger explained it wasn’t perfume but cologne, perfume for men. I figured Tonto was right. Anyway, that would be the clue which later solved the murder of the government man.

Dale and Roy had a hit with the song The Bible Told Me So. That should have warned me. Dale talked to one of the characters about how right it was to put your faith in God and how wonderful it was to attend Sunday school. I forgot how much they proselytized. I only remembered Roy was a natty dresser.

In all three westerns fist fights never resulted in bloody noses, split knuckles or hats falling off into the dirt. It was easy to root for the white hatted hero, never the black hatted bad guy who was doomed to lose anyway.

I enjoyed my step back in time.

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“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”

November 23, 2014

Such a lovely day it is today, a gift after the cold and before the rain. I ventured out on the deck for a bit to enjoy the warmth. A small breeze was blowing the hanging leaves together, and I imagined unseen spirits walking in the yard on the bed of crisp, brown leaves. Gracie stood beside me and surveyed her kingdom. Though she was ever alert, nothing caught her eye and we both came inside together.

I have been watching the Hallmark Christmas movies. I joke and say I’ll have to be more cautious about my sugar intake, but I am such a sucker for happy endings.

The other night my headlights shined on a small cat in the middle of the road. I stopped. She gave my car a quick look, saw she was safe and returned to the task at hand. She was chasing a mouse. I could see both of them in the light. The mouse went only so far before the cat pounced and dragged it back. They did that again and again. At one point I could see the tail of the mouse hanging from the cat’s mouth then the mouse was back on the ground running. I decided to do a u-turn so the cat warily watched the car moving losing track of the mouse but only for a bit. Once she realized I wasn’t going her way, the hunt was back on and the cat chased the mouse into the underbrush. That was the last I saw of both of them.

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“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”

November 22, 2014

It might as well be spring. Okay, a slight exaggeration here but today will be 47˚ and Monday may hit 60˚.  Right now it is sunny and a strong wind is whipping the trunks and leaves of the pine trees in the backyard. I had a really late start this morning as it was a mirror test morning. I didn’t even go upstairs to bed until three and slept fitfully. When I woke up, Fern and Gracie were deep asleep, each on one side of me. They seemed to have slept well.

My delay was further complicated when my computer went wanky, and I could only open Safari with that looping message about a security issue and could go no further. Luckily my iPad was handy, and I found the fix, a simple one.

Staying inside in the winter when I was a kid was usually make your own fun. The TV didn’t have programming until the early evening and then when I was a bit older the late afternoon so sitting and watching was not even a choice. One of our favorite ways to while away the time was playing board games. We’d set the game up on the living room rug and sit around it to play. Sorry was our favorite. Vengeance made the game more exciting, and we yapped back and forth after sending our opponent’s man back to start. That yapping would now be called trash talk. Often the game ended because one of us would get mad and start yelling then the other one would yell back so my mother would yell from the kitchen and tell us to put the game away. That was another argument. Who was going to put the game away?

Boy and girl roles were quite definite when I was a little. Coloring was for girls. I remember afternoons spent sitting at the kitchen table with all my crayons arrayed in front of me so I could choose the exact color to fill in the drawing. The crayons were all sizes, some whole, some mere stubs. The paper had been torn off each crayon as it got smaller so we never remembered the name of the color. We all wanted to color like my mother who shaded the colors like an artist might.

Spending the afternoon reading was always a joy for me. I was a library devotee. I’d take out as many books as I was allowed. I think it was three or four. Quiet spots were hard to come by in my house, but I’d manage. Getting lost in a book was about my favorite thing.

Today I am going nowhere. I think I might not even get dressed. On my table are some catalogues and a book. I’ll do Christmas shopping while watching some Christmas movie then I’ll get comfy and read. I’m thinking that sounds like the best way to spend an afternoon.

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“Don’t assume you’re always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that ‘the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.’ “

November 21, 2014

Today is downright cold. The sun is shining but the light is weak and muted. The pine tree limbs in the backyard are swaying from the wind as are the dead leaves still hanging off the ends of branches. I had an early appointment and was out of the house before nine. It was 31˚. Now it is a lovely 34˚, basking weather, almost deck weather.

Yesterday I was a whirlwind of activity. Not only did I finish my four errands, but I also swept the kitchen floor, cleaned the top of the stove, dusted and polished a couple of tables and changed my bed. I was exhausted.

When I woke up this morning, Gracie was in a ball right beside my head and between the two pillows. I figured she must have gotten cold during the night, and I was warmth.

I remember well Thanksgivings when I was a kid. For some reason my mother was always up with the birds as she used to say.  She’d get busy making the stuffing first. I can still see her using her hands to mix the bread chunks with the other ingredients including Bell’s seasoning. Even now, all these years later, one sniff of Bell’s brings back my mother and all the turkeys of her lifetime.  She’d finish the stuffing then put it in the bird. My mother used a giant roasting pan which just fit into the oven. It was oval and blue with white specks. She’d put the turkey and the turkey neck into the pan then the pan went into the oven though sometimes my dad did the oven as the pan was too heavy for my mother. At nine we’d settle in to watch the Macy’s parade. My mother put out tangerines, mixed nuts and M&M’s for our watching pleasure.

It didn’t take long for the wonderful aroma of turkey to spread about the house. My mother, still in the kitchen, would start on the vegetables. Always we had mashed potatoes. I think it is against the law not to have them on Thanksgiving. Creamed onions, canned asparagus for my dad, green bean casserole and later the squash casserole, our all time favorite, would be prepared in no particular order. Before the big day my mother had made the pies: apple, lemon meringue and one more, usually pumpkin or custard. With the left over crust she’d make the turds as my dad called them which always made us laugh. They were rolled dough with cinnamon and sugar in the middle which had been baked in the oven.

I remember the kitchen windows covered with steam from all the cooking, the aromas of the different dishes and how special the whole day seemed.

I put out mixed nuts and buy tangerines. I watch the parade. I make a pie and this year I figure I’ll make some turds. My dad would be happy.

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“It’s a bizarre but wonderful feeling, to arrive dead center of a target you didn’t even know you were aiming for.”

November 20, 2014

The sun is in and out of the clouds this morning. The day is warmer than it has been. Tonight will be cold, but I’ll be under my down comforter with the dog beside me keeping me even warmer. Today is an errand and an early dump day. Gracie gets to come.

Earlier I turned on the TV to watch the news. It was NECN, New England Cable Network News. An on-site reporter was in a small town where a town meeting had become raucous and subsequently shut down when banning cigarette sales was being discussed. “It’s not about tobacco — it’s about control” and “Smoke ’em if you got them” were some of the cries from the protesters. “This is about freedom; it’s my body and it’s my choice to smoke.” The reporter commented that all the outbursts caused the meeting to be adjourned. “They had a went to postponement.” That is not a typo. That is the reporter speaking off the cuff and outside the common rules of English grammar.

A totally new topic follows.

In Columbia I went to the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá which is inside an enormous salt mine. The mine was amazing, huge and almost eerie with blue lights shining off its walls and on the statues and altar. I noticed the salt was blackish, not at all the free-flowing white of Morton’s. I asked my guide, whom I had hired in Bogotá car and all, how the salt gets to be white. Before I knew it, I was being driven down a highway into a huge salt factory. The guide went in then came out and had me follow him. Inside the main office I got a yellow hard hat to wear and a tour of the whole factory. The man leading us spoke English and was a boss in the factory. We went all over, climbing up metal stairs and around huge machines. I learned the journey of salt from the mine to the table. The factory boss gave me a huge chunk of blackish salt as a memento. I still have it stored always in my refrigerator. I have two outstanding memories of that factory. One is walking from one side of the factory to another on a metal walkway looking down at a huge machine. The other is the taste of salt which filled my mouth during the whole tour. The air was permeated with it. I’ll never forget that taste.

In Morocco I hired a car and driver to take me into the Atlas Mountains. The driver asked if he could bring a friend. I didn’t care so the three of us left for a whole day trip. On the way back we stopped at a small factory which made olive oil as the two men wanted to buy the fresh oil. I walked around and saw the whole process of making olive oil. The men working there just nodded as I walked by them. The air was filled with the aroma of the newly pressed olives. It was not an aroma I knew but rather one redolent of many aromas.

I mention these two adventures as they were unplanned, spurn of the moment. They were serendipitous.

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“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

November 18, 2014

Last night it poured and peals of thunder and bolts of lightning added drama. The thunder rumbled at first then kept getting closer until one cracked overhead and rattled the house, but that was the final act, thunder’s last hurrah. After that, the rain fell for a bit then it too disappeared. Today is colder than yesterday and will get colder still. Tonight will be in the low 20’s. It’s time to pull out the flannels.

Gracie is nine today. She is celebrating her birthday with a nap on the couch and some loud snoring. Tonight she’ll have a hamburger, no ketchup but maybe some cheese.

It is so quiet around here. No cars pass down the street, the kids are in school and for once no dogs are barking back and forth. The wind is strong but it is a quiet wind with no whooshing, no train sounds like the heavy winds bring. The trunks of the trees are steady and only their leaves are blowing.

I loved walking home from school and watching the wind blow the leaves on the sidewalk. Sometimes the leaves blew in a small whirling pool, an eddy of yellow. I’d always stop to watch. It was a bit of magic as if a magician had pointed his wand and told the leaves to dance.

The fall is passing so very quickly. Crisp days are turning cold. Not long ago the leaves were ablaze with color. Brown is now their only color. Yesterday I was sitting on the deck on a very cold wooden chair waiting for the red spawn to return. As I sat there, I saw single brown leaves falling slowly to the ground from one tree and another then another. The leaves fluttered the way snowflakes sometimes do. I watched a while until I got too cold. The spawn didn’t return, but I didn’t care. I got to watch the leaves.

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“Well you know what they say. It’s always raining somewhere.”

November 17, 2014

The vet called me yesterday around five. She had gotten the results of Gracie’s Saturday test and wanted me to know. She said the results were wonderful: the irregular heartbeat had lessened. The pills seem to be working. I would have clicked my heels in the air, but that would have been a disaster. I’d have fallen and probably hit my head on a piece of furniture. The vet told me to keep giving Gracie the pills, and she’d see Gracie in six months for another test. That’s easy to remember as I see my cardiologist every six months. Now I can stop watching Gracie and checking her while she sleeps. She’ll stop feeling paranoid.

When I woke up, it was pouring, raining cats and dogs as my mother would say. It was late morning, ten forty-five, as I was up until close to three. Fern was coughing, and I was worried so I read and stayed awake to keep an eye on her. She fell asleep finally and so did I. Gracie, always the stalwart, was already asleep. This morning it was the usual routine: put on the coffee then let Gracie out. I opened the door for her as she never uses the dog door for her first morning outside trip. Gracie went four steps outside and turned around to look at me. Her ears were down and she was slouching. I opened the door and she ran back inside. Now this where the dog is smarter than I. Gracie and I stood at the front door watching the rain. It was still torrential. I could see my newspapers wrapped in plastic on the driveway. Did I want the papers badly enough to get soaked or could I just have my coffee and read the news on-line? I ran out and got the papers. I also got soaked.

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“Sunday, the day for the language of leisure.”

November 16, 2014

Dreary is the best description for this morning. It is a dark, cloudy, cold day. Dead leaves hang motionless from the branches of the big oak trees in the backyard. Everything is brown.

Yesterday Gracie had another test for her irregular heart beats, but I won’t know the results until Monday. While I was waiting for Gracie, a woman came in with a 10 week old brindle boxer puppy. I told the woman had there been no witnesses, I would have stolen her puppy. It was the cutest dog with soft boxer ears and a mournful look, the sort boxers sometimes get. The woman has another boxer at home, a one year old rescue. I told her about Miss Gracie also being a dark, brindle. We both said we’d never have a different breed as we are such boxer lovers. Gracie came bouncing out of the back area. I patted her and then Gracie went straight to the woman and gave her kisses as only boxers can. The woman told me Gracie was beautiful. That woman has a good eye.

Sunday has always been the quietest day of the week. When I was a kid, I’d go home after mass, change out of my Sunday clothes and mostly hang around the house. I’d read the comics and then settle in with my book. My mother would be making Sunday dinner, and my dad would be watching football. This time of year the house was always closed to keep the cold away. My dad would have climbed the ladder a few weeks back to take off the screens and replace them with the storm windows. It was always a process especially the part of getting the storm windows on the hooks. The closed house held in the best smells on Sundays, especially the aroma of whatever roast was baking in the oven. My favorite will always be roast beef. The smell of one baking still brings me home, to my childhood, to those quiet Sundays.

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