It is cold but today is a wonderful day to take a ride. The sun is framed in a deep blue sky. The air is still. I do have a couple of errands to finish if I am so inclined. I do need bread.

The Ryan household is in the middle of a computer crisis. A while back my MacBook Pro stopped charging so I started using my iPad; however it has developed the same issue. I will try to get my PC fixed and hope the iPad keeps on chugging. If I am unlucky, Coffee will be on a forced hiatus.

I think I may be maligning Nala. I know she is guilty of theft but maybe not as much as I suspected. Yesterday I was doing a bit of cleaning. My stuffed toy sloth fell out of a basket to the floor. When I went to pick it up, it had disappeared. Henry had stolen it and carried it into the hall.

I think I am in danger of being drummed out of the sloth family. Yesterday I vacuumed a couple of rooms and watered the plants. Today I needed to find a folder so I attacked the three baskets under the table in the den. I filled two bags with recyclables and another bag with trash. I neatened every basket. I then vacuumed the den and hall. I am exhausted.

My father picked the turkey carcass clean. He was a master at it. He left little on the bone, only a few bits for the broth when the carcass boiled. I think turkey soup was my favorite left over. Warm bread for dunking made the meal almost heavenly.

I don’t remember when we started decorating for Christmas, but it was never early enough for me. We had ceramic Santas, Noel cups and cardboard decorations which were the first to come out of the boxes. The nativity went up without baby Jesus. He didn’t appear until Christmas. The tree was last. My father always picked out our tree even though he wasn’t the best tree picking expert. Cost was part of his decision. The tree always had bare spots. He unraveled the lights, clumped together in a box. He was never patient. I remember the bulbs were big and got hot. Once the lights were on the tree, he was done. That was his contribution. The rest of us carried on. My mother was always the last to finish decorating. She was the icicle lady, one strand at a time.

The morning is a delight, sunny and still. It is in the mid-40’s. The air smells sweet. I had a surprise at the bird feeders. A goldfinch has found the thistle. He joins the chickadees, the nuthatches and the titmice dining off my deck. I have to fill those feeders today. The birds are always hungry.

Yesterday was a great Thanksgiving. I accepted an invitation for a late dinner at my friends’, my former neighbors, house. It was a wonderful evening. We sat around the kitchen table chatting, drinking mimosas and eating all the traditional and a few not so traditional foods as my friends are Brazilian. We bemoaned the election as both friends had voted for Kamala. I saved my own dinner for today. I also cooked the turkey, the big one which could feed a small army. I’ll be eating turkey for days. The dogs got the innards. They were thankful.

When I was a kid, my favorite after Thanksgiving lunch was a toasted sandwich filled with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. Sometimes it was slathered with butter and other times mayonnaise. My favorite supper was turkey covered with gravy on a piece of bread with stuffing on the side. Finally, the remnants of the turkey became turkey salad and turkey soup. I never got bored with turkey.

We were a game family. We played cards and board games usually at the kitchen table. I remember starting with Chutes and Ladders and Candyland. They were easy so we could move our own pieces, As we got older, though, the games got a bit more complicated. I loved Go to the Head of the Class. The pieces were small cardboard heads on stands, and the board looked like a classroom. You moved on desks from the bottom to the top. A question book was divided into difficult categories so my parents got hard questions. I still have our original game and all the pieces. The question book has yellowed.

The all time best game was and is Sorry. We still play it but with more vindictiveness than we ever conjured as kids. Our language tends to be salty. We keep track of wins and losses. We make fun of the loser. The adult game of Sorry is not for the thin skinned or for the tender hearted.

My dance card is empty until next week. I could make a to-do list, but I’m feeling like a sloth and to-do nothing seems the better choice. I have scheduled a nap.