Keep the Coffee Comimg

The morning is windy, raw and cloudy. Sun is only a possibility. The high will be 49°. Today is an inside day. I’ll be an observer looking at the world through my den window.

When I was in the first few years of grammar school, the nuns used to pass out coloring book pages with holiday designs. We’d pull out our crayons and spend an intense afternoon coloring. I remember the turkey. The big part to color was the tail. Not ever having seen a real turkey, I multi-colored the tail feathers. I think the NBC peacock and my turkey were related. My mother always gushed at my masterpiece. She was quite believable. It was refrigerator art.

Thanksgiving is sandwiched between the two big days, Halloween and Christmas. I never counted the days until Thanksgiving. There was nothing surprising about it. My mother was always up really early, like 5 or 6 ish to stuff the turkey and get it in the oven. My sisters and I still wonder why she needed to be up that early. We watched the parade and munched on M&M’s, tangerines and mixed nuts in the shell. The bowl for the nuts was wooden and had silver picks in holes around the edge. The crackers too were silver. I actually found and bought an old bowl just like it. I fill it with mixed nuts more as a decoration and a memory.

When I think back to those Thanksgivings, images jump into my head. I can see my father carving the turkey. He always started with the legs. We had paper turkey napkins and a paper tablecloth with cornucopias. I always thought the table looked special, festive. There was a huge bowl of mashed potatoes and the gravy was in a boat. The boat name made perfect sense to me. It really did have the body of a canoe but one with a spout. Dinner was always around two.

The pies were on the kitchen table. One was always lemon meringue. That was my favorite. My father was an apple pie with cheese fan. I preferred custard pie over pumpkin.

My dance card this week is uke loaded. I have the usual Tuesday night practice and Wednesday morning lesson. There are two concerts. Wednesday is Hyannis and Thursday is Brewster. I’ll have to keep my fingers limber!

What a delightful day! It is warm and sunny. A breeze is swaying only the tallest pine tree branches. In my backyard, there are still oak leaves dangling from the ends of branches but already piles of fallen leaves cover the backyard, the front grass and the driveway. I like to kick through the piles.

When I was teen, I didn’t have a whole lot of dressy clothes. I didn’t need them. I wore a uniform to school. I had a few skirts and blouses, church clothes. I remember my stylish skirts were tight and had slits in the back. I couldn’t take big steps. I had a pair of saddle shoes and wore ankle socks with them. Even though I was older, I still called the rest of my wardrobe play clothes. One of my favorite outfits was a gift from Christmas, black ski pants with a loop at the bottom to go across and under my foot and a fuzzy pink sweater. I was stylin’.

Now, I only have a few dresses just taking up space in my closet. I bought the first one for my trip to Ghana. It is blue with flowers. The other dress is red with white flowers as the main motif. I also have a couple of dresses made for me when I was in Ghana. The cloth is beautiful. I can’t remember the last time I wore dress.

I am wearing my winter around the house ensemble, a sweatshirt, a Red Sox sweatshirt, flannel pants and slipper socks. It is a cozy outfit.

Our Sunday dinners were special, always a roast, mashed potatoes, gravy and a couple of veggies. My favorite was roast beef. It was always medium to well done so that is how we all still prefer our beef. I love mashed potatoes and adding gravy raises the potatoes to near perfection. Corn and baby peas top my list of favorite veggies. My mother never served spinach, cauliflower or broccoli so they are not on my list of acceptable vegetables.

Today is dump day. My car is just about filled with recyclables and trash bags. After the trash stop, I need a few groceries, coffee filters and bread are one and two on that list. They are life affirming.