Thanksgiving

We once had a priest at St. Paul's who did a sermon on giving thanks and remembering those for whom we were thankful. I always think about that sermon when we set the table for Thanksgiving, using the best our china cabinet has to offer. He said that it isn't about the beautiful china or the silver but it's about thanking as well as missing those who used to be at the table with us. Looking at the faces around our table this Thanksgiving, I couldn't help but get that awful catch in my throat and the knot in my gut when I remembered those we now miss. Our parents are gone as well as most of our aunts and uncles. We are now on the front line. We are the ones who will be missed one day.

In my parents' home, there was always a revolving door of relatives on Thanksgiving Day. My Uncle Robert, my grandfather's bachelor brother, showed up from time to time for a holiday meal with us. Where he lived from holiday to holiday, I never knew, although once when I was very little, I went with my grandparents to get him out of a "flop house" right before Thanksgiving. That year he stayed with us, sleeping on the back porch, until he sobered up and moved on. It's too late now to ask where he went because the people who could have filled in those blanks are long gone. I wish I'd asked at the time instead of just wondering. Adults back then didn't talk of those matters to children.

We never spent a Thanksgiving with my father's mother at her house. Sometimes Daddy would would make the long drive to her house in the country and bring her back to have dinner with us and my mother's parents. She was not a happy nor loving grandmother at all. I remember her finding fault and sniffing (yes, sniffing) at everything as if she were displeased by the vast amount of food and goodies we had. Her existence was fairly austere and her own hard scrapple life had made her an unhappy old woman by the time my sister and I were born. Daddy was the youngest of her surviving children. The baby of the family had been killed and my dad almost killed in a horrible school bus wreck when they were youngsters. That and a raging alcoholic for a husband had done her in, I guess. At any rate, she was no fun what so ever and we didn't look forward to her presence at the holiday table. I do wish now that I hadn't been so scared of her and had known her better. My daughter now lives in Arkansas, where my dad's mother was born. Each time I've crossed the Mississippi river going from Memphis into Arkansas, I've wondered about her life in the backwoods on a farm. As the story goes, my grandfather, who was on the run (rumor was that he'd killed a black man in a logging camp)saw her "hanging up wash" . She was thirteen and he fell in love with her and soon they married and moved to rural Tennessee. The rest of that story was, according to my father, a sad and humble existence as the wife of an artistic, but alcoholic man.

My other grandparents were the good guys! Mom was an only child, so we had no cousins to steel our thunder. We were the alpha and omega in their eyes. Thanksgiving and all other holidays were spent being loved and adored. My grandmother really didn't cook much, but she could make great gravy, so Mom let her do just that. Mom cooked all the rest of the meals, holidays included.

Now, I am the "mom' who cooks. My happiest days were/are cooking for my family. Being a true southern woman, you can't be in my house for more than a minute before I offer a drink or food or both. Making no apologies, it's just the way I am.

Last weekend our oldest grand-daughter came over for a sugar cookie baking session. Her hands worked the dough, rolled and cut it and then, after baking the cookies, she carefully decorated each one. Never mind that they are not "Martha Stewart' beautiful; to me they are just the prettiest goodies ever. Each sprinkle, each dribble of icing, represents a frozen minute of time when the rest of the hurry-up mode of the holidays stopped for us! Like the cookie-baking with my mom, she will, hopefully, remember the sweet smells and the shared time with me.

In a couple of days, our God-daughter will come over for an afternoon of baking and decorating cookies too. She is all grown-up, well almost if you count being a senior in college. We have repeated our Christmas tradition each year since she was two years old. How the time has flown! She tells me that after graduation in May she will go to grad school next year. Huh? Do grad students bake cookies with their Godmothers? I pray that they do and that she will carve out a tiny bit of time to do just that with me. Getting out the cookie cutters this year, I found a paper cutout that years ago was a pattern of her hand. the year we made those cookies she painted rings on the tiny fingers and we laughed about them. Will a real ring be on her finger soon? I don't know why I saved that pattern, but I' m glad that I did. One day I hope to show it to her daughter while we bake.

Time is the best gift anyone can give as well as receive.

There is nothing like a good hamburger! You know the kind, big juicy and loaded with tomatoes, lettuce, onions, pickles and mustard. A body just plain needs one every now and again. My friends think that I have the most pedestrian palate, but what they don't know is that I've been there and done that with the gourmet stuff.

Don't get me wrong, now; good high brow food is a pleasure on many levels. A beautiful, well prepared plate is a work of art, but for the sake of argument, good plain food done well is extremely satisfying. What chaps my fanny is the whole group of people who wax on and on about a bowl or a plate that looks only slightly better than some of the contents of diapers that I've changed. Where does that crap come from?

The kicker for me is the people who ooh and ahh over the stuff! I have visions of the chef, in appropriate cheffy duds appearing in the middle of a swell dinning room, to announce that the night's special offering is ...drumroll, please...Squirrel's testicles braised in chicken urine with a duck feces reduction. I imagine the cheers and clapping! It's an "Emperor's New Clothes" part 2.

While I am ranting about this topic, I'd like to say that I feel the same way about the salads that consist of a bowl of weeds with dressing that smacks of toilet bowl cleaner. What's that about? Since when was a bowl of crispy green lettuce and crunchy regular veggies a thing of the past? I welcome variety, I really do, but not in my salad bowl! Those curly leaves look just like hairballs and those bitter, dark ones taste like weeds smell. Yuck!

I am aware that anyone reading this is probably chortling over my disgust and thinking that I truly am a rube. So, I should be offended? Not! Our forefathers and their significant others survived on good solid food. Today the buzz words are , "local", "fresh", "organic" and "natural". In our household these are not just words, with the possible exception of organic; they are our mantra. My mother was a scratch cook and for the most part, so am I. Highly processed foods or those packaged in cellophane were not in my mother's pantry. My sister and I watched my mother and grandmother "put-up" vegetables for the winter. Mom slaved over a hot stove in a kitchen that was not air-conditioned until 1956. She and my grandmother would get up at the crack of dawn, leaving me in the care of my grandfather, to go to the Scott Street market, where the farmers would come to sell their produce. Dragging in great baskets of corn, peas and tomatoes, they would announce that before playtime, I had to help with the shelling and shucking. Afterwards, they would blanch and freeze all the goodies and put them in our "deep freeze" (freezer). Mother's insisted that fresh equaled quality. We were the envy of our friends whose moms never saw the Scott St. market, nor the inside of the freezer.

Today in my own kitchen, the smell of tomatoes fresh off the vine (mine or anybody else's) brings back sweet memories of those long ago afternoons. Peas simmering in a both laced with ham can make me swoon! Fresh corn on the cob dripping with sweet cream butter can cause a near orgasmic reaction.

I, like my mother, enjoy feeding people. Whether it's a meal or just a simple dessert, I love to see people eating something I've prepared. Organic? Sometimes. Fresh, mostly. Good? You be the judge! Bless the cook!

Saving the Earth?

Recycling, although a good thing in general, makes me sick! Once a week my husband sifts through the cans, bottles, glass and paper then sorts it all and hauls it to the curb. A big ole truck then comes by and takes it away to God -knows where to be processed and made into something useful. For this service we pay a fee to the city. Shouldn't the city be paying us? After all, we are saving the earth and the garbage load is lighter these days. Right? Supposedly the landfill (aka 'the dump") won't fill as fast as in the past. Whatever.

We diligently rinse all the cans and bottles. Isn't that wasting water? What about razors? I recently went to my local Walgreens to purchase razor blades for my favorite razor. The blades are no longer available, but the razor lives on in a disposable model. HUH? I now have a useless handle (razor stick?) which I suppose I should throw away. The disposable model comes three to a pack. Great, now I can litter -up the dump with dull razors with plastic sticks times three! What about those nasty little CD cases? We now download our CDS to an IPOD. So what is to be done with the CD and the case it came in? Prescription drugs are another sticky issue. Why do we not return the bottles to be re-filled? Some drug stores will do that. Cold water washing to save energy? Dog vomit and urine be damned; I am saving the earth by using cold water. Not.

Enough is enough. I have for years reused and recycled because doing so saved money. Recycling a pot roast into vegetable soup, using a towel more than once, washing margarine tubs, cutting open tooth paste tubes to get the last bit, scraping jars until they squeaked and driving cars until they begged for mercy was a way of life around our house. Recycling was the way I was raised. My parents lived through the Great Depression and WWII, so reusing and recycling were second nature to them. The do-gooders, organic hippie -types who push the save the earth button have nothing on our parents' generation.

Please don't ask me to drive an electric car to save the air and then demand I un-plug my pc to save electricity. It does seem counter-productive to me, or maybe I am the crazy one. Wash in cold water but remember to use hand sanitizing gel to kill germs. Even my new "Energy-Star" washing machine has a sanitize cycle! What's that about?

By the way, the earth saving, savvy husband of mine discovered that the local Humane Society uses newspapers to line the kennels, so he now loads them up and drives the newspapers to them. To me, that is recycling in the best way.

National Nanny

Another election day is approaching. This I know. How could anyone not know this? The television is ripe with ads for candidates. So ripe that the whole thing smells like rotten fruit! The way I see it, politicians like being the ones in charge for the same reason we all like being in charge. That is; We make the rules. There's the rub.

When elected officials make the rules, they do so based on what they promised in those ads, right? Oh ye of little faith, this is not the way it works.

Instead leaders make the rules based on what they think is best for their constituents. I call this "The National Nanny Syndrome". Take tobacco for instance. No one will ever tell you that tobacco product are healthy, but did anyone ever get the chance to vote on where, when and by whom tobacco products will be consumed? NOOOOO. Just like that, poof! No smoking in rental cars, some hotels, some restaurants and some buildings. Outlaw cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products? No way that will happen! Why? Taxes, that is why. Enter "sin taxes', or the National Nanny's idea to profit from what is bad, but profitable.

Trans fat is another example. New York will eliminate trans fat from restaurants' menu items. Now, I don't know about you, but when I dine out, I expect to eat something that I probably wouldn't cook at home. Usually, that is a treat. Most times it is a fat laden goodie, dripping with butter or otherwise enhanced with trans fat or whatever makes it so yummy. I can eat fat-free cardboard at home. I suppose a restaurant owner could choose to pay a sin tax on trans fat enhanced food. Bingo! More $$$ for the Nannies!

What happened to, "by the people for the people". Do representatives look around the chambers and say, "What people?" We the people, that's who! What's next? I have no idea, but this I do know; Nothing should be taken for granted. Hide the children, small animals and butter!

Thankful

Today on Oprah a family shared their grief at loosing their three children in a car wreck. It made me pause to reflect on our many blessings.

I want to live in the moment. I want to hug and kiss the ones I love and tell them how much they mean to me. I want to clip Sharon Randall's columns out of the newspaper, copy and send them to my kids when my own words fail me. Sharon can always be counted on to fill in the blanks.

I want to see thing more clearly. I want to understand and listen more closely. I wan to be still and silent every now and then. I want to not carry anger around with me. I want to release the fear of the unknown from my heart. I want to be more daring.

Just writing this blog makes me feel free. I want to remember to be thankful for the freedom to do so.

I want to pray more. I will do these things.

The Episcopal Church Welcomes You!

I have the attention span of a gnat. Our priest gave a beautiful as well as relevant sermon today, or so they say. My mind, left to its own devices, wandered all by itself to some other place. Where? I really can't say. I only know that I felt the calm and the peacefulness from just being in church. The comfort I receive from that place is amazing! Following the sermon is not what I do well. I love the choir! I can't sing a lick, but they can and do lifting the service to heavenly levels. Bless all who make our service special as well as beautiful.

I know that I should listen and take away a lesson from the sermon, but I can't seem to focus! It is a shame that those guys spend all week working and re-working the sermon only to have someone (me) fail to pay attention. Does God care? Probably. Does God listen? Yes. How do I know this? I just do.

Sitting in the pew, knowing that all over the world others are saying the same prayers, kneeling to ask forgiveness and offering the peace is enough for me. The comfort is enough. It carries and sustains me. The sermon, if and when I can focus on it, is gravy. God's love and the serenity I find in church are the meat and potatoes. All in all it is a full plate.

Welcome to the table! Come back real soon. We'll save you a place.

connections

E-mail, texting, droids, I-phone and Twitter keep everyone so connected. I didn't mention I-chat , voicemail and caller ID! So why can we not get an answer to a simple request? We see people in our lives with their phones in hand or on the ear, as it were, yet when a question is asked by and through their chosen communication means, there is no response. What is that about?

Yesterday I sent an e-mail to all the members of a certain group of which I've been a member for as long as I care to remember. Not only do most of these people have access to e-mail through their pcs or laptops, but they are ever so proud to now have access through their phones. So did I get a response from all of them? Of course not. So what is the deal? Is the question not important enough for a response? Am I not important? Did no one ever tell them about the importance of reservations or RSVP? Are they waiting around for a better invitation?

I do recall the days when we called someone and got voicemail and left a message. Then, the person called back when it was convenient for them to do so. That time was not that long ago. Now being connected twenty-four hours a day seven days a week is the norm and voicemail is a bother, or so I read in the newspaper. It seems today's Tweeeters prefer instant updates and responses to delayed ones. What? They are so important in their worlds that they don't take the minute it would require to send an e-mail or a voicemail ? Are they saving the whales? Curing cancer? Capturing Ben Laden?

What I've noticed is a whole generation, mine included, who can't be bothered with yesterday's niceties. Interrupting a game being played on their phones (for heavens' sakes!) texting their location or some other nonsense is more vital than giving an answer to a friend? Please!

Are we all nuts? I won't be trading in my old flip phone for a new "droid" or some such contraption any time soon. Using it to make a call or being called is enough. Using the ever so convenient cell phone to text that I'm on the way to the market or playing a game where I kill something or get offed by a cyber bully is not something I crave. Setting aside a little time to check and respond to e-mail is about all I am willing to do. Getting a laptop was a quantum leap for me. Checking voicemail and caller ID is also a small time allotment. I am inclined to do these chores along with a sip of coffee. Feeling the newspaper, or what's left of it after the continued cutbacks in printing, in my hands is still a morning delight. Turning the pages of a novel while resting on a pile of pillows in my bed is still my preferred way of relaxing.

Will I ever resort to Tweeting or instant messaging? Probably not, unless my eyesight fails so drastically that I can only view a large Twitter screen or an electronic book screen big enough to need a stand to hold it upright. I am not condemning anyone for using the tech gadgets; it' s just not for me. If you want to talk to me, call; I have voicemail.