My Thanksgiving Ritual

Ahhhhhhhhhhh. The smells of Thanksgiving are wafting through the house.

I always begin preparing our Thanksgiving meal the evening before. The pies are baked and cooling on racks; the green bean casserole and sausage/walnut stuffing are baking and the turkey's been cleaned and it's cavity salted.

I'm a strange bird myself. I don't stuff the turkey. For some reason I've never liked it that way. I bake my stuffing in an ancient stoneware bowl that has a brown inner glaze. I've used that bowl for 30 years. The green bean casserole is baked in a circular gray/black spatter ware pan I bought at an antique shop maybe 20 years ago.

We're having Dutch Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie. That's enough. No ice cream this year; just Cool Whip. Gotta cut the calories somewhere and Sweetie's mother loves Cool Whip. She thinks it's one of mankind's greatest inventions!

The Sweet potatoes are peeled and sitting in water. I bake 'em and mash them and serve them plain. Two years ago, when we were living with and caring for Sweetie's mother, I fixed mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top the way she likes them. I about choked. Give me plain food, please.

The walk is shoveled and the cats have been instructed not to terrorize Sweetie's mother when she arrives about 11 a.m. tomorrow. We'll see. Hopefully she's not bringing her schizophrenic miniature poodle. That dog would make a good scrub rag. Harsh I know but it never shuts up and runs around out feet when we walk. NEVER does that to Sweetie's mother though.

Sweetie is taking his usual evening nap and the house is quiet. I love that time. No television blather; no furnace running (I snuck down the hall and turned if off!); no blower on the wood stove running. Just the sound of an occasional car going down our dark road. Soon those blasted snowmobiles will be running through the fields and down the road like it's the Indy Speedway. Crazy people sucking up gas and crashing into trees, etc. because they think it's fun to get sauced up and fly across the snow. I'm sure you get my drift, so enough of that rant.

On to the Thankful part.

I'm thankful to have a home and a wonderful, though stubborn, man. I'm thankful for my friends. Though few, they are loyal, compassionate, thoughtful and always offer unconditional love. I'm thankful for my children and grandchildren though I seldom see any of them. I'm thankful for my father who I miss every day of my life; even if I'm fortunate enough to be up north visiting him! I'm thankful that I'm not the maniacal, status seeking, insecure, judgemental bitch I once was. I sure wouldn't recognize her if I met her today. I'm thankful that I have a comfortable, easy going routine most days. No dashing off to work, fighting traffic, putting up with jerks, or slaving away for someone else's idea of success.

I'm thankful, too, that I still have the freedom to write a blog and criticize anyone about anything and not find my head on a platter for speaking my mind.

I'm thankful too, for those of you who read this blog and put up with my musings, however disjointed they sometimes (maybe always!) are.

Happy Thanksgiving, Treesong