Happy Thanksgiving

As a little kid in the mid-40's I read all the magazines my Grandma Grace subscribed to, the Saturday Evening Post, Colliers, etc. It was the age of illustration and serialized novels, especially westerns but I digress. In Norman Rockwell's art I remember some of my childhood. I was surprised to see how many Thanksgiving  pieces he did. This is just a small selection. The first one is my favorite. How we love our children. There are quite a few more. Happy Thanksgiving and God bless you all.

Loss

I'm sitting at my dining room table drinking my third cup of coffee and still reluctant to get out and get going this morning.  I need pecan pie ingredients and some other groceries.  It's a balmy 27°F, rumored to be 30° later but the fog is gone along with the ice. My last annual patio flower has shriveled up just two little red blooms hanging on.

My only girl cousin Terry died Friday night; she was 68.  She was treated for ovarian cancer a few years ago and we actually thought she might have beaten it. If anyone could it was her. As it was she lived much longer and better than anyone could have imagined.  Then the cancer returned elsewhere in her body and with treatment she continued on, "Trying to stay alive everyday." she said. She was still running last year, working hard.  A couple of weeks ago she completed another round of chemo and returned home saying she was tired and ready to go. We have lost her loving smile and good heart. She was a wonderful, caring person, a teacher, coach, and counselor who left behind many grieving students as well as her husband, son, and all the rest of us.

I think my sadness for Terry has morphed into some anxiety for my for my sister and her husband who are driving up the Columbia Gorge from Portland to spend Thanksgiving with me. I'm indulging in a lot of weather watching. It's nice drive unless it freezes up and poops snows on you.  Then it can be the badmamajammer of roads. After getting an all clear weather report I've been ambushed on I-84 by mother nature after Cascade Locks (the low pass through the Cascades) and thought I should get off the road but afraid if I tried I'd get stuck or slide off like so many I'd passed so I white knuckled it on through. Danged stuff freezes into rutted slag on the road. Pretty though.

I think I'll get in the shower and cry and let my fears and some of the sadness wash down the drain.
Love and hugs to all this Thanksgiving.

Snow falling on cedars, and firs, and everything else on I-84. Photo credit The Oregonian

Autumnal

It's been raining lightly for over a week.  It perks me up being from Seattle. Walla Walla just recently slid over the 10" rain mark for the year. We really needed this.  About 50 miles outside of town snow has fallen on the Grizzly Bear Complex fire that was still slowly growing.  The roads have been opened up there and an acquaintance was up there a few nights ago getting a look at an aurora borealis that showed up.  Coming back down in the dark they had to stop while a herd of elk meandered across the road in the dark.  I wonder if it's because of the fire but there seems to a lot more deer showing up in town, and deer and elk on the roadways nearby. Feed must be scarce wouldn't you think?  There was a moose/car collision near town. Uncommon here.

And "Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door" the maple tree has covered the patio with leaves.  One of my grand-girls has gathered them to make something for her bedroom wall.  We brought them in to dry and pressed them under some books.

My sister Pam and her spouse are coming here from Portland for Thanksgiving. She says they are bringing everything, cooking, and cleaning at my house. Great for me! They are some of my favorite people.  One of my sons will join us and it will be nice and laid back.  They are staying in a hotel.  Something we all do, let's you sneak off for a nap or to read, and doesn't leave the host/hostess with extra laundry. We are all somewhat introverted and like to have blocks of space to decompress. It was a huge relief when we admitted it. The whole family seems to be the all on or all off variety.  I wasn't that way when I was younger but things change.

Doing some fall cleaning, got bags of clothes for St. Vinnies, infant and baby toys, odds and ends.  Some of it has come straight out of packing boxes from two years ago into the give away boxes. It just keeps coming.

I'm still 15 pounds heavier than last spring so I reluctantly bought some new pants that don't strangle me when I sit down. My doc says it could be antibiotics. What? "Well," he says "that's what they give critters to make them heavier and fatter."  Ha, me and the Thanksgiving turkey. I am on my 6th dose this year; three from the aftermath of last Christmas' flu and bronchial infection, and three recently for a UTI I can't seem to shake.   It is not MRSA or it's ilk but it is drug resistant.  Cross your fingers this last one does the trick. You all know I don't want to buy anymore fat pants.