Thanksgiving Memories

"I can't tell you how much I used to dread Thanksgiving," my mother said yesterday as we headed out to the grocery store to do our shopping for the big dinner.  "My mother used to invite everybody over and then bitch about it for days.  She made life miserable for me and Dad for weeks. " I looked at her aghast.  My childhood memories of Thanksgiving were pure happiness.  I never sensed any tension or angst...all I recall were the wonderful aromas and tastes of my southern grandmother's cuisine.  The huge turkey, slowly roasting all day long in the oven ("Oh yes," said my mother, "she woke us all up at the crack of dawn to get that turkey in the oven by 7:00 so it could cook all day long"), stuffed with the moist, savory dressing ("I had to search all over town for fresh sage to put in that stuffing"), and smothered in rich, brown gravy ("She wouldn't let anybody else stir that gravy for fear it would be lumpy!")

Well.  Who knew?  I was so tickled at the prospect of a house full of people, all my my favorite aunts and uncles with their interesting conversations, laughing and telling stories about family members I'd never seen.   And all the while the day had been filled with aggravation for my mother.

Of course, 40 years later, I'm no stranger to the memory of aggravating holidays.  When Jim and I married, it somehow evolved in our little family that his mother would prepare the Thanksgiving day dinner at our house.  (The one they so graciously sold to us when we got married while they moved into a tiny apartment which was of course far too small to serve Thanksgiving dinner.)  So every year she'd appear (at the crack of dawn so she could get the turkey in the oven) and then be puttering around in my kitchen all day, muttering about the way I arranged things or cleaned things or didn't have the right kind of things.

However, if you were to ask my son, he might recall the times  he stood on a tiny step-stool and helped Grandma prepare the turkey, watching intently as she cleaned out the cavity and tied the drumsticks together with twine.  Or he might remember running into the kitchen each time the oven door opened, so he could hold the baster and squeeze  hot pan drippings over the bird's golden breast.  He might not have had any inkling that his mother was in her bedroom, silently screaming.

All that's left of those holidays are memories -for my son, who lives far away and is never home on Thanksgiving; for me, who has dinner with an ever diminishing number of people; and for my mother, who prepares the meal for the three of us in her own kitchen and in her own expert and individual way.

Thanksgiving is becoming more and more the forgotten holiday, crammed in between Halloween and Christmas which garner a lot more attention in this consumer driven society of ours.  We're even having our regular trash pickup on Thursday - as long as I've lived here, pickup was postponed until Friday on Thanksgiving week.  I'm not sure I approve of that.  I think the sanitation workers should have Thursday so they could enjoy dinner with their families and friends same as nearly everyone else.

Thanksgiving is a holiday built around emotions - of being grateful for family and friends, for health and happiness, and food on the table.   It's not about buying presents, or wearing costumes, or elaborate fireworks displays.  It's not even about concerts of beautiful music, or rooms of gorgeous decorations.

It's simply about making memories, good or bad.

I hope you make some lovely ones this year.

Variety~the Spice of Life?

When I was a child, one of my favorite scents (aside from the smell of a new book or magazine) was the smell of my mother's face cream.  I think she used plain old Pond's cold cream, and I recall her slathering it on her face each evening before bed.  Often, a smidgen of it would linger on my cheek when she kissed me goodnight, and I savored the aroma as I drifted off to sleep. This afternoon I spent about 15 minutes in the beauty aisle at Target, perusing hundreds of facial skin care products, trying to determine what in the world I should put on my face.

Too many choices.

Should it be Olay Regenerist, or Anti Aging, or Pro-X?

Maybe I should try L'Oreal Expertise, Revitalift, or Genesis?

Or Neutrogena Ageless Essentials, Restorative, or Anti-Oxidant?

By now my head is spinning, and I give up and start looking for Pond's Cold Cream.  (They actually DID have it!)

Seriously, for every product I go to purchase, I find myself standing longer and longer in front of the shelves, looking for the item I want, or trying to decide which one is appropriate.

The other day I was standing in the cereal aisle at the grocery, looking for Grape Nuts.  Of course, there are Grape Nuts Flakes, Grape Nuts, and Healthy Grape Nuts Trail Mix Crunch - not bad, really, only three varieties.  An elderly gentleman was standing beside me, looking rather dazed and confused.

"Can I help you find something?" I asked.

"I just want some Corn Flakes," he said, scratching his head in dismay.

I pointed out the Corn Flakes, and helped him choose between 12 ounce, 16 ounce, or the huge 48 ounce family size.

He put his small box in the cart and sighed.  "My goodness," he said.  "I remember when the only cereal they made was Corn Flakes."

Ah yes, the good old days when life was simple and choices were few.  How ever did we survive without 240 television stations, 97 varieties of cereal, 14 different kinds of dental floss, and 33 different sizes of feminine protection?  Have our needs really changed that much, become so much more specialized and intensive?  Could we ever go back to the old days, when there were only one or two choices to be made?

Or would we be just as happy with one flavor cereal, one brand of moisturizer, and three of four television stations?

I finally brought home some skin care products, which cost me almost as much as my grocery bill for the week.  The night cream comes in sleek little tube, and I wonder if it will last even the rest of the month.  It contains something called Helioplex, and is supposed to neutralize 99% of the free radicals, as well as clarify my skin, take care of wrinkles, and "even out" my skin tone.

Whatever.   I'm pretty sure it won't smell as nice as my mom's Ponds.

Dancing, Divas, and Indigestion

Talked to my mom last night, and she was a little bit riled up (seems there's a bit of that going around in our family lately). "Can you believe what happened on Dancing With the Stars? I'm so mad I can't see straight!"  she said.

I'd been waiting for this tirade, because just Sunday she was talking about how much she hoped Brandy would win this year's coveted mirror ball trophy.

However, in a rather controversial results show, Brandy and her partner were "sent home" while Bristol Palin remained to dance in this year's finals.

If you're not a Dancing With the Stars Fan, you probably don't know or care who wins this ballroom dancing competition.   I happen to love this show - it's the only reality show I watch, but I have a secret dreamy desire to be a ballroom dancer and I'm fascinated with the whole process.  I also like the way it showcases a persons ability to learn a completely new skill and push themselves to the limit of their capabilities.

So in some ways the fact that young Bristol Palin, a socially awkward girl whose only claim to fame is her infamous mother and her own teen pregnancy, has been able to execute these complicated dance routines with some degree of aplomb, is exactly the reason I like watching the show.  After all, this is a girl who has never performed, never done a musical, theatrical, or athletic thing in her life, and she's produced a fairly adequate performance most weeks.

Kudos to her for all that.

BUT.

Bristol remains on the show due entirely to viewer votes.  Her judges scores, which account for 50% of the dancer's rating, have consistently been the lowest overall.  Yet each week, the viewers votes keep her "alive" while ever more competent dancers are sent packing.

And therein lies a much more insidious problem, one that far surpasses the momentary angst my mother (and poor Brandy!) are suffering.

The American people are completely hoodwinked, boondoggled, brainwashed, and enraptured, with the whole Sarah Palin phenomenon and Bristol is riding that coat-tail all the way to her ultimate prize - the Mirror Ball Trophy.

The really scary part is that I think this silly dance competition is an indicator that Bristol's mother actually has a chance to attain her ultimate prize - the Presidency of these United States.

God help us all.

My daughter in law (a naturalized American citizen) pooh-poohed this notion at dinner last night.  "The American people are too smart for that," she said.

I wish she were correct, but I'm afraid she isn't.  Too many American people have become like sheep, blindly following whoever and whatever seems the most interesting, entertaining, and popular.  Whatever Palin's appeal  (and I have no idea at all what it could be) it's widespread and pandemic.  I read this morning that the premier of her reality TV show garnered the highest ratings ever for its network.

That certainly qualifies her to be the leader of the free world.

"She's not smart enough to be President," my daughter in law continued, and this time I wholeheartedly agreed.  Palin's sartorial experience qualifies her for the highest office in the land about as much as my medical experience qualifies me to perform brain surgery. (I'm great at putting on band-aids and removing splinters.)

Part of Palin's appeal seems to be her "regular Jane-ness" - she's just like you and me, so she understands the problems of the common man.  Well, call me crazy, but I think I'd like the leader of the nation to be a little bit smarter, stronger, savvier, and well-respected than the average man on the street.  After all, this is a person who holds the future of the entire world (literally and physically) in their hands.

The big Finale of Dancing With the Stars occurs next Monday and Tuesday nights.  Will it be the preview of things to come in November 2012?

We'll see.

If so, I may find myself on the lookout for property in Outer Mongolia, because I think I'll want to get as far away from the devastation as possible.

Unfortunately, I'll probably have to go through the full body scanner in order to get there.

Full Body Scan

I spend a good bit of time on airplanes - far more than I'd like, really, but since my only child lives over 1000 miles away AND since I have a ton of money invested in a home in his neighborhood, I find myself winging my way back and forth across the country with steady frequency. However that may soon come to a crashing halt.  After watching a news clip about the new TSA full body scanning procedures going into effect at an airport near you, this frequent flyer may just be grounded.

Here's the thing.

This business of some stranger being able to scan my entire body with a radiographic device that allows them to see me right down to the skin ~ well, that's just a complete invasion of my privacy and my civil rights as an American.  Oh sure, I can "opt out" (a phrase borrowed from bankers who use it to jack up the rates on your credit cards), which means those same strangers now get to "pat me down" in any way they see fit to determine that I'm not concealing explosives somewhere on my person.

I don't think so.

And don't give me the patriotic bit about the necessity of doing this to weed out terrorists.  I cannot believe that our government, with its sophisticated web of technology and security, cannot come up with a way to keep terrorists off of airplanes without violating the personal privacy of thousands of innocent, law abiding, tax paying citizens on a daily basis.  As Benjamin Franklin once said  "Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

It takes a lot to rile me - to "get my Irish up" as my mother used to say - but this is an example of the kinds of egregious interference in my individual freedom that simply infuriates me.  It happens far too often in modern life - the government, the insurance companies, the banks, all filling our life with rules and restrictions supposedly designed for the  betterment of society but which simply end up punishing and diminishing the individual.

To borrow a famous phrase from an old film ~ "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore."

Truly, I think the American people need to rise up (dare I even say Tea Party style) and refuse en masse to participate in some of these policies.  If only every person could declare the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally the largest travel day of the year, a "no fly day" in protest - think what an impact that would make on the airline pocketbooks.

And we all know that nothing influences the government more than big business and the bottom line.

Certainly not the individual  rights of the American people.

Keeping the Faith

A good friend is going through a difficult time right now, having some tough issues with her teenaged son.  She is such a dedicated mother, a hardworking, responsible, loving and caring person - it makes my heart hurt knowing how painful this must be for her. One of the hardest parts about these kinds of rough patches in life is the fear of the unknown.  We project our worst fears onto the future, seeing only that the bad times will escalate, that nothing will be resolved, and disaster will ensue and life will be irrevocably changed. We wonder how we'll have the strength, the wisdom, the patience to endure.  In the thick of it, when the heart aches and the soul is sore, it's impossible to imagine how anything good can come of the situation.

Coincidentally, our minister spoke about this subject on Sunday.  The "happily ever after" we all want for our lives doesn't come easily or right away, he cautioned.  There are always bumps in the road, some bigger than others.  It's hard to keep the faith, hard to believe that "all things work together for good," especially in the dark of night when sleep won't come and our thoughts are beset by fears of what might happen.

That's when we have to make the biggest leap of all and believe that on the other side of this fresh hell is a bright heaven, one that might completely surprise us, one that might be totally different from what we hoped for or dreamed about or planned upon.

But one that will be good if we let it.

That's what I believe will happen for my friend and her family.  I'm keeping my eyes on that prize for her.

I'm keeping that faith.  And I hope she can keep it too.

How about you?  How have things worked together for good in your life?