Tradition!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we'll be eating good. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, peas, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, and sweet potato pie. There are only three of us at home now, where once we consisted of seven (oh, and a different hubby).

Personally, I would be quite willing to forego all the hoopla and keep it simple. Really simple. I thought briefly about a restaurant, but who wants to sit around waiting for their food in a restaurant when we can do that at home, in front of the TV? Plus the cost, of course. We could all go to the local "community dinner," maybe even volunteering to serve for a while. But then, it just seems like a hassle, and so much more comfortable to stay at home. I thought about turkey TV dinners. Not just any old TV dinners, of course. These would be Hungry Man Turkey Dinners! The best!

Well, in the end, my significant other won out. He is very much a traditionalist. He talks unendingly about how things USED to be, and food is very much a part of his family memories. Of course, he's not a child any more, his siblings and cousins are hither and yon, his parents have passed away, as have many aunts and uncles. So, now there are just the three of us, he and I and my youngest daughter, and we live far from the remaining relatives, who he reminisces used to pop in all day long to visit, and watch TV, and hand out quarters to the kids, and share a good meal. Actually, my holiday memories are not so different. I just see myself in a different time and place, and I accept it. I even like it.

Nevertheless, my dreams of "something different" are now sufficiently subdued. I went on over to Walmart today and did some last minute grocery shopping. We'll share in the cooking chores (he smokes the turkey and makes the pies, I do the rest), and we'll just have ourselves a merry little Thanksgiving.

A Dog Story

True story. Many years ago we had a dog named Heidi. She was a beagle/lab, which means she was a beagle on stilts.

Heidi was extremely smart. If we so much as muttered the words dinner, food, eat, outside, walk, leash, the dog, Heidi, or a lot of other things, her ears pricked up, even if she was in a sound sleep. We had to start spelling within her earshot, especially anything pertaining to her.

During the warmer months she spent the night in the backyard. One morning she wasn't at the door waiting for her breakfast (she knew that word too), so I called her and found that she wasn't in the yard. I walked around and found that the inside garage door to the backyard had blown open because my husband had been too lazy to close the big garage door as he drove off to work that morning. In the past when she had gotten out, she'd be sitting on the front porch waiting for us, but no Heidi. It was quite windy that morning, so it dawned on me the her sniffer might be confused after her trek around the neighborhood, and she couldn't find her way home.

Then, the phone rang. Someone found Heidi on the side of a busy street a half mile away. She had just been hit by a car. Her dog tag had our telephone number on it, so her rescuer called us from a cell phone. When we got there, she was surrounded by several people who had seen the accident, including the driver. They all wished us the best as we rushed her to the vet. She was awake, bewildered, and could no longer use or feel her left front leg. The vet said to give it time, but from that point on, she was a three-legged dog.

Which was okay. She was still our Heidi. I know one thing, without her ID tags, we may have lost our usually really smart dog.

Give Me Seasons!!!

Can you believe Halloween has already come and gone and Thanksgiving is just around the corner?

Me? I can't believe it. In fact, I can't believe we've already lived here in Idaho for a whole year, as of September 1st. Now we are again looking at our first snowfall of the year, probably this week sometime according to the weatherman. I know I've said it before, (right here in this blog, as a matter of fact), but I really look forward to the changing seasons. Autumn has been so beautiful; and call me crazy, but I love the snow. Maybe it's all the years living in California, which is literally seasonless (at least along the coast). Whatever. I like to FEEL the seasons. I like to SMELL them, to SEE them outside my window.

I love living in Idaho.

And Christmas will be here before you know it.