The Burrow

I sleep better when the Cuters are in the house. TBG and I are usually up and dressed by 7 and in the gym or on the road by 8. This weekend, though, I needed the alarm to get me up to put the turkey in the oven and to take the Little Cuter to the airport for her morning flight and I seriously considered rolling over and letting Amster work out by herself Sunday morning. Some part of it might have been that we were staying up late with the kids, but I really think it's that I can see, with my own eyes, that right now right here everybody is fine. **************** Last year, G'ma had bilateral broken ankles and was stoned on Oxycontin. She fell asleep in her plate (thankfully, before the food was on it). This year, she was giggling with the Little Cuter over photos and whatever else beloved grand-daughters and G'ma's share. I have to remember that things sometimes do get better. ******* Hines Ward should be ashamed of himself. Not only for the outfit he was wearing while...

And this is what it looked like after 8 hours of cooking and eating and cleaning up and eating some more. We were thankful and joyful and now are tryptophan-coma-ing on the couch. Have a wonderful weekend - I'll be back on Monday with more musings. For now, I'm going to bask in the wonderfulness that is my whole family under one roof. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.................

For my happy, healthy family for my friends, near and far, old and new and old-and-found-again for the abundance of goodness I see every day for the richness of the world I inhabit for the joy I find in simple things, I am truly grateful. Happy Thanksgiving to you all !! There's a bonus post below.... it's a Wednesday 2-fer!

This is the weirdest day of the holiday weekend. If it's not a day of arrivals, and it's not a day of grocery shopping, it's merely a day of waiting. And it's not like a Jewish holiday, which starts the night before thus giving the day a special designation ( erev Thanksgiving just doesn't sound hebraic, does it?). Instead it just sits here, waiting for something to happen. The Cuters slept in, TBG spent the morning in the gym, and I took a totally unexpected nap on the couch from 8 til 10am. Satisfied the Big Cuter's craving for a chicken fajita burrito at Chipotle while drinking a Coke and smiling at the adult version of my little boy. Went for a fancier lunch with the Little Cuter and TBG, and watched the two of them hold their head at the same angle as they perused their exact same sandwiches. Met with the roofer and the exterior lighting guys and read Anne Perry in the sunshine. All four of us drove back to the gym this afternoon, and now we'...

I've been thinking about family and friends, as The Cuters make their way to the desert southwest for a family-only Thanksgiving. They're at their respective airports hours early, as befits a TBG-spawned human, and if the weather holds out they'll arrive in Tucson within an hour of each other. The Little Cuter will be arriving first and promises to be hungry; I'm bringing pot roast and fresh baked bread so she can feast while we await her brother. TBG thinks I'm silly; I flash to Daddooooo meeting me at LaGuardia with a bag of bagels and oranges and Coca-Cola and some chocolate candies for himself. I'm smiling as I pack the snack sack. C&B were planning to join us, as they have every year since we've been sharing a state. Alas and alack, medical issues have altered their plans; when did we get old enough to have our bodies get in the way of life? Of course, there was the Thanksgiving when TBG and my brother and I drove 350 miles over the river and throug...

Walking in Walmart is my new way to make friends, it seems. About a month or so ago, one of the Acquasizers accosted me outside the cereal aisle, up against the Lays Originals on sale at only $2/bag . For 15 minutes, she tried to convince me that I really truly absolutely had to abandon my current work-out plan and follow hers, including Aquatica, of course. I nodded politely at first, since I had no idea who she was when she hugged (with some force, I might add) her hello. Random love in Wally-World...... I'd have been nervous except she greeted me by name so she obviously knew who I was. Had TBG been there, he'd have realized immediately that I didn't remember her name, and he'd have rescued me by sticking out his hand and introducing himself, in the hope that she'd tell him her name in return. But, there I was, all alone by the generic corn flakes, listening to her re-arrange my life. When she'd finished her harangue she moved on while expressing he...

My readers do love their books. Friday's post garnered more comments than anything the Burrow has seen in its lifetime. And what lovely comments they are. It seems that I am not the only library scofflaw here in the blogosphere, and that paying up is not a problem for either of us. I knew I liked you! Loving real books has kept me from being an early Kindle adopter. The thought of having any book I want immediately available is nearly orgasmic..... but I won't really have the book then, will I? The real, palpable sensation of the paper between my fingers makes a difference to me. Dick Francis writes on bright white paper with a sharp edged easy to read font. Faye Kellerman has put Blindman's Bluff on a thick ecru with feathery edges that make me feel like I'm holding personalized stationary. My Ulysses is printed on an almost slick off white surface that is absolutely perfect for writing notes - and Ulysses , if it is nothing else, is a text which requires notes. T...

I am living an embarassment of riches. After several months of waiting not all that patiently, I reached the top of the reserve list for Sara Paretsky's latest oeuvre . It now shares a shelf with Linda Fairstein and James Patterson and Anne Perry and Faye Kellerman, occupying the space just vacated by Patricia Cornwell. I am surrounded by library treasures and they didn't cost me a dime. I just had to show up with some identification and a utility bill proving that I actually live where I said I live and that was that. They gave me a pretty library card (actually, it was mailed to the address I gave them..... just in case I had forged my gas bill, I guess...) and welcomed me to the community. I've thanked Ben Franklin for the idea before, so I won't go there right now. Instead, I'm just going to gush. I've loved libraries in .... Chicago under the Fullerton El tracks, from whose stacks I read all of Agatha Christie, armed with a xerox-ed list of tit...

TBG got a thoughtful and lovely letter last week from our friendly health insurer. No, I am not delusional. This clearly written in a fairly large font one page missive was an easily understood reminder of the fact that his benefit package included help with managing disease. Managing disease is not a phrase you want to see in a personal letter from your insurance carrier. We were confused. Just this summer our doctor declared TBG a marvel of health and vitality . I wondered about it from a paperwork angle - who input erroneous information which would be used to jack up our rates once again? - and from a medical angle - what did they know that we didn't? I was perplexed but not worried until this morning when the answering machine revealed Kathy's message. Kathy's a nurse with BCBSAZ and she, too, was offering to help manage TBG's mysterious disease. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining about this part at all. Her voice was calm and inviting and w...

G'ma and I went bowling with the Happy Ladies Club yesterday. When I stopped by the pod-castle just after 9am, she was curled up snug as a bug in a rug in her comforter. Without her glasses on, she could only see my outline until I bent down to kiss her hello. I guess the caregivers don't include that service in their daily rounds, because she knew it was I, even with her eyes closed. I do love having a mother around. I'd come to remind her that I'd be back at 11:30 to collect her for lunch. As she sank deeper into her blankets to resume the sleep I'd so rudely interrupted, I left with little confidence that she'd remember to get up and get ready. I backtracked and left her a written reminder on the seat of her walker. I do wish my mother could remember her itinerary on her own. But later, when I knocked and then opened her door, her fully clothed, ready and waiting self greeted me with a smile and a laughing remonstrance: "It's 11:31. I've been wai...

I'm beginning to feel that holiday spirit. It's cool when I go out to get the newspapers and last night I could-have-but-didn't-and-it-didn't-matter-anyway covered my newly planted specimens to protect them from the "temps near freezing" predicted on the news updates during the Colts/Patriots game. I am motivated to collect the old sheets and thin blankets, though, so that when it really does get down in the 30's I am prepared. Because being prepared is what it's all about right now. The pantry has to be stocked with all the unsweetened chocolate, almond and vanilla extracts, sugar, King Arthur Unbleached Flour (it really does make a difference), light Italian dressing, Pepperidge Farm Herbed Stuffing ( not the cubes, the shredded kind), noodles, chicken stock, jello, crackers, taco seasoning packets, and ketchup and mustards ( yes, plural) and barbeque sauce --- so that when ever anyone asks for anything I only need the fresh stuff. This is not th...

MTF and I walked a lot in Manhattan. Our hotel was centrally isolated - we could walk anywhere in any direction and something wonderful would turn up. The same can't really be said for Tucson. Walking here is an exercise in hope and optimism - hope that there will be sidewalks and optimism that the cars won't ram into me if there aren't. ****** Why do some rolls of chicken wire cut easily, while others visciously resist the tin snips? Arguing with sharp pointy edged metal graph paper while trying not to step on a newly planted Callandria is not my idea of a good time. ******* Went to ARBICO on Thursday for a gardening field trip. Non-chemical pest control involves buckets of maggots which they were happy to pull out in the Insectarium and that was where Rick lost me, although the fly-covered Insect A-Peel in the veggie garden was a close second in terms of things I don't care to ever see again in what I hope will be a long and event-filled life. On the other hand, l...

What a game! So much for the SI curse! They're not my home team, but I do like 'em a lot .

We don't have these long phone calls very often. G-chat served us well until her employer blocked her access, but emails and texts and the occasional quick question that requires an actual voice-to-ear phone call still keeps us all relatively well-informed of one another's ups and downs. But every once in a while the land line (yes, we still have a land line) rings at dinner time and it's the Little Cuter, calling to say "Hi!" She's on the speaker phone so TBG and I can listen and smile at each other at the same time in the same place and easily shift off answering instead of talking over each other's voice on an extension. Her physical and financial health is our first priority - do I need to send a bottle of Excedrine Migraine to her at the office or will she remember to bring in one of the 27 little bottles she has at home? Should she have yet another restorative cup of green tea, the wonder cure for the eye-closing-brain-numbing headache followed by th...

I hiked without my camera on Monday. It was about 4 miles of relatively easy terrain covered comfortably with old friends. No need for a big pack with room for 2 water bottles, lunch, binoculars, GPS, whistle, map, compass, a field guide or two, the thermal blanket pack, a LaraBar, extra batteries, lip gloss, Sudafed, Excedrine Migraine, eye drops and whatever articles of clothing I might need to remove as I went along. Just the ergonomically angled bottle-key-ID holder and my poles. Daddooooo made hiking sticks out of fallen limbs from the pin oak in his backyard, and they're sentimental and pretty and functional and every once in a while I take one along just to feel that Daddooooo's by my side. But there are no two of them which are exactly the same height, and they're impossible to attach to any pack I want to carry. Like Daddooooo himself, their hearts are in the right place, but the execution is somewhat lacking. Wally-World is a great place to shop for hiking gear if...

".... our Star Spangled Banner yet waves....." " ......purple mountains' majesty....." Remember : Say "THANK YOU !!" to someone who served. And, perhaps, a moment of silence at 11am.....when the shooting stopped forever.......... the first time. (today's regular post is below)

Prompt Tuesday wants me to wax eloquent on " I never knew" but I'm not in a very negative mood. I do have a similar prompt in my journal, though. I've titled a page "Things I Used to Know" and I bet a lot of you used to know them, too. So, let's play: Question #1: Can you name this dinosaur? (Scoring is arbitrary and explained below.) Arbitrary Scoring: Award yourself 3 extra points if you referenced the Flintstones' quarry, and 4 extra points for remembering the Sinclair Dinosaur . But lose two points if you called it a brontosaurus . Apparently, sometime between my childhood and the birth of the Big Cuter, the correct answer became apatasaurus. Not that the mis-nomer was a recent discovery. Nope, according to Mike Taylor , the change was made in 1903. But the popular press had been pretty impressed with the thunder lizard and turned up its collective printing presses at the thought of calling the long necked vegetarian a deceptive ...

I'm giving you fair warning: this may not be a very long post. I walked home from G'ma's pod-castle today, listening to this week's Car Talk podcast on my iPod and feeling very proud of myself for no reason at all. The temperatures are perfect and most of the snow birds are still clinging to their real homes up north so the traffic around town hasn't reached its full winter proportions. Still, there was enough road noise that Tom and Ray were virtually shouting in my ears in order to be heard. By the time I got home, I was a rather unpleasant combination of exertion and exhaust fumes. The cupboards are bare, as I go through my annual what am I not going to eat that would be good for the food pantry cleansing. I'm through the first shelf already; the goal is to have it all reviewed and renewed before the Little Cuter shows up to do her Rachael Ray impersonation in my kitchen. Sharing Thanksgiving with a daughter who loves to cook is one of life's great joys. ...

Caution: Sports esoterica is ahead. You can try to go with the flow, or come back tomorrow for something less arcane. It became apparent to me, early on in our relationship, that in order to spend any time at all with TBG I was going to have to learn to watch sports on tv. That's a very different set of skills than learning to love sports or playing sports or attending live sporting events. I had to become adept at sitting and staring at men (always men until the Title 9 girls grew up) moving in patterns which were obvious to TBG and a total mystery to me. My earliest memories of Zaydeh, G'ma's father, involve watching baseball on tv. Bouncing on his shoulders in front of the black and white Zenith in the living room while he hummed Zionist pioneer songs as his Brooklyn Dodgers went about their business. I'd probably have grown up loving baseball as much as Doris Kearns Goodwin except that I was only 5 when the Dodgers made Zaydeh cry. After they left, he lost his pass...

Chapter 5 - Well, Not Really Reunion Related I'm still feeling the glow, but it's fading from the front of my brain to a spot someplace on the 3rd or 4th step. There..... but not setting my mood each morning. What I'm thinking about now is the wonderfulness that was The City. Yes, THE CITY. People in Marin or on the North Shore or The Main Line might talk about going into The City, but I'm sorry...... neither San Francisco nor Chicago nor Philly hold a candle to the Big Apple. Don't get me wrong - I think Chicago is the best city in America today. For livability, culture, outdoor recreation, free events, civic pride..... it's hard to argue the point. San Francisco has a vibe unlike anyplace else and its residents love it and cannot imagine living elsewhere (as the Big Cuter says, "It's insane.... but it's mine") But they're still not New York. No place but Manhattan has that melting pot vibrancy, that bond forged by the shared adversity o...

A relative has begun signing her emails "Go Yankees". Conversation at the Happy Ladies Club luncheon today dwelled on Oregon's resurgent football team. Gardeners were meeting for an early dinner and a UofA volleyball game last week. I am bereft. I have no team for which to cheer. I need a home team. I love Peyton Manning, and the Little Cuter has outfitted me with a commemorative shirt but I've never lived in Indianapolis so the Colts can't possibly be my home team. The Cowboys may have been America's Team, but now, I think, the New Orleans Saints have earned that moniker. They are marvelously undefeated and totally fun to watch and it feels good to be able to share successful vibes with The Big Easy, but, again, they're not my home team. Orb Kcrob never wears anything but Michigan t-shirts. It's where he went and he's damn proud of it. I find myself in collegiate gear from TBG and the Cuters and myself but I can't seem to ma...

I'm talking to Julie from our time share. Right now, if I were reading this, I would click away to another blog. My heart would be beating rapidly and my palms would be sweaty. My stomach would be churning gurgling bubbling and stabbing me and I would just want the thought to go away NOW. And yet, I am, in my real life, at this very moment, actually talking to her on speaker phone about the time share. And I'm only mildly upset. This is a very unusual set of circumstances. Do you own a time share? Do you understand it? Do you use it? Have you been drawn into the larger time sharing world, joining Interval International ? Please please please tell me that you don't vote in the election of officers every year. My answers to those questions are Yes, No, No, Yes and OMG why don't you leave me alone. We were sucked into this folly on our house-hunting trip to Phoenix. We decided to take advantage of one of the "2 nights 3 days in a luxury resort" postcards that use...

Chapter 4 - Closure The after party, the dinner with 20 of our closest friends, walking through torrential rain while hugging under an almost-but-not-quite-big-enough-to-share umbrella (why was I the only one who didn't bring a bumbershoot???) capped off by an allergy attack (Himalayan cats have a special big furriness that's gorgeous and deadly) that sent me scrambling home (yes, by now it felt like home) for a shower and a change of clothes..... the night flew by in a haze of your brother did what in the Bush administration? can you believe how much she's changed? she always was the nicest of those girls, wasn't she? and can somebody do the math for the check? There were three of us in the room that night - a husband's heart attack (can we really be married to people who have heart attacks the night before Reunion?) had changed her roommate's plans and our friend was going to have to camp out in Penn Station unless we took her in. It was the perfect end t...