Done In By Pecan Pie, Saved By Muddy Waters And Keith Richards

Oh, god. The HANGOVER!
Not alcohol-induced. No. Food. Food hangover.
I was doing fine. Just fine. Until that piece of pecan pie.
What in god's name was I thinking?
As I ate that piece of pecan pie I said, "This is probably the nail in the coffin of my Thanksgiving."
And it was.
I had survived the whole day of the party and the babysitting and the getting ready and then the party itself and I was fine, fine, fine. I got up yesterday morning absolutely enchanted with the idea that I did not have to get a turkey in the oven or coordinate the dinner and it felt as luxurious as floating down the Nile on a barge, reclining in silk.

I made a lovely breakfast with eggs and the remains of the veggie tray and a small amount of the vast amount of cheese I had purchased at the Costco for some reason, having lost my mind in there, obviously, buying bricks and cement blocks of cheese for the party and for the Thanksgiving Day celebration and I have enough cheese left here for the rest of the year and beyond, oh, maybe until my birthday which is at the end of July.

Costco is evil.

Not evil like Walmart, although they may be that too, I don't know but evil in that they trick you into buying cartloads of vast quantities of things you really do not need or even want.

So where was I? Oh yeah, breakfast yesterday which turned into lunch, actually, and then next thing you knew it was time to go to Lily's and I finally got my mother on the phone after having left her messages which she never got, of course, and she was hurt and angry and no, she did not want to come to Lily's for Thanksgiving, she didn't want to have anything to do with any of us and I don't blame her because she thought we'd all forgotten her entirely and left her to the devices of the facility and she was going to take a nap, that was it.

Sigh.

Lily and Jason had everything so under control that I wondered why it was always so hard for me. There were maybe forty-five casseroles and rolls and Jason was smoking the turkey and we sat outside and Owen entertained us while dinner finished cooking and then Hank called his grandma and she grudgingly accepted his offer to come and get her and so he did and I think she was pretty happy about that when she got there and stuff like this started happening.

Thank god for babies, right?

Lily's dinner was perfect and I ate a reasonable amount until that piece of pie pushed me over the edge of and off the cliff of reasonableness although Mother managed to eat an entire other Thanksgiving Dinner including the CHOCOLATE pecan pie with no seeming ill effects. We cleaned up some and then Mr. Moon and I took Mother home and then we came home and I was cranky and went to bed at about eight-fifteen and slept from about eight-forty-five until seven this morning which is almost a personal record.

I still feel stuffed and Mr. Moon and Jason are already back home from hunting this morning and yes, they got two deer, meat for the freezer and they're out there with knives and whatever it is they use to clean deer and I AM NOT GOING OUT THERE, no way.

I don't want to move today or cook or do one damn thing. Is there a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills marathon on because that would be about perfect.

Sigh.

I should go take a walk. There is no reasonable excuse not to. I did take a tiny walk last night with Owen and his other grandmother after supper. We were hunting for owls and Owen carried the flashlight and delighted in the shadows we cast and when we saw a man walking a labrador he opined that it was not a dog, but a coyote and that it was a baby and it had lost it's family and was very sad.
We didn't see any owls, but it was a very sweet walk and really, yes, I should go take a real one now in the daylight but that pecan pie seems to have paralyzed my legs or maybe it's not the pecan pie at all, it's just the overwhelming muchness of it all, the past three days.
I need to go to the library too. Everyone should be at the mall, right? And Walmart? If I go the backroads, perhaps I can avoid some of that crazed traffic.
Christmas.
Shee-it.
May was talking about Christmas on Wednesday night while we were getting ready for the party and I said, "I am in complete denial about Christmas and I would really like not to discuss that now."

So yes, while everyone else has lost their mind and is in the Walmart and Target and mall knocking over other patrons to get to the microfiber fleece jackets on sale for $12.99 or the DVD players or whatever the HELL it is they feel compelled to buy, I might manage to go to the library.
God knows I never need to eat again.

Ever. In this lifetime.

Do you realize we still have oysters?
And of course...cheese.

But wait. Oh god. Wait.
Thank god for the internet because since I started writing this I have discovered and WHY DIDN'T I KNOW THIS? SOMEONE IS NOT DOING THEIR JOB!!! there is a documentary of the Rolling Stones which has been playing on HBO (which I fucking have) for a week now, a WEEK! and it's going to be on today and also tonight and so yes, I have reason to live and I also discovered a video of some old footage from the eighties which is of the Stones playing with Muddy Waters and it's so cool that if humans decided to send a definition of cool into outer space so that aliens would know what cool is, this would be what they would send.

Maybe. Well, if I was in charge.











Yeah. It's long. You probably won't watch it. I don't care. I might watch it again.

And so, once again, I have been saved by the power and the glory of music and one of the best things about this video is that it was filmed at the Checkerboard Lounge in Chicago and although I've never been there, I've been to plenty of other places enough like it that I know that vibe, I know that woman carrying glasses around that Keith hugs before he goes on stage. I know what she sounds like when she says, "Baby," and it's as cool and as music as Muddy when he sings, "Baby, let me be your dog," and of course more so than when Mick sings it which is still cooler than anything I'll ever say or sing.

All right. I swear to god, I have written this sober even though it surely doesn't sound like it.
If you are new here and have no idea what my obsession with Keith Richards is about that is okay. I don't know what it's about either.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving, y'all.
Step away from the pie.

Love...Ms. Moon Who Would Be Your Dog

Yeah. Feels Like Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving countdown is going just as it should, meaning I have made one side dish, the dogs appear to be sick, my knee hurts, the washing machine is still sitting in there, broken, and the laundry is piling up and Owen is coming today and tomorrow and the party is tomorrow. And then, you know, Thanksgiving is the next day.

I went to the Costco yesterday and bought stuff for the party. I bought a turkey. I went to Publix and bought more stuff for Thanksgiving. I brought Owen home and we played for many hours and Lily came over after work and we all had supper and the fence in the backyard is draped with wet things that were in the washing machine when it broke and also two rugs, and the rug in the entry way to the house is going to the trash and so are those other rugs but I don't have a damn truck, I have a Prius, and Mr. Moon is on his way to work and to possibly buy a washing machine and he is driving the truck.

Yes, yes. I know. We have the money to buy a washing machine and for that, I am eternally grateful. I feel like the fucking 1%. I probably am.

Also, we have the money to buy food for the party and also beer and so forth. And we have a truck.

This year I swore I was only going to do the turkey. And the stuffing. Yep. That's it. The kids can do the rest. They agreed. Then all of a sudden I was thinking, "Oh wait. Gotta do the greens. Uh-huh." Then I found sweet potatoes tumbling into my hands at the Publix. And apples. And raisins. Why did I forget brown sugar? I did buy butter. And of course there are the two types of cranberries, the cranberry/orange/apple/pecan relish which May and I love and also, the plain berries kind which I mostly make because they are so beautiful in the bowl. And what about pies? The pecan pies. I have to make the pecan pies. The regular and the chocolate.

My knee hurts. I asked Mr. Moon who studied things like hurt knees in college what does it mean if it hurts here but is not swollen there? If it feels icky when you press on the knee cap. If it pops when you walk. He said something about patellar tendinitis. 
"Ice it," he said.
Well of course. You always ice it. Who has time to ice a knee cap?

My hand hurts too. Did I mention that? I slammed it into a door on my way through it the other day. Completely just slammed my hand by accident as I passed through a doorway. No anger was involved. When I did it, I said, "Boy, that hurts." Then I tried to forget about it.
Forget THAT.

Oh well. This is the way it is. It's okay. It's always okay. It's just a gathering (two gatherings) of loved ones. No big deal. For the party I'll make a big bowl of pasta and set out chips and dips. I have paper plates. I have plastic forks. I suppose that beer will show up somehow. I think that Mr. Moon will get oysters. Oh Lord. I forgot crackers and horseradish.

Oh Lord.

If only the dogs weren't sick. If only I had a washing machine. If only the rugs weren't draped over the fence. If only...

I'll light candles. If the dogs die, the dogs die. We'll get a washing machine.
Bruce Springsteen is coming out with a new album next year. CD. Collection of songs you can download. Whatever. I am going to Cozumel for Christmas. We're getting a new grandbaby in March. I have hot and cold running water. I have the four most wonderful human beings in the entire universe as my very own personal children. I have a husband who, well, I want to die in his arms. Not any time soon, but eventually. I do not need embroidered samplers to remind myself to be grateful.
Hey. I'm grateful for THAT fact.
And it's not the kind of grateful where you have to huddle around a fire made of cow chips and eat gruel and say, "Thank god we have cow chips!" and everyone chimes in to say, "Bless us every one!" and I take up my crutches and hobble outside to wash the gruel pot in snow.

So yeah, the Thanksgiving countdown is going well and just as it should and just as it goes every Thanksgiving and there are still about fifty percocets or some sort of pain drug in the freezer leftover from three years ago when Jessie had her knee operated on and if I'm really, really lucky, I'll get a bottle of anejeo rum and won't screw up the gravy and the dogs will die.

Just kidding about that last part!

Love...Ms. Moon

A Different But Wonderful Thanksgiving

First let me state that I am on Percocet so if this doesn't make a lot of sense, there's a good reason.

Second- Happy Thanksgiving!


Yesterday was wonderful. The party was amazing. There were babies and children and at least forty adults showed up. Some of my very, very favorite people in the entire world. People I've known and loved for almost forty years. People I have I known and loved for a much shorter time but that's hardly the point. My kids, my grandson, my husband. My loves!
It was so warm everyone set up chairs around the fire and the music was there. Two violins, a guitar, a banjo, a cello, a mandolin. Voices! There were voices! And the round moon rose up and shown down and the music rose up to meet it and oh, honeys. It was so good.

There was even a little dancing. Which, to make a long story short, is why I'm on Percocet. Well, that and the fact that I picked up Owen about fifty times yesterday. At least. And these knees- well. They've been heading in the blow-out direction for awhile. I knew better than to dance but come on. I even danced by myself in the hallway yesterday afternoon. I couldn't help it. Bruce was singing and I was happy and so I indulged in my favorite form of prayer and I danced. And I danced with Owen so many times over the course of the day. And then when Kathleen got up and danced in the moonlight, I danced with her and May danced with us, too, and I'll never forget that, ever.

And then, oh well. I was talking to Liz and I felt something in my knee just change. Oh my, I thought. Oh dear.

I didn't sleep very much last night and when I got up, I couldn't bear weight on my left leg. I hobbled out to the porch to discover that Hank and May and Lily were all already up. UP! And everything was fine. I was not the first person up on Thanksgiving morning and the world did not come to an end! The sun was shining, the water still ran in the pipes and came out of the faucets.
And then...my children made the stuffing and got the turkey in the oven and are cooking the greens and everything else. Everything. I sat in the kitchen with my leg up, and told them what to do and Hank said that his broccoli casserole was gourmet and May said, "Uh-uh. My food is gourMAY. Yours is gourHANK!" And then we got into a bit of "that's what she said," and I was laughing so hard and then I took a Percocet and now I'm on Mr. Moon's recliner with ice on my knee and am stoned to the gills on a narcotic and if I want something, all I have to do is ask.

IS THIS THE BEST THANKSGIVING EVER OR WHAT???

All it took for me to give up control was a blown knee and a strong drug.

Hank and May have gone to Wakulla Springs for dinner with their other parents and assorted family but they'll be back soon and the kids and the grandson and the husband are taking a walk and here I am, cozy and not in pain and the house is beginning to smell like turkey and cornbread stuffing and greens and if I were any more peaceful and calm I'd be dead.

Which I am not.

Wow.

Let us give thanks. For music under the moon and for friends and for family. For venison smoking outside and turkey roasting in the oven. For greens from the garden and baby boy kisses. For children who grow up and cook Thanksgiving and for husbands and son-in-laws who hunt. For a beautiful sunny warm day and breezes that are making my wind chimes sing.
And for Percocet.
Oh yes.
For Percocet.

And for Ms. Fleur who just came by and brought us vats of mashed potatoes.

Oh my.

I've said it before- I'll say it again- I am the luckiest woman on earth. And yes, I may be on drugs, but I know it's true.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Loving you...Me

Rocking On

After watching a two hour PBS special on John Lennon last night, I went to sleep to dream of George W. Bush.
I am not kidding.
Why did he crawl out from under that rock in Texas and make himself part of my consciousness again? Why?
In my dream he called some hens "guys." I said to him, "Those are hens. They are females."
We were in a giant department store.

So, okay.

Jessie's here. Everything will be under control. Owen's coming for the day. I have approximately one third of the house slightly clean. The dogs' bedding has been washed. All the sheets have been washed and the beds remade. The rugs have been washed. I need to risk death and take the turkey out to thaw as it is still in the bowling ball stage of defrosting (i.e. not defrosting).

I have rehearsal tonight.

I haven't bought rolls.

Well, what are you going to do?

I had an epiphany yesterday. I am not a Christian. Thus, I do not need to celebrate Christmas. Thank-you very much.
I told Jessie about this. She asked if the kids would all still get money and could we just do stockings?
I told her yes.

Oh boy.

Well, one thing at a time. Mr. Moon has asked for a list. It will be comprised of this:

Oysters
Beer
Rum

He can handle that. Maybe I'll push my luck and have him pick up rolls too.

What are you doing today? Do you have a fourteen-month old who can dust mop?
I didn't think so.

Love...Ms. Moon

Sunday Before Thanksgiving, 2010

The chickens are getting their new feathers in and starting to look lovely, which is nice because they were not looking so good for awhile. Molting is hard on a bird, I now realize. Egg production went down to zero and is just starting to pick up again. I haven't seen Elvis covering the hens the way he normally does (i.e. constantly) either and so perhaps the lovely ladies get a break from his attentions during molting. I'm sure I could look that up but I'd rather just observe and make assumptions.

Shalayla, his most-bedded bride, was looking like death on a cracker just a few weeks ago. Not only was she barebacked from his fucking but also, in an attempt to escape him, had flown into the yard with the dogs and Buster attacked her. Her back looked like, well, a skinned chicken and was bloody. I did not have much hope for her but smeared antibiotic ointment with golden seal powder in it (my cure-all) over her wounds and was resigned that she might not make it.
She looks amazing now. Her feathers have grown in and you'd never know the poor dear had been so close to death. She is still scared of Elvis and I didn't get her picture this morning because she runs under the shed as soon as he looks her way but you can trust me- for now, she looks damn good.

Here's Miss Daffodil. She is creamy and purely white now, her feathers fresh and lovely. I just this morning noticed how beautiful she's become.

Miss Bob has such gorgeous patterns of black and brown and white and golden feathers. We named her Miss Bob because she looked like a quail as a peep. She's a handsome thing.

Elvis's tail feathers are growing back but it's this design which enchants me. His breast is a magnificent patterned work of black-and-white art.

I do love my chickens.

Now. Not to segue, but let's discuss Thanksgiving.

I cooked my first entire Thanksgiving meal when I was twenty-two years old. Hank was five months old, exclusively breast-feeding for his nourishment, and I was three months pregnant. Yes. I eventually lost that baby but when I cooked the Thanksgiving, I was definitely pregnant. My ex-husband's mother and her boyfriend came to eat with us and I still have some of the recipes she'd sent me beforehand. One for cornbread dressing, one for gravy. I think. I'm too lazy to get up and look.
Anyway, I made that dinner and we all crowded into the tiny kitchen of the apartment where we lived and ate it and I was so exhausted when it was over that I thought I'd die. My mother-in-law gave me the greatest gift of all times in offering to put up the left-overs. I let her do that and went and took a nap with Hank and I'll never forget that kindness.

That was thirty-four years ago.

Since then, I believe I have cooked Thanksgiving dinner every year but one. I could be wrong. I know that one year, though, Mr. Moon and I ran away to Dog Island where I did not cook a turkey but did, in fact, bake a chicken with stuffing and made cranberries. So, in a way, I cooked that year too, but just for the two of us.

And here I am, four days before Thanksgiving, 2010 and I am wondering how in the world I can do this again. Getting a supper on the table is a bit of a struggle for me now, although of course I do it. I believe I will still be able to cook when I'm dead. Or at least, when I'm almost dead. Or partially dead. If there's one thing I can do, it is cook. Always and forever, I can cook.

Part of the problem with Thanksgiving is that we have fallen into a ritual of having a party the night before Thanksgiving. This party arose from nothing. I have never organized a damn thing. It's just the night when people are in town who have moved away and it started like that. Music, mostly, because so many of these people are musicians and then other people started to come and the kids' friends started to come and now, all of a sudden, it's engraved in stone, this party.

I told Hank last week that I wasn't sure I wanted to do it this year.
"Oh, no," he said, "It's happening."
Well.

The first year this event happened, I did nothing food-wise but cook some frozen ravioli and pour bottled sauce over it and set out some bread. I mean- it's the night before Thanksgiving. And Mr. Moon bought oysters and shucked them in the backyard and grilled some and so there were crackers and cocktail sauce and hot sauce. Maybe some chips. I don't remember.

As the party has grown, though, it feels as if I need to do more and last year there had to be at least forty people here and although I don't remember the food, I am sure there was a lot of it.
And drink, too, of course.
And music. Which is still the purpose of the party in my mind. Hearing these old friends play music together, some of them whom I've been listening to for almost forty years, is such a joy to me. The kids sing and Jessie plays mandolin, and Melissa plays banjo and that night has become the most magical night of the entire year in some ways.
So. Yes. I need to have that party.

The main problem arises when the next morning rolls around. Most of the kids spend the night and when I get up to make the stuffing and get the turkey in the oven and start the greens, I am the only one awake and some years I hardly qualify in the awakeness department, but I get up and cook anyway. Last year Hank got up to pee and there I was in the kitchen, apron on, up to my elbows in cornbread and sauteed celery and onions, the turkey draining in the sink and I said, "You know, none of you children ever gets up to watch me cook the turkey. None of you knows how to cook a turkey. What would you do if I was gone?"
And Hank looked at me and said, "Wake up Jessie." And then he went back to bed.

Now I have to be honest and tell you that every child makes a casserole. Hank makes a broccoli casserole, Jessie the spinach and artichoke casserole, Lily the green bean casserole (yes, with cream of mushroom soup and the crunchy onions) and May always brings some amazing vegetable dish of squashes, usually.
So in theory, I don't have THAT much to do.

But as we all know, theory and reality hardly ever meet on the path of life. Not in my life, anyway.

There is the salad to make and the greens to cook and the pies to bake, the giblets to boil and pick over to make gravy with, the bread to make and the rice and then May and I always VOW not to make mashed potatoes but then, at the last minute, we do. And the cranberries, of course, two kinds. And the sweet potatoes. And the veggie tray and the pickles and olives and cheese and crackers and the pesto-stuffed mushrooms and, and, and...

Oh yes. The iced tea. Sweet and un. Lemons to cut or limes.

And by the time it's all over, I have cooked my ass off for days, spent hundreds of dollars, thrown a party right in the middle of it, and everyone sits down to eat and in half an hour, it's done.
DONE. Except for the kitchen where gravy is cooling and gelling in the pan and the turkey lies with its bones sticking out and no matter how many times I wash the dishes throughout the day as I cook (dozens), every damn pan in the house is dirty again by the time we're done eating.

Thirty-four years of this.

THIRTY-FOUR FUCKING YEARS.

So this morning I sat on my porch and tried to figure out if it would make me feel worse, at this juncture in my life, to have the party and the Thanksgiving dinner or not to.

I have decided, (big shock here) that I have to do it.

BUT- I am hereby putting everyone on notice- the pies are going to come from Costco. I am going to make the turkey and the dressing and the cranberries. And the greens.
Y'all can do the rest. If you want sweet potatoes, make some damn sweet potatoes. Same for all the rest.
Okay. I'll make the gravy.
I'm buying rolls. Forget the angel biscuits. JUST GET OVER IT- NO ANGEL BISCUITS!
And I'm not whipping cream.

I'll probably make the rice BUT AS GOD IS MY WITNESS THERE WILL BE NO MASHED POTATOES. WE DO NOT NEED MASHED POTATOES!

Someone else can make the damn salad. There's enough arugula in the garden to make a salad the size of New Jersey. Someone else can make the tea. I don't know why, but I hate making the tea.

And there is no sit-down time to eat it all up in half an hour. Hank, May, and Lily and Jason all have other places they have to be during the day for another family meal so y'all can come here and eat when you want. There will be food. Help yourself.

I'll probably be in bed. Or sitting in the porch swing and weeping, drinking straight out of the rum bottle.

It would be nice if someone brought me a sandwich. Thank-you.

And now I need to put on a bra and go to town and buy the turkey so it can thaw so I can pull the giblets out and boil them to put some in the stuffing. And oh yes, buttermilk and corn meal so I can make the cornbread for the stuffing. And buy food for the party.

And rum. Which I may not share with anyone.

Yes. We will have Thanksgiving because I am thankful for my family and because I can cook and therefore, I do.

I'm pretty sure this will not be the last you'll hear about Thanksgiving. Stay tuned.

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Upon rereading this, I realize that Hank comes out sounding a bit bossy. He's not bossy. Okay, sometimes he is. But mostly, he just loves ritual and he loves his mama's cooking and frankly, that makes his mama happy.
So Hank- I love you. Thanks for keeping me in mind of what I was so obviously put here on earth to do. You want to make the sweet potatoes? Let me know.
Love...Yo Mama

Not Quite Freakin' Time

So Mr. Moon went out and bought a new camera before he went to Canada. He took a lot of pictures there of dead deer. I won't be posting those.

But I spent some time this morning with the new toy, just walking around and trying out different settings. It's a fancy camera. One I never would have bought. I would have bought one of those cameras about as big as a credit card, you know. But Mr. Moon is a MAN and men like their toys to be impressive and have lots of features and so forth. So this new camera does. I really don't know shit about it. I read the "Getting started" booklet but to really learn about it, you have to watch a CD.

Right. I can't even watch an entire episode of Project Runway these days.

Well, anyway, it's three days before Thanksgiving and you know damn well I have plenty to do besides walking around taking pictures of things you've seen a million times. Besides the dinner, which I don't even know how many are attending, there is the Thanksgiving Eve gathering which seems to grow bigger every year and I don't know how many are attending that one either.
You know me. I stress out if the guy is coming to cut the grass so why aren't I in a straight jacket by now?

Oh well. I have no idea.
Not enough coffee, I guess.
And because it's just too overwhelming to really freak out about.

My house is filthy and that dead thing under the guest room is taking its own sweet time in returning to dust.
The library, where the dogs live, stinks to high heaven of dogs.
There is, speaking of dust, plenty of it. All three bathrooms need a good cleaning. To tell the truth, the entire house needs a good cleaning and this alone can take three days. Even if I clean the hell out of it, it's not going to do a thing for the smell.

And we haven't even mentioned the food.
Nor will we right this second. I might have a heart attack.

So I've got cleaning, shopping, cooking and whatever all else to do. Call Mr. Moon and remind him to buy chicken feed and oysters and beer.

And I have not seen Owen since Friday! FRIDAY! Here's what he looked like then:

I see that picture and all thoughts fly out of my head and are replaced with the need to fly to him immediately and hold him.

I better get busy, I suppose.
Here's some of the pictures I took this morning:


The latch on the chicken house door.

My stairway using the "indoors with life-like color tone" feature. Yeah. Sort of.


Camellia.


Guard flamingos.


Library. Which stinks to high heaven of dog.


Collards which will be in a pot by Thursday.


"Art." Haha. Shut up. I love that picture.


Elvis. The rooster-in-training. Boy, he is getting so big and his voice is so deep. He may turn out to the the manliest, macho-est, roostersaureous in the neighborhood. I'm keeping him on my good side. "Grape, Elvis? Here are you."

And I guess that's it for now. I need to have one more cup of coffee so that I can truly appreciate the impossible tasks I have before me.

And yeah, I've got to take the date thing off the camera's setting. This is not working for me.

I hope everyone is planning a lovely Thanksgiving. I know I would be if I could think about it. Luckily, I could probably cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner in my sleep and this year, unlike last, I have an oven that works! It will all unfold as it should.
Or as it will, at least.

Now I MUST go kiss my grandson who I have no doubt misses me with a yearning the size of the Himalayas. And then I guess I'll drop by the grocery store and pick up a few thousand dollars worth of food and cleaning supplies.

I love the holidays. Don't you?

At Least The TV Is Working

Well, the oven isn't working and there's a nineteen pound turkey stuffed up the butt with cornbread dressing and about ten casseroles and angel biscuits to cook.

Now what?

We'll figure something out.

But the party?

Oh yes.

Some pictures follow.

Happy Thanksgiving and love from North Florida where the turkey may be done by this time tomorrow.



Old friends.



A girl and her daddy.



Billy and Downtown Guy.




Miss Maybelle and her brother, DTG.





Miss HoneyLuna and her sweetie.

Lily is not represented here because by the time she and Jason got off work, no one was working the camera. It was late.

I hear that after I went to bed at one-thirty, Miss HL and Jason both discovered that they could indeed crawl through the dog door.

I only wish I had a picture of that.

HoneyLuna Is Practicing Her Dance Moves In Preparation For Tonight's Event

The highlight of last Thanksgiving was a spontaneous combustion of a throw-down party the night before which made the actual Thanksgiving Day feast a definitive study in anticimaticism.

Yeah. I don't think that's a word, either, Spellchecker.

And oh boy, here we go again.

I started getting calls last week. The ex called and wanted to know if we were going to be doing that night-before Thanksgiving thing. I said I had no idea but that he and the wife should come on over because all the kids would be here and to bring guitars.

Then yesterday his old best friend from childhood, the man whom I moved to Tallahassee because of (long story) called to ask if we were going to be doing it again.

Yes, I said. I guess we will be.

I hope he remembers his fiddle.

I called the Sauce Boss, and he and his wife are probably coming over and I'm sure he'll bring a guitar. Billy and Shayla and Billy's mama are coming and two of my brothers will be here and who knows who else will show up?

I don't.

It seems rather insane to throw a party the night before Thanksgiving, doesn't it?

I keep it low key. I boil some frozen tortellinis and throw those in a bowl with pasta sauce, heat up some bread and make a salad. There you go.

Hopefully, Mr. Moon will locate some oysters.

Surely there will be beer and perhaps a bottle of rum to warm up our insides because for some reason, everyone ends up on my skinny porch and it's cold, baby. Perhaps Mr. Moon will drag the fire pit a bit closer to the house. Nothing says Thanksgiving like a fire pit and some oyster shucking. And home made music. And people you only get to see once a year, most of whom you've known since we were younger than the "kids" are now. And seeing those kids playing music with the old ones, some of whom play music for a living but on this night are playing for the joy of it, just like in the old days, everyone singing and dancing, too. The joy in my heart when all this comes about, to look around and see faces and hear voices from my past, my present, my always. Bonds formed criss-cross and straight-across and catty-cornered and all pieced together until we're like some crazy quilt stitched long ago so tight and so strong that you just want to wrap yourself up in it and dream away all darkness.

As I start to stress out about all the work I have not yet done but which must be done before tonight, before tomorrow, I force myself to think about what the Beatles said, which is that all you need is love.

Corny?

Oh hell yes.

True?

I think so. I believe so.

And something else they said:

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Tonight I'll be reminded of how much love I've made, because if tonight's gathering is anything like last year's, I'll be taking in so much love that my heart will feel as if it's bursting.

And that, my babies, is worth more than a clean house.

And that, my loves, is worth more than anything.

Post Script: Any of you bloggers out there who might want to join us tonight, call me or e-mail me. There will be loaves and fishes.

I'm Old But Not That Old

I just got back from the grocery store having spent approximately nine thousand dollars and that was just the preliminary Thanksgiving shopping.

This is how I do it:
On Monday before Thanksgiving I go without a list. I just browse the aisles and get a few things I know I'll need including sweet potatoes, oranges, cranberries, baking chocolate, crackers, cheese, olives, pickles, white potatoes, cream cheese, sour cream, pecans, brown sugar, the pasta I'll be cooking for the night-before-Thanksgiving celebration, apple cider, butter, marshmallows, etc.

Oh yes, also the turkey.

And Easy Off oven cleaner which is a fucking misnomer if I ever heard one.

I was sort of reeling and feeling like oh god, why do I have to do this again when I passed a little old lady with a green corduroy coat on who also had a shopping cart full of the ingredients for a real, home-made Thanksgiving dinner. She could barely see over her cart and was going at about a one-mile-a-day speed down the aisle and I immediately shut up the whining in my head.
Hell, if she can do it, I can do it.
I suddenly felt about twenty years younger and a whole lot stronger than I had before.

I was telling my daughter Lily about this as she was helping me load the car with my groceries (Lily is the beautiful smiling girl behind the counter at my local Publix) and she told me that she'd seen two people who were SO old and SO fragile that it had taken BOTH of them to lift the turkey into their cart. Together.

Can you imagine that? Can't you just see it? Doesn't that just make you want to cry?

What can I say but Bless Their Hearts and that I need to do what I told the Pope to do and shut the fuck up and go make make my cranberry relish.

And a real grocery list. Because you know I didn't get nearly everything I'll need before this feasting is over.

But honestly, I do hope that by the time I'm so old that it takes both me and Mr. Moon to hoist a turkey into the cart, Lily or one of the other kids will be cooking the Thanksgiving dinner and I can show up with a jello salad and a six pack, find a place to sit and wait for dinner to be served.

If Music Be The Food Of Love....

Well, it's all over except for the vat o' turkey soup in the refrigerator and a cooler with some oysters in it.
Okay, that and the new roll of fat that makes buttoning our jeans even more of a challenge. I swear, next year we're having pinto beans and rice for Thanksgiving dinner and maybe, if I'm feeling really productive, I'll make some cornbread and if you want dessert you can pour some syrup over a chunk of that.
I say this because despite the fact that on Thursday we had a feast that couldn't be beat, the real Thanksgiving, the good part, the sweetest part, the most magical and joyous part happened the night before and had nothing to do with turkey or sweet potatoes or even pecan pie.
There was food, but it was just a big bowl of pasta with jarred sauce and some salad. And a cooler full of oysters. There were beverages too.
But what made it so special and what made it so magic was the people and the music.
A sort of spontaneous party arose Wednesday night that made me about as happy as I've ever been in my life. The sort of party that almost never, in my experience, actually happens. The sort of party that warmed this old house and this old heart in ways I can't explain. There was family and sort-of-family and friends so old that they might as well be family and new people that are now family and we all had the very best time. I think everyone did, anyway. It sure seemed like it.
There was music- fiddle, guitar, mandolin and singing. There was dancing. There was hugging and oyster-eating and beer drinking and rum drinking and soda drinking and there was a lot of laughter and there was a lot of light and the dogs went from lap to lap, getting the overflow of the love.
It reminded me of the old days when we were younger and music was made for the joy of it and the babies were little and our hearts were lighter and our feet were too. The babies have grown up and it brings me more joy than I can say to have them sing and play and dance to the old songs with us old folks. Really, more than I can say.
It was the kind of night that I wished could never end, but of course it had to. The musicians played Good Night Irene and we all sang and then begged for ONE more and we got it, but then it was really time for the instruments to be put away. Folks started thinking about the turkeys they had to get in the oven the next morning and the pies they had to make and so it all ended. There were more good hugs and promises for same-time-next-year and drive carefully's and my husband washed the dishes and we all made a desultory attempt to bag up the bottles and cans and paper plates and then it was time for bed.
I laid there awake for a few minutes, buzzing with it all. I thought about how good it had been to see folks that I've known and loved since high school, about how proud I am that my ex-husband and his wife and my husband and I are all good friends and how our kids have benefited from that. I thought about how precious it was to see my daughter playing music with folks I've been lucky enough to listen to for over thirty years. I thought about how wonderful it had been to meet a few new people whom I felt like I'd known forever. I thought about how I'd been wanting to have a party like this since I laid eyes on this house. And I thought about how damn lucky I am. How rare it is to have an evening where so many parts of the whole cloth of a life come together to make one vibrant, glowing quilt of joy.
It was as if the whole map of my life had been laid out right there on my back porch and I could trace the history of it through this person, through that bloodline, all the while listening to the songs that have made me happy for a lifetime. The songs that may have, at one time or another, saved my life, played by the people who may have done the same.
And then I slept in my house where all my children were, and when I woke up I felt the same way.
I still do.
You just can't get better than that. The feast we had the next day was terrific and the people there were other parts of the quilt, the map, the whole of my life, but it was different. It was more work and less music, more clean-up and less joy. It was more about the food and less about the love.
But I got both parts and that makes me just about the luckiest woman on earth. Friends and family that blur into one, along with a feast.
And now I have the memories and the turkey soup and it's really good turkey soup. And the oysters, which I will make into some oyster stew tonight for my husband. He loves oyster stew because his mama used to make it for him. He swears she didn't put a thing in that stew but oysters, cream, butter, salt and pepper. I am almost congenitally unable to make a dish so simple, but I'll try to recreate his mother's oyster stew as best as I can because I know what it's like to taste something that brings back the memories of happy times. His mama and daddy are gone now but I can hopefully bring them back in his heart just a little with the taste of salty oysters, sweet butter and black pepper.
Because food is love. And music is love. And on Wednesday night, everywhere I looked was love. I drank it in, it filled my heart and it spills out now.
I swear, I could have done like my dogs and gone from lap to lap. Well, maybe not. Only dogs can get away with that sort of thing. We poor humans have to get ours in other, a bit more subtle ways.
But we clumsy humans do get it sometimes. Sometimes, we do.
Wednesday night I sure did.
And it has left me filled with Thanks-giving in a way that pecan pie never will.

Thanksgivings I Have Known

It's funny. I don't specifically remember any of my childhood Thanksgivings. My mother doesn't really like to cook , but she did it, and she put on a very adequate spread every year.
She always made the turkey with a regular type dressing (Pepperidge Farm was involved) and other traditional dishes including broccoli with Cheez Whiz melted over it, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. I don't fault her for the Cheez Whiz- she was a cook of her time and Cheez Whiz was really quite the treat at our house. If a gun was put to my head, I'd have to admit that I still love that unnaturally yellow goop, as well as it's more solidified cousin, Velveeta.
I don't consider either Cheez Whiz or Velveeta to be cheeses, but just some other random foods, and therefore it's okay to like them. I don't actually eat them, but I know they're out there, just in case I get an overwhelming craving for their golden, chemical goodness.
I do remember distinctly a Thanksgiving when I was attending University of Denver. It wasn't feasible for me to fly all the way back to Florida when Christmas was coming up so soon, so I stayed in the dorm while all the other kids packed up to go home or to Aspen to ski. A great many of the students at DU were skiiers, which is why they chose the school to begin with but I only knew about water skiing and the one time I did try snow skiing I almost fell off the mountain.
Anyway, it was me and the Girl from Hawaii in the room next door, all alone in that great big dorm. Somehow she had an invitation to a Thanksgiving dinner and may have even asked me to come with her. However, I was in intense Martyr Training, I guess, and had decided to take the opportunity to fast for four days and so spent that Thanksgiving NOT eating, probably lying on my bed and reading and listening to the Bonnie Raitt album, Love Has No Pride and the Joni Mitchell album, Blue, and as you can imagine, it was not a very happy holiday.
I also remember the Thanksgiving I did go home and made the whole wheat rolls for the feast. I remember this because they were such hard lumps of bread and my poor little Granny, sprung from the nursing home for the dinner, upon trying to eat one, asked, "What is this?" and upon being told that it was a roll, she asked, "Must I eat it?"
Ah me.
The first Thanksgiving I cooked all by myself was in a little apartment on Miccosukee Road that my first husband and I lived in with our five-month old son, Hank. My mother-in-law and her boyfriend came for dinner and she was a saint and did all the clean-up and I still use the recipe she sent me beforehand for cornbread stuffing. Hank grew up to live in that apartment himself, many years later, but I don't think he ever cooked a turkey there.
Since then, I've probably hosted Thanksgiving every year but for a few. This totals out to at last twenty-five of them and you'd think I'd be completely at ease doing it by now, but you'd be wrong. I've developed an eye-twitch in the last few days and I know it's because I can't figure out how I'm going to get everything in the refrigerator that needs to be there and also, because I always worry that I won't have all the dishes done on time and together and mainly that there won't be enough food which is absolutely ridiculous. But still, I must worry and for example, yesterday after I bought the turkey I decided that it just wasn't big enough and have prevailed upon my husband to smoke another outside just in case. So there will be two turkeys, a pot of black-eyed peas, oysters, and hopefully a big pot of venison pozole, just for the protein needs.
There won't be any Cheez Whiz (dammit) but there will be many casseroles wherein perfectly healthy and nutritious vegetables will be rendered into junk food with the addition of "french-fried" onion rings, Campbell's soups, and regular, real cheese. I'd change all that up if I could, but the kids would revolt. I will cook a pot of greens and make a salad from the garden (that chicken shit is working, folks!) and so that'll be healthy enough.
There will be pies, a rice thing, sweet potatoes (and yes, they will have tiny marshmallows on top), two kinds of cranberries, one a relish and one the traditional whole-berry sauce and I make that just because it's so damn beautiful. Good God! It's like rubies you can eat. And gravy (Juancho?) and angel biscuits and oh, I don't know what all else. Every year I put my foot down and say, "No mashed potatoes!" and I mean it, and then I end up making them anyway. But not this year and I really mean it.
But really, it's not about the food anyway. I don't remember what all I cooked the first Thanksgiving that I stuffed a turkey (beyond the turkey, anyway), but I remember my baby at the table and my dear mother-in-law and her long-time boyfriend and my then-husband.
And when we sit down this year, I'll remember all the people who have sat at my various tables for Thanksgiving and I'll have a moment of silence for the ones who aren't here any more. It seems to me that there are too many of those.
That first mother-in-law died years ago. The incredibly precious folks who were my now-husband's parents who died way too young and I miss them with all my heart. My sister-in-law died two years ago and she won't be here, but I'll light a candle for her. My dear friend Sue, who always came to eat with us, left a huge hole in my heart with her passing.
My friend Lynn, who lives in the nursing home came and ate with us two years ago but she isn't leaving the facility these days. Back when she was healthy, we had a tradition where she would come over early, while I was still cooking, just to have a drink with me and then we'd do a little dance to maybe some Jimmy Buffett and she'd taste whatever I had going on, food-wise before leaving to go to her mother's house. Although she's technically still with us, she won't be here for a sip of rum and a hip-shaking dance in the hallway and I miss that more than I can say.
But there will be lots of other good folks here and we'll carry on the traditions as best we can. We'll throw tablecloths on various tables and pull up all the mismatched chairs and eat off the mismatched plates and it'll all be good. The kids are going to spend the night and this big old house will be filled up again which I believe makes the house as happy as it makes me. There will be lots of light and laughter and we'll probably play some stupid games and drink too much and the husband and I will go to bed early and the kids'll stay up until all hours doing God knows what, maybe watching Pants Off, Dance Off, which they swear is a real show, but I don't believe it.
Perhaps there will be music and perhaps there will be dancing. There will certainly be eating of leftovers, which is when I can really enjoy the eating part because by the time I get dinner made, all I want is a big old drink and a nap.
Thanksgiving is a good day, even a joyful day for me, despite all the work, the worry, the eye-twitches and the ones who can't be with us.
And let's face it- any Thanksgiving not spent in a dorm in Denver, Colorado, all alone with Joni Mitchell has to be a good one. I'll probably listen to Blue, at least once while I'm cooking, just to remind myself of that and also because it's such a great album.
And I'll think of the ones who can't be with us and I'll sing Oh I could drink a case of you softly as I chop greens or roll out the biscuits and I'll remember snow falling outside a lonely window and I'll look around me to see all my babies and my beloved and lots of friends and I'll be happy.
I hope you are too.