a ghost of thanksgiving past

so...as i plan out my first thanksgiving dinner, i can't help but think backward to thanksgivings past for inspiration.

this kind of thought can take me in a number of ways depending on my mood. it could be nostalgic, culinary, sad, happy, or hilarious.

i am choosing today's ghost to be the nostalgic kind...remembering thanksgiving at my parents home in connecticut as a small child...


i must have been four or five and i can still remember parts of that thanksgiving so clearly. there was a light dusting of snow and my grandparents had traveled north to our home in southbury from danbury to feast with us. i remember walking on our little dead end road with my portuguese grandfather "Dado," holding his hand past the neighbors' yard wondering if my buddy Dave from up the hill would come crashing down it to sled...funny, it was probably my last thanksgiving with Dado, but i can't be sure. the memory has lived quietly for so long i haven't cross-referenced it yet.

our dining room was an often still and dusty, slate floored room that was normally gated at either entrance to keep out our bouncy brittany spaniel, and probably us, the children, as well. it was attached to another room we called the "front room" which was like a parlor...with our nicest furniture and our piano in it. my dollhouse lived in that room, too...and i was allowed to quiety play in it, my little pretend world...a whole other story altogether. i tended to gravitate toward that parlor side of the room which had wood plank flooring, i think. it was warmer, more welcoming on that side. that stone floor was chilly on bare feet...

our long wood dining table would have been set to perfection complete with a table cloth to hide where i had pressed too hard writing my name, permanently tattooing the wood. we would set matching china plates, the good silverware and Mom would whip out decorum to fit the season...the pewter trinkets on the buffet next to the table would have been dusted by one of us children during the day, probably me, in preparation for company. Mom would have stretched up herself to dust the big rustic chandelier over the table.

Mom would have cooked all day...stuffed mushrooms, huge and stuffed full of sausage to start the day's feasting, or so i choose to imagine. the big turkey which she would ask Dad to help her baste. the myriad of side dishs that she would prepare to go with the turkey. two types of stuffing...one with chestnuts, homemade, the other the kind that came from a bag or box. Dad always fought us for the chestnut and we didn't put up much of a fight...back then. there would have been a football game on TV and in the kitchen the stero would be playing Italian Christmas music already...or John Denver.

i think there was probably a big buck hanging out of the tree down near our clubhouse, too...Thanksgiving marked the end of hunting season...and my dad usually was a lucky shot. several years i helped him hang a deer from that tree so the blood would drain, hoisting it with him a rope fixed firmly through the bones of its lifeless ankle. it's that cluster of grisly memories that drove me to be a vegetarian for most of my adolescence. i'm not sure if there was a deer that year though...but to me it seems there should have been, seeing as Dado was a butcher and that this is one of my last memories of him...he died sometime close to this period. of lung cancer, though he didn't even smoke. age 65. and it just seems fitting to have a giant slab of dead meat hanging waiting to be readied to feed out little family for the winter. so i am leaving it in my memory, true or not.

i don't have many memories of him, Dado. but i am thankful for the ones i do have. and i am hoping that my children's grandparents find ways of making lasting memories in the lives of my boys...even if they are mostly due to an early snow...or partially fictionalized due to a melange of childhood memories all wanting to be seen and heard at once. :)

gotta' tell ya'...

raking leaves in 65 degree weather in november with three amazing boys is bliss...

how to seduce your husband...

our tiny little world in a bubble...

i love me a sweet little terrarium. we went walking in the woods yesterday, one of out wonderbrook park tours with our little rat terrier Rontu bouncing along side us all the while. moss was growing everywhere, mushrooms, leaves...everything is starting to decay beautifully.

we couldn't help being inspired to save some of that beauty for the winter! so we built some terrariums! these are photos of the largest ones, the tiny ones were too hard to capture with my crappy camera.

it's really cool, different types of plush moss, tiny mushrooms you cant even see in the photo, and even a little wee fern!

love will rule...some day. and i know my children will see that day.

my children have been so passionately fighting for equal rights this fall right along side of me.

they firmly believe, as do i, that all people deserve equal and fair dignified treatment. that if two people want to have a family together and be married that they have that right innately and that they shouldn't even need to ask anyone's permission.

but they did have to. and we went and voted and petitioned for equal rights for all. no to any form of discrimination we say.

we went to sleep with images of a more just and love-filled world in our heads only to wake up to find that the majority of people in our state voted away the rights of gays and lesbians to be married. the hate-filled, bigoted, ignorant, brain-washed and stupid sector of our voting population prevailed. and the world feels heavy and darker than before.

my heart sunk. a steady flow of tears came down my cheeks as i tried to birth a way of explaining how this happened to my children. i let them sleep late i thought for so long.

when i told them the news, that gays and lesbians are still being discriminated against and that we have yet to win the battle, they both cried. how could they not? and then a little while later, after it had sunk in, we sat down and talked about it.

Bones' reaction was, "why can't those people just live the way they want to live and let other people live how they want to live? it doesn't hurt them!!"

Boo's reaction was, "i still love maine...i love my state, but i am finding it hard to feel love for people that could be so unloving."

and they both have a point. then we talked about the origination of the fear and bigotry that most likely was the cause of this lack of enlightenment. and we decided that we were simply going to wish those people, that type of thought away. we aren't going to give it weight or a place in our lives. we all felt anger and sadness, but we still feel passionate about this cause and we will still fight for it. we will let our anger and sadness be fuel and we will continue the work of having our society be fair and just for ALL people.

crazy. it's just crazy.