 This year we had the quietest, most relaxing Thanksgiving either of us has ever spent. It was the Thanksgiving many childless couples dream of: alone, together, at home, with our cats. No driving. No dressing up. This is also the first year I have been able to cook an entire meal in my own kitchen, with an actual oven and running water, since The Spontaneous Renovation began in 2012. Could I pull it off? If I could do it for just the two of us, then we could eventually entertain, once we replace The Couch of Evil and get a second counter-top in. I already knew about pre-cooked turkey breasts and pumpkin pie at Costco. Since it was just the two of us, why deal with a giant carcass afterwards? And the pie… I bake good pies and homemade pie-crusts, but the Costco pumpkin pies are a force to be reckoned with. So it was mostly the side dishes. We picked roasted yams and Spinach Gratin, along with oven-roasted stuffing, and a mix for those cheddar muffins you get at Red Lobster. Timing would be everything. As I said, I have never done this solo. I have fleeting memories of my father showing me how to sew a turkey closed in the late 1970s, and me and a friend cooking an LA Thanksgiving once when my band played there – but we cooked together. Most other times I was one small cog in the gears of family Thanksgiving preparations. This year I was on my own. Wayne was taking care of environment and entertainment. Work-related issues caused me to commence shopping at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Preparing for an onslaught of anxious crowds, list in hand, I went over to Costco and surprisingly found a good parking space early on. Once inside, I headed straight for the bakery. As I approached, the bakery shelves looked bare. Not one single package of the “Everything” bagels we usually get. I didn’t see any pumpkin pies. A bakery employee informed me there was a 30-minute wait for pumpkin pies, and there was a line over by the side wall. “It goes all the way to the front door!” another man added. I nodded and shuffled off with my empty cart, trying to stay calm as I considered alternatives. I headed over to the meat section where the pre-cooked turkey breasts usually were. They too, were nowhere in sight. I was beginning to worry. I had planned on going over to the Winco supermarket after this. Maybe I would have to bake a pie and cook a whole turkey on my own… sigh… I took a deep breath and invoked my “Let the Best Thing Happen” strategy. Then, rounding a corner, I came upon the turkey breasts, which had been moved to a different location. Whew! I cruised around, filling a prescription and picking up a few other things, trying to decide what to do next. From across the store, I could see that there wasn’t really a line for pumpkin pies all the way to the door. I grumbled something about men exaggerating the sizes of things and wheeled my cart over. The line seemed to be moving. Then it stopped and a female employee came by and told us that there would be another 30-minute wait. I figured I couldn’t make a pumpkin pie in 30 minutes, so what the heck. It was still only around 5:00. More people began arriving. “Is this the proverbial ‘pie line’?” they asked. Others arrived behind me and gasped at the line, but everyone remained friendly. After all, it’s Oregon. I just relaxed and read the entire Costco savings bulletin. Then I messed around with my cell phone. After about 20 minutes the line began moving again. I quickly got my pie, thanked the bakery employees profusely and headed to the checkout lines, which were remarkably short. I picked up the rest of my items at Winco, whose parking lot and checkout lines were also curiously calm. I whispered a quiet thanks to the God of Best Things and drove home. Back to the relaxing day: We got up and made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I had my game plan written out. I’d read all the instructions and made a prep list of the dishes and their cooking times. It’s one thing to show up at a potluck with a single dish, and another, to figure out how everything you cook is going to arrive at the table hot and at the same time. I got started at around noon with the yams and the turkey, which only needed to be heated for an hour. There was good music and the sun was streaming through the windows. My only two stumbling blocks were 1. When I accidentally dropped the plastic bag from the stuffing onto a burner on the stove and it caught fire. I quickly extinguished it and scraped the remains off the stove-top, and 2. The right butt-muscle I’d pulled in yoga the other day was slowing me down, causing me to limp around the kitchen. I took some Advil and kept going. My late mother, who would have been 90 today, watched over me from her photograph on the windowsill above the sink. All things considered, we sat down to a delicious dinner at 2:30, only ½ hour after I’d originally planned. Since Wayne doesn’t have more than three drinks in an entire year, he was perfectly happy with root beer while I enjoyed my beloved Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. We never even changed out of our pajama pants. Several hours, a movie and a phone call from dear friends later, we had the coveted pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. Sound good? We have leftovers. Come on over. 
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 Validation, a major player in both my husband’s diligent work in self-awareness and the advancement of our thriving marriage, can also occur in the least likely places.
Take for example, my youthful habit of talking to myself. Alone, I often spun yarns of great fantasy and detail. In the bathroom, I could be heard telling stories of skiing adventures, reciting Shakespearean passages, Lily Tomlin monologues, or just plain talking to the spirits I imagined to be lingering in the air over the bathtub, heartily appreciating story after story. Maybe it was my own form of self-validation. Luckily, my parents did not send me to an institution, although more often than not, they would inquire, “Who the heck are you talking to?” I was sent to the school psychologist, whereupon I commenced drawing pictures of trees whose limbs intertwined. The psychologist seemed pleased, so I never returned. I did however, feel unfairly branded as the family weirdo for this habit which I finally curtailed upon entering college. Since then, I’ve restrained myself to making sparse comments out loud when I’m working alone, harsh, profane expletives while driving, and of course, talking to our cats, often putting words into their mouths so we can have a proper conversation. I’ve been developing and honing my “cat voice” since college, when it was first demonstrated by a talented roommate. Cats seem to feel more comfortable when you raise the pitch of your voice to meet theirs, she explained. It was one of the high-points of my college life. The greatest validation of my life occurred recently while reading a book by one of my favorite authors of all time, Tom Robbins. (My life had been irrevocably changed for the better back in 1976, when I read Even Cowgirls Get The Blues during my first cross-country trip.) Reading Tibetan Peace Pie, A True Account of an Imaginative Life not long ago, I came across this passage: “Consider, for example, my ‘talking stick.’ “Although this activity began sporadically a year or two earlier, and continued in an abbreviated, more surreptitious fashion for a year or two after, its golden age was my time in Warsaw, roughly between the ages of eleven and sixteen. It involved me making up stories and telling them to myself while I beat the ground with a long stick.”[1] Can you imagine my delight upon discovering this? Oh, the validation! The authentication! The substantiation! Not only has one of the heroes of my life divulged a childhood passion for talking to himself, but his style has out-classed mine in every possible way. Further down, he continues, “…from the back porch my parents had a clear view of their only son talking to himself for hours on end while attacking the earth with a rough length of sapling.” And, “I was hell on lawns.”[1] Take heart, those of you who feel stigmatized by such a habit. And certainly, buy this book and read it. In fact, if you’ve lived this long and not read any Tom Robbins, put it on your bucket list and get moving! My brief interlude with Tom Robbins: My one exchange with my literary hero occurred at a book signing for Villa Incognito at a book signing in 2003, in Santa Rosa, CA. I was so excited about it that I left my friends’ house wearing the recent gift of a Homeland Security, Fighting Terrorism since 1492 t-shirt, with nothing underneath. When the reading was over, we all lined up with our books and he began signing. When it was my turn, I shyly croaked something to the effect of, “thanks for making my life so much better.” He glanced up and saw my t-shirt. “Nice shirt,” he remarked. “I’d give it to you, right off my back, but I’m not wearing anything underneath.” “I wouldn’t have a problem with that,” he replied. [1] Tibetan Peach Pie, Tom Robbins, ©HarperCollins 2014, Chapter 11, Sticks of Wonder, pp. 71-74.  After several Halloweens of utter devotion to Darkwing Museum and Morguetorium, now closed but firmly ensconced in vivid history for thousands, I felt like a zombie adrift this past Halloween. Sure, there were a number of other haunted houses to join, but many of them featured scary clowns and chain-saw wielding villains. Not my cup of tea. I had been part of a spectacular, award-winning haunt with a Victorian theme, updating and perfecting my Victorian Lady Zombie costume every year, much like a “Rennie” does for each Renaissance Faire event. Wayne was busy recording all day, so I decided to “zombie up” for old time’s sake and head over to the Children’s Halloween Parade in nearby Ashland to take pictures. I still have a bit of a limp, which I can attribute to a recent chiropractor-prescribed “hit it hard” approach to my beloved Bikram yoga. Although I’m vigorously committed to getting my body back after The Great Fall of 2014, the zombie-stagger comes easily to me. This “Children’s” parade takes place every Halloween. I say that with a bit of irony, as it turns out to be a whole community event. Sure, they’ve tried asking only children with accompanying adults to lead the parade. The Chamber of Commerce actually tried to cancel it in 2011 due to complaints about adults showing up in scary costumes. This move was met with such emphatic opposition that the parade was quickly reinstated. East Main Street is closed to traffic so everyone can line up at the library and march down to the plaza lead by Ashland's resident samba band, Samba Like It Hot. There’s even a special presentation of “Thriller” by a local dance group, on a side street. The children get to trick-or-treat at the stores, and then everyone mills about in the plaza grooving to the samba band. Since Ashland is notoriously a “theater town” due to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and numerous “Off-Bardway” concerns, the costumes are often brilliant.  Not just for children! My personal favorite, The Wizard of Oz family. The guy on the left is the tornado.  Later in the evening, when it gets dark, this same plaza and surrounding streets are filled with Halloween-loving adults roaming around in stunning costumes, bar-hopping and dancing. I’d like to say, “This is my town, that celebrates Halloween with such veneration,” although we’re slightly north, tucked away in the hills and don’t pay property taxes there. Still, I feel proud to live near a town whose Chamber of Commerce takes the time, money and energy to sponsor a proper Halloween. |
Here's where I expound on whatever I'm passionate about at the time. I welcome your comments, as long as you're not hateful, a terrorist, or attempting to pedal work-at-home offers.
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