in honor of american thanksgiving day, due to hit the states tomorrow, i offer you the ‘thanksgiving drinking game,’ courtesy of buzz feed, in hopes this will keep a smile on your face, no matter how challenging the day may be. happy holiday to all – enjoy )
http://www.buzzfeed.com/joannaborns/thanksgiving-drinking-game
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“She who has no fools, knaves, or beggars in her family was begot by a flash of lightning.” —Old English Proverb
photo i love of my great great grandfather (right), his ‘man friday’ (left), and an unaccounted for cousin of some sort (center). taken in glasgow, scotland many years ago. wondering what the story of this photo is, and which of the 3 i most resemble?
“Why waste your time and money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponents will do it for you!” —Mark Twain
“The family. We were a strange little band of characters drudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms … and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.” —Erma Bombeck
looking back at my week and remembering how it started out, with a literal standstill. almost to work, just a few miles away, and traffic ground to a dead halt. all lanes full, no one moving an inch. switched from cd to radio and heard power lines were down across this busy road due to overnight storm, and that the road was closed less than one mile ahead. numerous warnings to avoid this road at any cost. too late. stuck in the middle of it all. any traffic trying to go through would be diverted to do a u-turn and headed back in the opposite direction. nowhere for me to turn off as just offices and businesses on my side, until i could get to the next mile road.
settled in for a bit of a wait, texted my teaching partners, and just watched it unfold around me. the diverted traffic began to back up going in the other direction, emergency vehicles tried to get through, to rescue people somehow getting into accidents going 3 mph. perhaps not letting each other into their lane? watched people in other cars, most on cells, out of cars trying to see what was going on ahead, listening to music, coming up with strategies, calling into work and wherever they needed to be, trying to move to the ‘best lane.’ people walked by, moving faster than the traffic.
saw a helicopter arrive overhead, people jockeyed for position, cars continued to crawl ahead and up and over. finally got close to the next mile road where i could turn, saw a firetruck pulled all the way across the road ahead of me. 1 mile of distance had equaled 1 hour of time. made my move, made my turn, oops – that road was closed for construction. determined. followed a rogue line of cars through a neighborhood, somehow emerged on the other side of it all, back on my original busy road i needed to be on, got back on track to where i was going, looked to my left, saw a full moon.
Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic. – Dan Rather
being born a kennedy, and for as long as i can remember, i always assumed that the other kennedys were just cousins who lived out east. when the killing of jfk happened, 50 years ago, i had just turned 6, only 4 days before. i was in first grade and i remember being called in from recess and all of the adults were crying. that was the day i found out that i was not actually a cousin, and that people could die from things other than being very, very old. it was one of those days when my world changed forever.
jfk and family – the ones who i thought to be my cousins
my kennedy family
The essential self is innocent, and when it tastes its own innocence knows that it lives forever. – John Updike
with the holidays soon arriving, i’m missing my aussie part of the family. spent most of the summer with them down under, and loved this note that my young grandsons dictated to my daughter to give me as i was leaving. i was especially taken with the line used as my title of this piece. i also love that it involved pinatas, lasagne, fairies, my scent, and a warning.
mackinac island, michigan
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Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. – Albert Einstein
and as the unseasonable heavy rains and storms continue today, i am reminded of a wonderful event a few summers back. i was with my family at a large amusement park. it was beautiful out, without a cloud in the sky and we walked around, like most other people that day, staying within our group, enjoying the park and enjoying the day. suddenly, without much warning, the sky grew very dark and raindrops began to fall. as the rain became heavier, people began to take shelter under whatever they could find, planning to wait it out.
within minutes, the rain became quite out of control, with an onslaught of hard, sideways, piercing water. it was relentless. and it quickly became obvious that it was useless to even attempt to stay dry. little by little, everyone began to come out from under their makeshift ‘shelters’, take off wet shirts, and shoes and whatnot, and just fully immerse themselves in the rain, some literally laid in it, as the ground fiooded so quickly, like a warm and wild jacuzzi. there was really no choice but to surrender to it all, and people began to openly laugh and jump and play and dance and embrace the rain. strangers bonded together in full laughter and in this the sudden unexpected experience they had absolutely no control over. all ages, all sizes, all genders, all colors, all human.
after a few more minutes of this, the clouds and the rain moved on, as suddenly as they had arrived, and the sun came back out, bright and yellow, signaling a return to calm. the only clues that it was all real, were the water on the ground, people’s soaked clothing and hair, and the smiles on their faces. soon, people stopped playing, wrung out their clothes, got back in their groups, and walked on. as if it had never happened. it was the highlight of my day.
The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it. – Lucy Larcom
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she came flying in, like a whirlwind, hurricane esmerelda, her 5 small children in tow. the weather had taken a sudden turn for the worse, putting forth a tremendous downpour and winds and thunder and lightning. we were meeting at a store to buy winter clothing for her family. as part of a local program, warm the children, members of my community meet others who are in more challenging circumstances, and through donations, we are able to get together to purchase what is needed for their children.
when we had tried to speak on the phone, it was clear esmerelda only spoke spanish, and i enlisted the help of our school spanish teacher to set up the meeting. i brought a friend who had visited nicaragua and had a bit of spanish in her pocket, along with her daughter, who was at my very basic level of speaking spanish. i imagined that we all would figure it out and somehow accomplish our mission.
she had somehow gone to the wrong store and was late and worried, and rushed over when we figured out what happened. the children were all quite young, one still small enough to sit in the seat of the cart. only one of the children spoke a bit of english and as we made our way through boots, hats, mittens, snow pants, coats and jammies, my friend somehow was able to call up her ’emergency spanish’ and helped when we had a question. her daughter was able to help some of the children to make choices and find sizes and luckily, i could remember colors and numbers in spanish. (even though i slipped into french at times)
somehow we were able to find all that we needed for each of them, filling two carts, and the children happily picked out clothes in the colors they liked. the only boy in the family, lit up with a smile when shown spiderman mittens, and the girls helped each other try on and make final choices. they were very well behaved through it all, and it was easy to see that each of them had taken on a role of responsibility for themselves and each other at an age way before most children would ever have to.
we kept everyone moving, making sure we didn’t lose anyone along the way, and before we knew it, we were checked out and headed outside. a tornado watch had been issued and it somehow seemed appropriate with all of the energy we had whipped up on this shopping trip. we helped the family back to their van, keeping an eye on the gaggle of young children, and as we left, we hugged and said adios, all with tears in our eyes and smiles on our faces. it was a wonderful morning.
A warm smile is the universal language of kindness. William Arthur Ward
from the time i was born, my older middle sister and i grew up sharing a room. this led to a love/less than love, on and off again, room sharing, relationship. on one of those ‘less than love’ days, she came up with what i thought was a brilliant idea.
we would get the roll of duck/duct tape from the garage and make a line right down the middle of our room, dividing it in half. we’d then each have our own ‘private’ half, and the other would not be allowed to cross over the border unless invited in and given special permission from the one on the the other side. we worked hard to make it perfectly divided in half, each including the area with our own beds and near our own sides of our closet.
when the job was done, we each sat on our beds, contained within our halves, and i thought smugly, ‘ha! i got the extra window on my side, what does she know, being the older one? she may be a year older, but i must be the one who is smarter, much more clever!’
my private ego party was however, very short-lived, as she soon stood up and announced with a smile that she was going out to play. she promptly exited through the door to our room which was now only on her side.
It’s easy to focus on the things that divide us. Sometimes too easy – Dan Miller
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I didn't have my glasses on.... 