Thanksgiving Chronicles

It seems strange that to cope with all the Thanksgiving work and stress, I kept taking Facebook breaks. How did I get through last year without the web’s most popular social networking site? Reviewing the posts reveals the drama of the holiday. Here’s a sampling from Facebook.
First, the cast of characters:

• Bill – you all know me.
• Neda – friend and former coworker
• Linda – high school classmate in Nebraska, reconnected via Facebook
  Forrest – friend and former colleague in Georgia
• Wendy – lives ten minutes away and never forgets anything I say
• Katherine – next door neighbor who I could talk to through the wall, but FB is often the medium of choice
• Thomas – world citizen, friend who delights in brutal honesty
• Debra - high school classmate in Nevada, reconnected via Facebook
• Susan – sister in Wyoming
• Kim – irreverent Reverend
• Jeff – national reporter based in Denver, visiting New Hampshire
• Kris – nonprofit director in Oregon

Thursday, T-1 Week
Bill: Stuff I’m Thankful For – A BillsWeek List
Friday, T-6 Days
Bill: Kathy Griffin tonight. Feels like the beginning of the holidays!
Sunday, T-4 Days
Bill: … bought most of the Thanksgiving dinner stuff today. Charles is already playing in the foil roasting pan I bought for the turkey. Long day, but at least the shopping is mostly done. Now up to 14 guests at my place. Cooking and cleaning the next few days ...
Neda: Wow … Did you party grow?
Bill: (Certain family members) keep inviting additional people … it’s really ok, but a little overwhelming at the moment. It will be fun when the big day comes …
Tuesday, T-36 Hours
Linda: Share some kitty stories. Life would be so dull without kitties.
Bill: I would be so lost without them. Right now, Lily is annoyed that I’m typing and she keeps bumping my hand. My younger kitten Charles is so active, I’m going to have to assign someone to manage him while the house is full of people Thursday.
Bill: Cleaning is more or less done. Dining room table is extended. Tomorrow, cooking and counting chairs, plates, etc.
Forrest: Will the cats hide with all the company?
Wendy: Charles is going to hide in the turkey --- according to Bill!
Bill: That’s my fear – Lily will hide at first, but she’ll eventually come out and grace us with her presence. Only a few will be deemed worthy to pet her a little. Charles will be the life of the party, jumping from lap to lap, because he knows all humans love cats, and him in particular. He will be on the counter trying to get food, on the table trying to get food, and yes, I’m afraid I’ll turn around and find him with his head in the turkey. Usually he’s locked down in the bathroom when I can’t handle him, but with so much company, I don’t think that will work…
Forrest: Sounds like organized chaos is about to happen…
Wednesday, T-30
Bill: I got out my pretty red table runner with the tassels to hang it up and de-wrinkle. Guess who discovered the tassels not 15 seconds later. Yep, my little kitty boy. Now I have to figure out where to hang it where he can’t get to it.
Katherine: No, you have to find a place where Charles won’t create problems! Try putting it back out, and when he goes after it, point the water bottle. He will get the message …
Thomas: Good luck with that.
Bill: Ok-he found it. Tassels are history. It will be a pretty red runner without tassels. (Later) Needless to say, there will be no Christmas tree this year.
Thomas: Come on, be daring.
Wendy: Since there will not be tassels for the table, perhaps you could wear the tassels …
Thomas: Post pictures of that!
Debra: Cats and tassels – temptation is just too great … Try hanging it over the top of a door and hope he does not decide to high jump. (Editor’s note: I did exactly that and the jumping was fantastic, tassels wrestled to the floor and leapt upon with wild abandon.)
Susan: Who needs tassels? Have a wonderful day …
Wednesday, T-16
Bill: Turkey isn’t thawing. Is now in the shower where Sir Charles can’t get to it. SURELY it will be thawed by morning.
Kim: At least it will be clean!
Linda: Don’t let it spoil. My 18 lb. bird did … We threw it out. We followed the unthawing instructions so it must have been tainted from the beginning. We went turkey shopping late today… Bill, the cat will find it. Good luck!
Kris: hello, roasted Brassica oleracea and Cucurbita moschatta pie! (Editor: Huh? What ever happened to mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie?)
Thursday, T-8.5
Bill: I was conscious of the spoilage factor. It was cold the whole time and I put it back in the fridge after a couple hours. … All is well.
Bill: Up at 4:30. Finished thawing turkey under cool water in the sink and stuffed and seasoned it. Both Charles and Lily quite agitated. Poor kitties’ first bedroom lockdown of the day. Thanksgiving is difficult for poor starving kittens.
Linda: Did the cat get the turkey? Ours wants in the roaster as it was sitting out waiting to be cleaned.
Bill: No, Charles didn’t get the turkey, not for lack of trying. It’s safely in the oven now and he’ll be locked in the bedroom during carving and serving.
T-4 and Counting
Bill: Taking a coffee break now that as much food is prepared as can be until the last minute. So far, Charles has been in lockdown three times. Lily once. Made it to the health club to work off some of the stress of the day. I feel ready now. Except I’d better set the table.
Thursday Night, T+9
Debra: How did everything go? The turkey-cats saga must go on!
Bill: The dishes are clean. The leftovers are put away and sent home with the guests. Tablecloths laundered. There are two cats sacked out on the sofa and I can’t get them to move. We’re all three just pooped. It was a wonderful day. Of course, Charles spent much of it locked in the bedroom, but he got to socialize too. I hope all of you had a good T-day too!
Jeff: Thanksgiving is over. Merry Christmas.
Bill: Ugh
The Morning After
Bill: “Please dear. Auntie Mame is hung.” Charles and Lily are wide awake now and wanting breakfast. All I can muster from my bed is this quote from Rosalind Russell in the 1958 movie, Auntie Mame. For the record, I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol. I just feel hung over.
Katherine: Poor Bill. It must have been too much turkey or pie or something. Drink lots of water, watch Netflix, nap, and call me in the morning.
Kim: LOL! I hope you had a wonderful time in spite of the stress of it all.
And you know, I did. Let’s just try to recover for a while and not think about Christmas. How can millions of people go shopping so soon after all this?

Stuff I’m Thankful For – A BillsWeek List

A couple weeks ago I published a rather negative blog entry called Stuff That Bugs Me. In order to ease the sting of that downbeat list, I made a promise that I would do a nice list soon. Well, it’s soon, and it’s less than a week to Thanksgiving, so here’s some stuff I’m thankful for. I hope it conveys a more positive vibe. Ok, here goes:

• Sunny winter days
• Hottubs
• Warm fuzzy cats
• Family and friends
• Those orange creamcicles from King Soopers
• Marie Calendars
• Pizza delivery
• Donuts
• 24 hour supermarkets
• Dinners at El Jardin
• Health care
• Liberals with a sense of humor
• Kathy Griffin's "relationship" with Levi Johnston
• Engineers who like cats on YouTube - yes, "they should be but they aren't"
• Living in the city with all its conveniences (like walking to the store)
• First class performances at The Buell
• Diversity in restaurants - from greasy diners to pho
• 24 hour emergency rooms for animals (I've been there a couple of times)
• Independent movie theaters
• Denver Public Library
• The easy empty canister on my vacuum cleaner
• Scrubbing bubbles
• Clumping kitty litter
• Recessed lighting with dimmer switch
• Off buttons on phones
• State parks early in the morning
• Microwave ovens
• Timely traffic updates
• Michelle Obama
• Ocean Beach, San Diego
• Workout machines with televisions attached
• Late night BBC radio
• Digital Video Recording
• Enduring legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps
• Lake Irene
• Dairy Queen
• Public transportation
• Quiet neighbors
• Jon Stewart
• A roomy freezer
• Leave-in conditioner
• Stove-Top Stuffing
• Time off around the holidays
• Readers of my blog

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

America Before and After

I’m spending a snowy Sunday inside, cuddled with the cats, eating tangerines I bought from King Soopers, and watching Netflix rentals. Today, it’s Sports Night, a comedy series from the late 90s which was fast-paced, witty, intelligent, and way ahead of its time. Critically acclaimed but not watched by a viewing majority, It barely squeaked out two seasons. I may do a blog about it someday, but the thing I keep thinking about is 1998.

In 1998, the economy was good. Dot coms boomed with no bust in sight. The biggest problem we seemed to have was whether the president was having sex with an intern. On Sports Night, the TVs are square and have large back ends. The characters don’t look too different from people today, but they carry around VHS cartridges and type on computers with huge monitors. On one episode, a character is going to see The Lion King on Broadway, but has no idea the show is sold out.

Amid the laughs and drama, I keep wanting to say to the people on screen, “You have no idea what’s coming, do you?”

Like many others, I see the modern world in two parts: before September 11, 2001, and after. Every movie I watch, every book I read is evaluated by whether the author or characters have yet gone through the experiences of that day.

On Sports Night, they talk about AIDS and the homeless as serious problems, but don’t seem much affected personally. Their individual lives are safe and insular. They can’t yet comprehend how the world could come crashing around them at any moment.

I was 2,000 miles away from the terrorist attacks, but I remember with vivid detail where I was and what I was doing when the World Trade Center fell and the Pentagon burned. I was working from home with the TV on when local TV anchor Kyle Dyer said that a plane had just crashed into one of the twin towers.

“Some drunk pilot,” I thought. “They’ll be talking about this for years.”

Later that day, I interviewed house cleaners and went to the computer store because I needed software. I was in a daze. Everyone was. But we had to go about our business or the terrorists would win.

After 9-11, we still have AIDS and the homeless. Thankfully, there is still also humor on TV. But there’s a difference. Fictional characters and we ourselves, go about our normal business but seem to be half looking over our shoulders, knowing something terrible and life-changing could happen again. The President has to manage two wars, whether justified or not. No thought of interns in the national conscience these days. There is extra security, ridiculous at times, at the airport. And we are reminded of terror every time we see the ubiquitous skyline of New York on TV show cutaways – on Sports Night, the twin towers achingly present, on newer shows, painfully absent.

A trial soon begins of the man who is said to be the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks. As is typical in the United States of America, there is discussion of justice and a desire to see this man punished for taking those thousands of lives. As appropriate and necessary in the USA, there is concern that we continue to follow the law: give this man a fair trial and not lose our heads to emotion and vengeance.

As to whether the trial should be held in civilian or military court, in New York or somewhere else, I don’t really care. I frankly, personally, don’t care what happens to the guy.

I want my 1998 back.

But this is America. Part of the Obama victory last year was a mandate to return to the reasonable, just, and democratic America which could be an example to the rest of the world. We have a constitution which rules over our hot heads. Every accused criminal gets a fair trial so that all of us can be free.

Now, back to Sports Night.

Peaceful End to Cold War Still Gives Me the Shivers

All the focus this week on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has me reliving those moments of 1989, and what effect the toppling of the Soviet empire had on me.

I’m sure to anyone younger than 20 or 30, the fall of the wall seems like ancient history – no more or less relevant to their lives than the Civil War or Great Depression.

But I remember the Cold War as a cold reality:

• The very real danger of US/USSR Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), particularly during the presidency of that war monger Ronald Reagan who, contrary to revisionist myth, is hardly responsible for the wall coming down
• Posters in my church about how many schools could be built for the cost of one hydrogen bomb
• Protesting with Nebraskans for Peace at a missile silo near Scottsbluff and seeing a plain-clothes official photographing all of the license plates of cars parked at the site (hopefully, my dad, who’s car I drove, wouldn’t get in trouble for my subversive activities)
• The night in 1983 when the Religion in Life group at Nebraska Wesleyan University got together and watched the terrifying and controversial television show, The Day After, about how serious a nuclear war would be – by then we’d figured out that ducking and covering under our desks wouldn’t be much protection

Yep, the Cold War was real, and it was scary. September 11, 2001 was horrifying to be sure, but what we feared about the Cold War, the destruction of the entire world with only minutes of warning, was terror on a different scale.

I grew up thinking that the Cold War could only end with terrible violence and destruction. It was unthinkable that the Soviet Block would just implode of its own weight (no thanks to Ronnie) and the desire of its people to be free. As wide-eyed East Berliners walked through the Brandenburg gate to West Berlin, I held my breath, waiting for those tanks which had always crushed freedom movements in the past. Only a few months earlier, a huge, hopeful, peaceful protest for freedom had been brutally crushed at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, reinforcing my belief that communism wouldn’t, couldn’t, go away peacefully.

But with only a few arrests and smatterings of isolated violence, from Germany to Poland to Hungary to Russia itself, Communism evaporated without a war, without a nuclear attack. I still get the shivers when I think of it.

One of the lessons of 1989 is that governments and peoples can change peacefully. While China, North Korea, and Cuba are still not democratic, it is possible to imagine that some day they will be, and massacres at Tiananmen Square will not be automatically assumed.

Stuff that Bugs Me - A BillsWeek List

Ever have one of those days where everything, but EVERYTHING, got on your nerves? I was in a terrible mood yesterday when I banged these out. I'm better now. I promise to do a nice list soon.

• How many years have we had those automated checkouts at the supermarket? And people STILL don't know how to use them? I hate being in line behind a bunch of shoppers who look at the thing like it's from outer space and have to ask the clerk for assistance every step of the way ...
• Denver drivers. Denver has a mix of big city speeders and country bumpkins driving on the same freeway. The person going 20 mph is in the far left lane and the rest of us have to pass on the right, only to come up behind a pickup loaded with lawn equipment going 35, as if looking for a lawn! I enjoy my annual trips to southern California where the drivers are skilled and consistent - except when I have to suddenly slow down to think about whether to take that exit or wait til the next one. Geez people, I can hear that your horns are working.
• Speaking of freeways, more often than not, the person driving slow in the middle lane is on the phone. HANG UP and frickin' drive! What's so important that you have to have that conversation now? Sometimes, they manage to balance coffee or a hairbrush while simultaneously driving and yapping.
• Speaking of driving, when did stop signs lose their meaning? I go nuts when I'm at a corner, appropriately stopped, when the person approaching the intersection from the direction that doesn't have to stop, also stops, and waves at me to go ahead. JUST DRIVE LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO and everyone will get where they're going.
• Glen Beck
• People in my neighborhood who let their cats go outside where they are exposed to feline leukemia, FIV, foxes (yes, that's right), and now even coyotes, and worst of all, cars.
• AM "News" radio which is really talk radio, actually "yell" radio, where ignorant people call in and pollute the airwaves with their stupidity. Why is their opinion worth broadcasting instead of the opinion of an expert on the subject?
• Same for cable TV "news."
• For that matter, why is just anyone allowed to have a blog so they can bitch and moan on the internet?
• Why does Internet have to be capitalized? It's not a real place, nor a proper noun - it's the internet, for crying out loud.
• Daylight savings time
• Clergy persons who take credit for all the new people who've joined a church, but none of the responsibility for those who have left.
• Special interest scare tactics that make people fear universal health insurance, which would actually be good for everyone.
• Wal Mart
• Proponents of "Family Values" who's definition of family is too narrow to include many of the people I know. It's too bad I can't say I have family values because people will think I'm a bigot, when in fact, I just happen to value my family.
• Tofu disguised as meat. Come on, I mean really.
• Reality TV. Reality my ass.
• Donating to a political party or candidate only to be hit up endlessly and constantly with emails saying, "just a little more money will ensure ..." I know they need it, I just hate being bugged for it all the time.
• Speaking of donations, my university calls me every night at 6:30 to ask me to increase my annual gift. While I fully intend to give, a reminder letter or one phone call should be enough. If I haven't answered their call (because I recognize the 402 area code number) 28 days in a row, why do they keep trying?
• FOX News. Fair and balanced my ass.