A Thanksgiving Posting...

I feel kinda like I've gone "against the grain" all my life. Whenever I see lots of people doing "one thing", I tend to go the other way. And, that's how I feel about all of the joyous camraderie of the holiday season. It just doesn't mean an awful lot to me, and it hasnt, for a long time. So, if you're in a festive holiday mood, and don't wanna be bummed out, you don't have to read any further...

I don't really do an awful lot for holidays anymore. In a way, holidays are kinda rough; everything closes down, there aren't an awful lot of places you can go, and sometimes loneliness tends to intensify itself on holidays. I get thru holidays the best I can. Winter is always a "dark" period for me, so I think I go thru mental hibernation. At this point in my life, I am so far removed from anything called "family", that anymore, when people get together for large, full-of-life gatherings with all kinds of enthusiastic, ebullient noise, I tend to shy away.

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It must be the holidays again dept.: On the news right now...an 89-year-old lady was killed in Spokane this week by a member of her family that she trusted. In 1997, the killer's PARENTS were killed, and he spoke out against that murder in court. Makes sense to me!!!(not)

In the middle east, once again while U.S. troops were giving candy to kids, a suicide bomber did his thing, trying to take out our benevolent forces. A big floating balloon in one of the large parades broadcast nationally, was whipped by strong winds, and cables anchoring the balloon got tangled up with a street light; the light fell to the ground, injuring two spectators.

Meantime, folks are resting up tonite so they can go to 'Wal-Mart' and 'Best-Buy' tomorrow at 6 in the freaking MORNING and stomp all over each other trying to buy an "X-Box" (whatever THAT is), or any other of the things they really think they need to find on sale. "Black Friday", indeed.

And finally (I couldn't resist putting this one in)...a news story about a guy who was deep-fat-frying his turkey. He left the bird unattended for a few minutes; in the meantime, things started overflowing, things started catching on fire, and as a result, his house burned down. Seems to me it would be a lot less trouble to just go out and buy Turkey TV Dinners!

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Why I'm so ambivalent about holidays dept.: I remember Thanksgiving at our house. Dad would slave over everything all day; constantly checking on the turkey, dressing, and all the other things associated with the meal. He was a great cook. And during the meal, he would always continually ask all of us, "Is It Good"? "What Do You think?" "Isn't That A Great Turkey"? etc. etc. No matter how much positive feedback he got on how WELL he'd done everything, I always felt that we could never tell him "enough" how fine of an effort he'd made. And, I always thought that he never really was happy about how anything went in his life. It was like, we couldn't compliment him enough.

Maybe it's me; maybe I'm a thankless S.O.B., but one of the big things I remember about family Thanksgivings...along with good food...there always was this TENSION. Dad could erupt in a moment about anything we said, or did, or whatever. One new years' eve, he made a great dinner for all of us. He began yelling at me about something. As I sat down to eat, the tension was so much, that I got up, without having taken a bite, walked out, got in my car and drove off. He raced out of the house, yelling and shaking his fists at me, and I just got the hell out of there. That...was our family. So I spend holidays alone. And I don't care, AT ALL.

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Something I don't quite understand about Thanksgiving dept.: You cook and slave all day, trying to prepare the "meal of the year". You anticipate the holiday, and seeing everyone and talking and yakking and yadda-yadda-yadda...in short, you drop everything you're doing, you interrupt your life, you look forward to this day so much, everyone sits down to eat, and in half-an-hour, the meal's eaten, all your guests go home, and the holiday is OVER. Sometimes I wonder what the "point of it all" IS. And I suppose I could apply this to any holiday. What's the point? This is HONESTLY the way I feel!

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So, anyway, I was "Googling" around, trying to find a picture of a Thanksgiving Turkey (what can I say, I'm a shameless photo cyber-thief), and I found the following little item. You might remember that Google's Halloween logo incorporated witches, goblins, bats flying around, etc...well, Google embellished their corporate logo in like-minded fashion for the Thanksgiving holiday...and I thot it was cool...check it out:

It's great to see a great big corporation that evidently has a sense of humor. What do we have here; turkey, pie, and a cup of cheer, all within the Google emblem. Hmm...that reminds me...I bought a turkey sandwich last nite at the deli, so I guess I'll end this post and go eat it. My way of rememberance, I guess.

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I didn't mean to bum you all out at this supposedly 'festive' time of the year, but it seems like everyone's so jolly and merry; there's other ways of looking at this time of year. I'll be happy when the sun shines and it's warm out once again. A little over 3 months 'till spriing! I'm waiting.