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Herein are opinions, observations, and things autobiograp...
I went to Thanksgiving at my parent's place this year. (Thanksgiving Day is an important, United States holiday. Typically, it's celebrated with a huge dinner. Roasted turkeys, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pies are reasonably common elements of the Thanksgiving Day feast.)
However, comma: for turkeys, it's a day that goes down in infamy. As in one, single, day...
Because (despite Thanksgiving being an annual event) domesticated turkeys have amazingly short memories. Turkey ghosts may be the exception. Please keep this in mind if a turkey ghost ever believes that you've ordered a turkey and cheese sandwich on rye.
"But Macbeth!" you exclaim, "I'm a vegetarian!"
Point of fact:
• All it takes is what a turkey ghost believes. Hence, poultry hauntings are amazingly common.
"But Macbeth!" you cry, "I'm not an American!"
Point of fact:
• Poultry-geists are infamously bad at geography. And please stop crying. I do apologize for upsetting you.
For children, Thanksgiving marks the first day of a 4-day weekend from school. Why, you ask? Because Thanksgiving is always celebrated on a Thursday. And every American is comatose on the following Friday ... which called Black Friday ... which is dedicated to shopping until you drop.
Yes, fight fans: comatose Americans go bananas on the first official shopping day before Christmas.
Point of fact:
1) Although Christmas was once 1 of the most sacred holidays on planet Earth,
2) for many it has transmogrified into [drumroll, please]
3) a day for which we've bought things that nobody needs...
4) with money we don't have...
5) so that we can give these things to people we don't even like!!
Question: How can "Santa Claus" be "secular" when he's become shopping messiah to adults, and a lie that we joyfully glorify when our children believe it? And this isn't theological, how??
Counter points: Holidays are important both culturally and socially. Children lose their innocence far too rapidly. And (until turkey birds form armed militias) make room in your refrigerators for a ton of leftovers.
"Yoo-hoo! Hello? Vegetarian here, remember?"
Well, there's still tofu stir-fry, pumpkin pies, and pass the cranberry sauce. Dinner. Is. Served.
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So, of course, I didn't eat any pumpkin pie at my parent's Thanksgiving Day feast. Not that I'm an ungrateful little snit. (Well... Maybe I am. However, at around 80 pounds overweight already — doing that whole "holiday season weight gain scenario" isn't exactly in my best interest.)
Yes. It was a celebratory feast. Yes. I in no ways starved. But the real treat was that I'm beginning to reconnect with my family. Also, I'm pretty sure that both of my parents are in their 90s. Additionally, although Mom's had at least 1 stroke (maybe 2?) ... she [is] still as onery as ever.
Point of truth:
• Reconnecting with my family is a task with some urgency. (At this moment typing this on my keyboard, I would NOT call myself a "good son.") Part of the reason why I disconnected from my family is because ... (being a professional crazy person) ... I didn't want to get underfoot whilst they were dealing with more important matters:
• Including day to day living. Taking care of their own families. Taking care of Mom and Dad. Hacking up hairballs due to obsessively licking their pet cats clean.
Ok! Ok! Hopefully not that last bit! That would be simply dreadful. (Although obsessively licking a pet poodle clean is absolutely socially acceptable. But you already knew that. Clever you.)
And No I Don't Want To Share An Ice-Cream Cone With You
"Why?"
Because You Just Got Done Cleaning Your Poodle
"O. That."
~•~
It's been said that, "You can't go home again." There is a diverse logic behind this proverb. At my age, I cannot reasonably expect that my parent's property would exactly match my childhood memories.
Dad had a retirement home built in what was once my childhood home's front yard. However, the old house still stands. The former garden is now completely overgrown with grass and weeds. The former smokehouse is no more than a distant memory. The pumphouse is still there, although I don't know if it is still active.
(During some dry spells — or when the well's water pump failed, we had to manually extract water from our well. We'd drop a metallic bucket into a large, concrete tube. We retrieved it because a rope [probably a hemp rope] was tied to the bucket's thin, metallic handle.)
The swamp were I once explored with our dog, Clown, seems to be still there. But "The Swamp" looks very different.
I could still find the general location where my own "ghost," Charles, first appeared in my mind's eye as a fountain of blood.
I came back from my parents' Thanksgiving with a measure of peace and some bittersweet memories. You see, I did the "impossible":
