November 22, 2006

• Thankful

  For days and daze I have been considering the things for which I am
  thankful in preparation for a Thanksgiving entry.  The first
  thought that came to mind is that I’m thankful for everything.  I
  heartily appreciate the fact that I am still alive after having been
  given such a poor prognosis and having gone through so many serious
  crises.  The main reason I am glad to be alive is that I live on
  such a wondrous planet, one that still supports life despite everything
  we have done to upset the ecological balance.

  Okay, that would have been a pretty short Thanksgiving blog entry if I
  left it at that, so I turned my thoughts to more specific areas related
  to the season and the holiday.  I feel sincerely grateful that
  there won’t be a herd of people coming here expecting me to prepare for
  them a delicious feast.  That is an indication of something else I
  appreciate.  Not too many years ago, I had a great deal of ego
  invested in preparing and hosting delicious feasts for big
  crowds.  I really don’t need so much ego.  I feel better
  without it.

  Immediately after that thought, it occurred to me that I was thankful
  that nobody would be expecting me to travel any distance to gather with
  a bunch of people and “enjoy” a “delicious” feast.  I simply do
  not generally enjoy crowds and many people allow smoking in their homes
  and they and their guests often use alcohol and other drugs that render
  them less than sensible and less than pleasant company.  That’s
  how it always was in my family when I lived within range of them, and
  it’s how it is with most of the people I have called friends. 
  Beyond that, there are many food substances, such as wheat and sugar,
  that are nearly ubiquitous in other people’s cooking, and which I
  usually try to avoid because they tend to make me ill.

  I
  had been carrying that gratitude around in my heart and mind for a few
  days when Greyfox called and put a little kink in it for me by inviting
  Doug and me to meet him today, Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving,
  at the community center in Willow for the holiday special buffet. 
  Every Wednesday throughout the year the Susitna Seniors serve lunch to
  a bunch of Valley old farts.  We affectionately call it the old
  farts’ feed, and are pleased and probably prouder than the honor
  warrants to be among their number.

  Doug declined, not being overly fond of either turkey or old farts, and
  after I told Greyfox the ironic story of my seasonal thankfulness that
  he’d just challenged, he assured me that he had no expectations and I
  was perfectly free to decline the invitation.  He recited a long
  list of foods, including turkey and the trimmings, salad, fruit salad,
  ham, and pies of pumpkin, mince and pecan.  Sometimes, I don’t
  appreciate being tempted with forbidden treats, and sometimes I find
  myself grateful for the temptation and inclined to indulge.  What
  better excuse than Thanksgiving can there be for violating dietary
  restrictions?  Unless something goes horribly wrong, in a few
  hours I will air up my flat left rear tire, fire up the car that has
  been warming on the engine block heater since I got up today, and go
  meet my sweety for the old farts’ feed.

  Tomorrow on Thanksgiving, as yesterday and today, I will be thankful
  for pure clean water, fresh from the earth and not from any sewage
  treatment plant.  Yesterday, Doug and I went to the spring,
  filling Streak’s hatch and backseat foot well with jugs and buckets
  containing about seventy gallons of water.  One of the first
  things I did with that water last night was to shampoo my hair. 
  The hair is long, but I have the technique mastered so that I can get
  it clean with about a gallon of water.  Conservation on such uses
  means a longer period of time that we have all the tea, coffee and
  drinking water, and water for cooking, that we want, before we have to
  load those jugs and buckets in the car and go to the spring again.

  Since I had forgotten to stop for fuel when I went to the vet last
  week, I began yesterday’s water run with a trip up the valley to the Y
  at Sunshine for gas.  While I was paying, one of the clerks
  exclaimed, “It’s ZERO!  It finally made it up to zero.”  It
  was the warmest part of the day, an hour or so past noon, and everyone
  present smiled in appreciation of the fact that the temperature had
  gotten out of negative numbers. 

  At the spring, I knelt on a folded throw rug to insulate and cushion my
  knees as I filled the water containers.  The only mishap was when
  my gloved hand slipped as I tried to pry a frozen-on lid loose from a
  five gallon bucket, and I tore a couple of nails loose.  I have
  trimmed them short, and although the fingertips are tender it’s nothing
  I can’t deal with.  By the time we got home with our water it was
  about two and a half degrees below zero, and during the night it dipped
  into double digits below.

  It’s about nine AM now, the sun hasn’t risen but dawn is breaking, and
  I am thankful for the light.  It could be worse.  We’ve
  driven to Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house, after dark in the
  evening, when it was minus thirty-six.  I won’t have to air up
  that tire in the dark today (as I’ll need to do next week to get Hilary
  to the vet for spaying by 8:30 AM), and it should still be daylight
  when I drive home today, all the better to see moose on the road before
  I’m right upon them.

  One last thing, an update of sorts on the “traction pants” entry about
  my trying to sleep in a pair of soft, loose, old corduroy pants that
  grabbed the sheets so that I turned over in the pants instead of the
  pants turning over in bed.  It has been a while since I went to
  the laundromat, so I’m short of comfy loungewear.  Yesterday after
  the water run, I put on (with thermal-knit long johns, of course) a
  pair of satin pajama bottoms Greyfox had found in the dumpster at
  Felony Flats.  Unlike the well-worn corduroy, these things, in
  midnight blue with a red pinstripe, appear brand new.  I’m wearing
  a red polar fleece v-neck with them — looks spiffy and feels luxurious.

  The problem is that now I have a friction-free butt.  Last night,
  in Couch Potato Heaven, I kept uncontrollably slipping down into an
  uncomfortable slouch, and when three cats lay down between me and the
  back of the sofa, they effortlessly shoved me over the edge.  I
  don’t recall any difficulty during the night with rolling over in bed,
  but right now on this ergonomic office chair, both my knees and my
  bottom are perilously slippery. 

  That’s it for me for now.  I’ve got about three quarters of an
  hour before I have to start preparing the car for the trip to
  town.  That might be enough time to find some presentable clothes
  to wear, and get into them.

  • 1:20 pm
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