Hil B and friends bussed to Georgia to protest the School of the Americas and here’s the video. She appears at the very end.

Back when I was among the living. We’re hanging out at a coffee shop in Philadelphia on our last day of Parent’s Weekend.

Just so I don’t get too full of myself, here’s a turkey day pic with Pesky and Debbie.

Back when I was among the living. We’re hanging out at a coffee shop in Philadelphia on our last day of Parent’s Weekend.

Just so I don’t get too full of myself, here’s a turkey day pic with Pesky and Debbie.

Here’s a not-so-short movie taken during Thanksgiving. Not continuous, but a bunch of clips spliced together. So much noise, and all before Cort, Kathy, Sarah T, Jeff, Robby and Martin arrived. I went to bed early but I understand that Pesky Godson was the last to leave our house.

Tomorrow I’ll post the table photos.

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Of some interest, on Emily’s blog (I act like I know her, I don’t) is a photo of my fish.

Do I ask for much? Have I ever really asked for anything? Whined, maybe. Have I ever made you all feel guilty in any way? The answer to all that is, I think, no. The blog works because it’s like the daily paper.

So here’s my once a year request. If you read the blog and your heart still beats, send me a Thanksgiving day family photo.

(Pesky Godson is exempt because he’ll be in mine.)

When we drove down to Temple for parent’s weekend, we stopped in to see Rose and Bill. This movie is repetitive, but it has an interesting close if you happen to be a family member. Btw, we’ll pick up Matt and Debbie on Monday night at the Manchester airport.

Diane and I’d just finished our grilled salmon with new potatoes and flash-nuked green beans and carrots. A dinner I made. I loaded the dishwasher as she packed leftovers for the next day’s lunch and pretty much out of nowhere I pipe up:

“I’ve got to get some sleep.”

“We went to bed early last night. You were out like a light.”

“Fast and dark, but I woke up twice. As usual.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“You never do. You’ve been sleeping like the recently executed. I get up and shower or I go downstairs and IM with Matthew. He’s always up until two or three.”

“What wakes you up?”

“I have free floating anxiety. I learned about it at IU in Psych 101 and now, after all these years, I have it. Finally. I think it’s this dead mother thing. Three days before the monthly anniversary of her death my gut knots and my brain goes kaflooey. I don’t settle back down until the day after.”

“You need a year to go by. A year helps.”

“It helped you, didn’t it.”

“It helped me and it helped Susan with Jimmy.”

“You mean a year from now I’ll be picking apples?”

“No, but you will be sleeping.”

“It makes no sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“Not the year thing. The anniversary thing. With me I mean. My family never celebrated anything but Christmas and the kid’s birthdays. I don’t know when my parents were born, I don’t know Brian or Joan’s birthdays. I still think Matt was born in ‘86 on the 16th of July. I only know yours because of the built-in mnemonic. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentines…those days didn’t exist until I married into your family. “

“And you are all the better for it.”

“Maybe, but I think my mother’s haunting me.”

“Michael, it’s called grief.”

“No, she’s telling me she really did want a birthday present.”

My orchid is six or seven years old and always blooms right before Thanksgiving. This year, in a much larger pot and with our current rain forest environment, it bloomed two weeks early.

My orchid is six or seven years old and always blooms right before Thanksgiving. This year, in a much larger pot and with our current rain forest environment, it bloomed two weeks early.

Even if you don’t like the song or the group, please wait for the bathtubs to appear. What were they thinking?

Goose dropped by Saturday for a short visit.

Diane asked, “How do like college? On a scale of one to ten? ”

Goose answered, “I’d say a seven, and I knocked those three points off because of the work.”

Seems to me most every kid we’ve talked to feels the same way. Should I be surprised?

Then Goose told us about his Mt. Monadnock climb with his girlfriend, Kristen. I think he said this was his third time up, but the first to watch the sunset. Now, the camping guys are always knocking around in the forest, balancing the need to explore with the need to come back alive. Hiking in the dark works – sort of – but only with good light, so I knew what was coming.

“It was hard climbing down.”

Yeah, now there’s an understatement. When the sun sets in the woods, it’s not a pleasantly receding light experience as it is in the city.

“We had two flashlights but they only showed small circles in front of us.”

The last time I hiked in the dark, I fell in a seven foot hole. Had it been ten feet deep, I’d still be there.