A Wonderful Thanksgiving

We have had the most wonderful Thanksgiving this year. I cannot imagine how it could have been better.

LEAVES. Since we don’t travel anywhere for Thanksgiving I usually approach the holiday with two things on my todo list: leaves and Christmas decorations. The leaves are always contingent on the weather and the weather was perfect for working out in the yard on Wednesday and Thursday.

The boys and I met with Kenny, Andrew, and Wil on Wednesday morning to tackle the leaves on Mom’s yard. Between the six of us, my mower, Kenny’s tractor, and three leaf blowers we had the yard pretty clear within just a few hours. Kenny shoved the leaves that I didn’t chop behind the shed, and the pile, which also includes sticks, is about the size of my truck. Mom’s trees aren’t done dropping their leaves, so I’ll have to clean the yard off again, but at least they won’t be so deep.

That afternoon the boys and I took a couple of hours to chop up the leaves in our yard.

THANKSGIVING DINNER. Vicki and I had originally discussed taking a day trip and eating out for Thanksgiving, but Jenna said she wanted to help Vicki cook Thanksgiving dinner so we wound up staying home.

Our Dynamic Duo hit the kitchen Wednesday evening for some early prep and resumed their work Thursday morning. They whipped up an excellent meal. We stuck with our traditional menu: ham, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash dressing, deviled eggs, rolls, and carrot cake. Mom came over about mid afternoon and we dug in.

After dinner we talked, played games (poor Mom was clueless at Clue), and talked to the Cotter clan via FaceTime.

WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT WOMAN? As I mentioned above, one of the items on our to do list for Thanksgiving is decorating for Christmas. At some point along this process Vicki, Jenna, and I were taking a break in the living room. Vicki usually puts a nativity set above the TV and then adds lighted garland around it and the mantle above the fireplace. We use an extension cord with an in-line foot switch to get power to these lights. Vicki had not connected all this and decided to assign the job to me and Jenna but she was having a hard time putting her request into words, so in typical Vicki fashion she said, “When we get up I want you to get the ‘click-click’ and hook it up so I can ‘click-click’ and it all come on.”

Now, to really get the effect here you need to make clicking sounds for “click-click” so that it sounds like you are telling your horse to “giddy-up.” And keep in mind too, that she just blurted this out with no context for us to go on. That’s what we heard which made us both look at her and wonder what in the world she was talking about.

I used to think I will run out of cute quotations to record here as the kids got older. I no longer fear for running out of material because a new source is emerging.

THE STOWAWAY. We’re up to two and a half cats here at our house (Miss Cat counts as a half cat as she only checks in weekly). Our second cat used to be one of Mom’s kittens (the black and white one) but became ours when he stowed away in the bed of my truck the other day. Jenna had spent the night with Mom Friday night and the cat came home with us Saturday morning when I brought Jenna home. We’ve named him Tagalong.

We barely noticed Tagalong when we got here. Upon his arrival he hopped out of the truck as if he owned the place and commenced exploring every corner of the yard and every building therein. It didn’t take long for he and Dusty to meet and by the end of the day they seemed to be on friendly terms.

Ben would love it if we would allow the cats inside. Alas, the rest of us are allergic so I leave the basement door cracked open so they’ll have a warm place to go. Our allergies do not stop Ben from bringing a cat in for a quick visit, and when we see this Ben is quick to say, “What cat? You don’t see a cat in my arms. There’s no cat here.”

Speaking of Tagalong, he’s the cat that was really bad about trying to get into the house when he was at Mom’s. He had spotted the stuffed lions on the living room floor through the sliding glass door and always made a beeline to rub up against his indoor cousins. The boys spent Thursday night with Mom, and Nate pulled a little trick on poor Tagalong when I picked them up Friday morning. He moved the stuffed lions right next to the sliding glass door and as we left Tagalong was on the outside rubbing the glass to get to his friends.

At any rate, Dusty has a playmate now and Mom has one less cat to trip her up when she goes outside.

Joe