The Thanksgiving That Lasted All Weekend

More Thanksgiving Thoughts from a Very Particular Year.

The day was notable for how quiet it was. Even my son, who suffers near-zero sentimentality for such things, asked what happened to The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He was used to hearing the racket. It made him think of Thanksgiving.

I told him my troubles with the NBC app on the Amazon FireStick. He shrugged and went back to his room. If anyone could have solved this issue in less than 30 seconds it would be my technologically savvy and mechanically apt son. He was happy just to smell the turkey. We only have turkey this once every year. My wife and I have talked of having one at Christmas. We’ll see.

I’ve since learned that what we often call traditions are really mere habits we haven’t thought to break. Those habits are easier to break than we might think, too.

Actual mantelpiece decoration at our house. I cringe a little knowing you can see the seam in the wood laminate on the mantel, but I’ve got so many other things to fix on this house before replacing this.

This year, entire attitudes have been taken to the psychic curb. I knew I was going to come out the other end of my prostate removal with a changed outlook on things, but when I serendipitously found a pristinely recorded and edited video of the Rockettes’ segment in the parade—this proved impossible last year—I felt more silly than victorious in watching it.

Thanksgiving lasted all weekend, and so did the food. Barely.

The Rockettes normally appear just before the first hour’s break after the (traditionally!) excruciatingly awful Broadway musical segment, which, in recent years, has been going out of its way to be more excruciatingly, even intolerably awful.

It was such a relief to see those dancing ladies, usually after spending the better part of that hour coming in and out of the room dropping off the Christmas decor boxes from the shed. Now, via the magic and wonder of Internet video, I could watch at my leisure. 

I wish I hadn’t. It was probably well that I had done so, if only for the closure, but I wish I hadn’t.

It felt like a cheat to begin with. I realized they were basically the reward for those tinfoil-on-tooth-fillings twee musicals, and what was left outside of this context?

Dinner was just the wife and me. We coped splendidly.

To describe what I noticed with the dancers in my face on my office desk as opposed to the TV in the armoire would be cruel. Suffice it to say that the point was driven home that this parade was a mindless habit to be joyfully shed of, not a lost tradition to be mourned.

Or maybe not “joyfully” shed of. More like, “you enjoyed this once, it’s no big deal to you now.” I’ve been contemplating a blogpost on People Whose Work I Used To Admire, Now I Can Barely Stand Them. I could have some fun with that. Maybe later. Let’s just move on, and enjoy the quiet.

Shhhhhh....

My wife and I ate dinner. I went outside for a while to look at the sky and entertain the ghosts of my Thanksgivings past. We took a walk around the block just before the sun went down. We both expressed our thankfulness for living in a (so far, so good) quiet little town. The Christmas decorations were up. They’d been up for a week, maybe two; I hadn’t really paid attention. Everything was as it should be, though. Not merely quiet, but serene.

We got out just in time for last light. Hardly anyone was out on the road.

This display outside of the real estate office was a nice blend of Thanksgiving and Christmas decor.

I didn’t expect my daughter to show up until 10 p.m. but she arrived just before nine. This was the first time she’d been to see us in the Valley since Christmas, and, as always, the house lit up with her presence. Having all of our nuclear family under one roof, if only for two nights, supercharged the holiday air, and Thanksgiving 2018 established its dominion beyond President Lincoln’s designated fourth Thursday in November.

The only blue note here is that my wife’s and daughter’s work schedules did not sync, and my wife could only spend so much time visiting after work before going to bed, as she had an early wake-up. Some visiting was better than no visiting, however, and my daughter and I were able to do something we used to do back in Colorado Springs, namely, go Christmas shopping together. This was a tradition going way back that had been disrupted by my wife and I moving to the San Luis Valley.

We had to laugh, as we had everything finished within 15 minutes, and were meeting my son for lunch in downtown Alamosa. Ironically, the credit for this belongs to the destruction of a longstanding U.S. cultural tradition—stores remaining closed on Thanksgiving Day until just before dawn the day after. In the past few years, in the face of sadly feeble social media protests, retailers have opened their doors for “doorbuster” discounts at 6 p.m. the evening before. Therefore, Walmart was downright sleepy around midday the day after Thanksgiving. 

My daughter and I agree the term “Black Friday” sounds like a massacre, hence my avoidance of the expression. Anyway, thanks to Thanksgiving no longer being held sacrosanct by American consumers, we at least get Thanksgiving Friday back.

We had to walk to make room for the pie. You know what kind we’re talkin’ about here.

Something felt eerily familiar as we settled into our table at the local brewhouse, and I realized it was just my son, daughter, and myself, just like old times when I was the stay-at-home parent and my wife deployed. Of course, they’re all grown now, and paying the old man’s tab. But that easy, comfortable feeling was there. It’s helped so much that, parental authority dynamic aside, we’ve always generally enjoyed each other’s company. Of course, the parental authority thing has been long out the window. I don’t miss it. I’m just so glad they made the decisions they made, and they actually enjoy visiting with their parents, as opposed to it being some hateful chore under guise of “tradition.”

Emily stayed another night, which carried the Thanksgiving vibe clear into Sunday, hence the title of this post. Here it is, almost Thanksgiving 2019, and I’m finally winding this thing up. Better late than never, am I right? It’s so late it’s contemporary all over again. Anyway, I’m thankful Thanksgiving 2018 worked out like it did.  The children grow up, and you put away the things you once enjoyed. But, for my part, family and love remained.

These shelves were empty by Monday evening. 

First Saturday of November in the High Valley

So much to see from one spot along the road.

My wife and I were driving back to Monte from Alamosa when we noticed the sheep south of the highway. My wife suggested I pull over and get some shots. I rarely travel without my little Canon Powershot.

Looking west by southwest at the spur of the San Juans that curls south of Monte Vista. Little lambikins on left.

Looking east by southeast towards Antonito, La Jara, New Mexico.

Looking south at all that wool and fleece on the hoof. The ranchers gave them plenty of space. Strange thing is they showed up for that one day and were gone. For all I know someone was renting the pasture while waiting for hay to feed this immense flock.

Seriously, this was a lot of sheep.

Tracks west to Monte Vista.

Eastward to Alamosa, the Sangre de Cristos rising like a foamy wave over the valley floor.

A zoomed-out perspective of the same view.

Looking west again, through the sheltering grasses.

Back across the street, looking north by northeast over the now-cleared hemp fields.

View of my wife of 29 years, my Jeep of 18 years. ‘Til death do us part. I mean all of us, the Jeep, too.

“The road goes on forever and the party never ends.” The view headin’ home.

All photographs Copyright © 2019 by Lawrence Roy Aiken. All rights reserved.

A Couple More Random Objects from My Psychic Junk Drawer

More varieties of half-rotted rubber bands and novelty bottle openers than you can shake a snack bag clip at. 

Recently I posted about how I had to be careful celebrating my 600th post milestone because I might have to delete pages with disabled video embeds and fall below the big round number. Shortly after I published I was looking down my list of most viewed posts and realized to my horror that one was my Patreon pitch, and the other was for my podcast, neither of which I worked too hard at to make happen, and neither of which occupied any real estate in my conscious mind until just then. Those posts would have to be deleted, too.

Twenty-eighteen was my cancer year, but as I didn’t get the news on that until April, I honestly can’t use that misadventure for an excuse. The post-holiday season depression, haunted by the death of one of the few close friends I had the previous November, makes more sense. I fought for literal weeks to work up the nerve to make that Patreon pitch, and then I did it, and then I didn’t want to do it anymore. 

Truth be told, my heart was never into the Patreon or a podcast. Both require implied obligations and I detest being obligated. The posts had to go. I’m down to 611 published posts now. So it goes. 

I cracked 10K on my Jeep on Columbus Day. It’s been a source of amusement to both my adult children, who were small children when I bought the vehicle in 2001, that I am such a stay-at-home stick-in-the-mud that the Jeep has enjoyed such low mileage.

It took 18 years and 27 days but the last digit to the left is populated at last. With new tires installed last month and all our vital fluids good to go, we look forward to another winter crunching through the snow.

Pictured in the high flat valley country she lost her 10K virginity in. ‘Til death do us part.

I’ve been struggling throughout the day to come up with something else. I leave with another photo from that day’s shoot and a note to myself that we’re due for another photo essay. Cheers.

Straight on to Alamosa.

Minor Milestones

One of those “State of the Apocalypse” thingies. Happy November, by the way.

I published my 600th blogpost a while back but it didn’t seem worth bringing up until I put some in some more posts after it. Every now and then I’ll check in on one of my Jukebox music posts to see that YouTube has disabled my embed, and I’ll delete the post with its accompanying text. Six hundred posts could become five hundred ninety-something quickly.

I often wonder if I’ll have a Jukebox category at all after a while, and whether I shouldn’t scrub it altogether and save myself the trouble of policing the posts for broken links. That, and the matter of taking down my novel and story excerpts, because you don’t want to leave those up forever. I’m priming to edit and re-post what is there once I finish another milestone in the novel, so I can see everything that’s wrong with it, as I often do when I make anything public.

I have the same issue with my novel’s progress. The above screenshot indicates 314 total pages and 107,000-something words. As I have all the chapter headings in my novel blocked off until the end, with notes on what happens—think of my manuscript galley file as a big, unwieldy outline with sketched-in dialogue and action—I’m not quite at 300 pages. I do have more than 100,000 words of narrative, though. I can say I’ve finally taken it that far. The Wrong Kind of Dead is going to be a massive book.

As such, every word had better count. Sometimes a really good day is when you take out entire paragraphs of excess exposition and dialogue. Omit needless words, first, last, and always. I’ve begun keeping a record of how many words I wake up to each morning, but it can be dispiriting seeing those numbers in retreat, even if I know why.

And that’s that. Nothing else, except the year is getting away from me, and I’d hoped to have the manuscript completed by the 15th of September. All I can do is keep on keeping on. What I’ve got so far is too good not to finish.