thanksgiving note

Dearest Tony,

Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving as you gather with friends and loved ones!

Say what?
No, your sister has not lost track of time, she's simply being frugal. Here's a lovely card that would otherwise hang around idle, waiting for next Thanksgiving, and who's to say it wouldn't get lost along the way? What a shame that would be!

The sentiment is good, too. An attitude of gratitude fits right in with the spirit of Christmas!

with much love!

two Thanksgivings for breakfast!

Yes, I am most definitely grateful!
This year, I was treated to Thanksgiving feasts not once, but twice!
The first was actually on Thanksgiving Day, here in the USA. (You do know that Canada celebrates the occasion on a different day, right? Yep, on the second Monday in October, eh?)
The lower half of my plate contains some of the leftovers from that feast. The dinner was in Augusta, at my paternal cousin Bev's house. You may recall that she is quite a chef and the reason I supported a cookbook campaign on kickstarter.com. I do have to wonder now if that Brussels sprouts dish might have been one of the recipes in her copy of the book? True, I could simply look it up in my copy of "A Dollop and A Pinch", but I'm busy writing.
(smile)
Whatever the source of the inspiration, that medley sure was good this morning! The bacon got good and crispy and the apple caramelized just a bit more... I tell you, I ate every bite!
The miniature pumpkin pie was from the second of my Thanksgiving meals. This time, I dined in town, at my first niece's house. Turkey, dressing, rice and gravy, green bean casserole (the secret was the mozzarella cheese!), corn souffle! And a plethora of desserts, garnered from pinterest.com, her latest craze!
I was able to make off with several of the mini pies, one of which is featured in the top of this breakfast plate. Should I count it as dessert or another vegetable? After all, a pumpkin is a type of squash. I'll let it count in both categories!

catching up the lil bro et alia

sentiment inside this card:
Hoping you will find
renewed joy in
old-fashioned pleasures
and simple treasures.

I wrote underneath it:
(This is an odd sentiment for a Thank You card, isn't it??)
But my youngest brother doesn't care what I use as stationery, as long as I write to him. I really appreciate that and try to keep throwing some fun things into the mix, keeping it fresh for both of us.
I've already shared some of that here and here.
(smile!)
Shall we?

Hey, Dood!
I'm home! Didja miss me???
Then again... did I tell you I was going to Orlando for the Kopek-Davidson family reunion? I did, right??
Perhaps not.
Those are the folks in Jeff's family. Since I was married to him for 15 years, I still mos def regard myself as part of that family! When I went to TN after seeing - and dancing with! - Kevin Costner, Stephanie told me the reunion was to be in Orlando this year, rather than VA, and that she would be there. I checked with Jeff's cousin Michelle, got the dates, and managed to book myself a place for most of that time. As a bonus, Orbit One Vacation Villas (where I stayed) was less than 3 miles from Orange Lake Resort (where they were). How cool is that?
Coincidences are funny things. At the time I booked my place, I had no idea where they staying. It was simply a place I had never stayed before (I wanted change) and the dates - and cost {in my vacation points} - were excellent. They were to be there from 15 to 21 June, I was there 15 to 20 June. God is truly wonderful and I am so very blessed!
The first evening, we celebrated Nikolas' 10th birthday, Father's Day for Uncle Larry and Brian and John, and Stephanie's engagement to Daniel! Very nice!
On Tuesday, we spent a lot of time at the pool, just hanging out and enjoying each other's company. Very nice! Steph and Daniel even took me to lunch at Shula Burger - mine had bbq and an onion ring on top of the burger. It was huge. I had to take off the onion ring just to be able to eat it!
Monday and Wednesday, most of them were out at the theme parks, which now cost $94 per day. Ouch!!! So I did not do that. But on Thursday, it was another lounging by the pool day! And I went out to Joe's Crab Shack with Steph and Daniel, than had a nice long talk with Chris (her brother) when I got back to their condo.
Maybe I should whip up a family tree for you to know these folks, by name at least...

with much love!

* * * * *
In case you're wondering, I did draw a family tree for him. I even added ages for folks!

carcass o'plenty

Today, I ate the last of the meat I had garnered from the carcass of one of the Thanksgiving turkeys my biggest little brother had prepared for the family feast this year. On that day of thanks, I had waited too late to prepare a to-go plate. By the time the rest of the family had gotten some of this and a bit of that, there were just carcasses, some cranberry jelly, and some s'more cookies my eldest niece had made.
My sister-in-law helped me bag, and then double-bag, the largest turkey carcass. I had said I would try my hand at making broth with the bones. I rightly thought that would be all I do with it, as the bones had been picked pretty clean.
So, she sent me home with the bones, the jelly, and the cookies. I put them all away when home, then settled in to watch a marathon of "Monk" and to psych myself up for making broth.
I knew I had seen a recipe for New York Penicilln in my worn copy of The New York Cookbook. This is one of the best cookbooks I've ever had! The recipes are those of (mostly) famous people, accompanied by stories and anecdotes - quite entertaining, especially for a book of recipes! As it happens, the soup recipe I recalled reading was from Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa's elderly aunt. (How appropriate! A guardian angel led my memory to that recipe!)
Sure, I hear you now: that recipe was for chicken broth. To you I say: Fowl is fowl and poultry is poultry.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. It was already approaching 8 PM and the recipe called for all of the ingredients to simmer for four hours.
FOUR HOURS.
Good thing I'm a night owl. Hoot, hoot!
So, I grabbed my largest pot, poured in the gallon of cold water, submerged the bird remains, and set it to heat. The recipe called for garlic (got it!), an onion (whole, peeled, but not sliced: got it!), and two carrots ("peeled, cut into hunks": got baby carrots!). It also requested celery, a bay leaf, parsley, salt, peppercorns, and chicken feet or chicken wings or a turkey wing.
Oh, and it started with a whole chicken, not just bones.
Hmmm... nah, didn't have it, so didn't add any of that. I was cooking turkey broth, so I figured I was free to make other alterations.
(By the way, that's fairly typical for me to use a recipe as a springboard, not a rulebook. Used to drive my ex crazy.)
It was well past midnight before the broth was done. Then, the decision to be made: go ahead and strain it and gather the bits of meat and discard the bones - or, close it all up, put it into the fridge, and tackle the onerous task of picking some other time?
You mean, when it would all be cold?
Nah, that didn't sound appealing. At all.
So I took care of it then and there.
Pulled out and discarded the larger bones and the onion and the carrots, as the recipe said to do.
Fetched my strainer and pulled up spoonfuls of meat and gunk, drained them, then picked out the meat.
Repeat, Repeat. Repeat.
By the time I was down to just broth, I had about four cups of meat.
WOW!.
I had thought I came home with no turkey and here I had four cups of ready-to-use meat!
It was also 4 AM and definitely time for bed, after covering the broth and setting it in the fridge to cool, so I could de-fat it later.
I ended up with about six cups (1500 milliliters) of broth!
Quite impressive. Especially as I thought I took home bones.

Since then, I've eaten quite a bit of turkey. Sometimes (four days) as breakfast sandwiches, made with dill pickle dip mix in "sour cream", on hearty white bread (4 grams of fiber per sandwich). What a grand way to start the day!
I've also had turkey and mayo sandwiches (twice), turkey with pasta and vegetables (twice), Italian ribollita (twice, made the quickie way with a pint of my broth, some fresh onions and chopped broccoli, and a cup of stove-top stuffing mix), fajitas (twice, using leftovers from a veggie fajita lunch with my first niece and some Ro-Tel of my own).
Today for lunch, it was the last of the turkey meat, fresh broccoli florets, leftover red rice (from the Post 36 fundraiser on Friday), and some of the cranberry jelly. Oh, and toast points, for a little crunch.
I still have two pints of broth in the freezer, too.
Not a bad haul from bird bones.
It just shows to go ya: Appearances can be deceptive.
Don't count something as worthless before it truly is all used up.
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

thanksgiving greetings from the C-Port

paying it forward, one bird at a time

Sent to me by my fsil's mother, I like this story of the old World War II vet, paying off a debt in his own way. It reminds me of my stepdad, who passed away almost two years ago. He had a story or two of his own concerning downed flights.

*** *** *** *** ***
"Old guy and a bucket of shrimp"

It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and his bucket of shrimp.

Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.

Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank you. Thank you.'

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave.
He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away. And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say. Or, to onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem altogether unimportant ... maybe even a lot of nonsense.

Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida. That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.

His full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero in World War I, and then he was in WWII. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger and thirst. By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were or even if they were alive. Every day across America millions wondered and prayed that Eddie Rickenbacker might somehow be found alive.

The men adrift needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged on. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap.
It was a seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move. With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal of it - a very slight meal for eight men. Then they used the intestines for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait . . . and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued after 24 days at sea.

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first life-saving seagull... And he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

Reference: Max Lucado, "In The Eye of the Storm", pp..221, 225-226

PS: Eddie Rickenbacker was the founder of Eastern Airlines. Before WWI he was a race car driver. In WWI he was a pilot and became America's first ace. In WWII he was an instructor and military adviser, and he flew missions with the combat pilots. Eddie Rickenbacker is a true American hero. And now you know another story about the trials and sacrifices that brave men have endured for your freedom.

It is a great story that many don't know...You've got to be careful with old guys, You just never know what they have done during their lifetime.

thanks, e.e.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- e.e. cummings

The first verse is my signature line for my emails and has been for years. Sometimes, you may even spot me walking along and speaking the words, or almost singing them from my open car window.
Try it some time.

dear mama

I've had a satiny Moody Blues tune rocking between my ears all day. "Letters I've written/Never meaning to send" the lyrics sing to me. Yet, I cannot think of a single time I've ever written a letter and did NOT post it. Whatever would be the point of such an exercise? Even blogging is sent out there for any and all, or none, to read. This writing is truly letters to myself, mostly, to help me put my life into proper perspective, to rage against the dying of the light, to revel in the new day.

Well, this new day was the ninth Mother's Day since my mother's death in 2001. It has come along, again, still, though I am ever so much better with it as time continues its march forward, ever forward, regardless of human events, be they celebratory or lamentable. I would very much like to have called Mama and told her of my day, but, as that is no longer an option, I'll write to her instead. Perhaps that shall suffice to solace my desire to communicate with her.

Dearest Mama,
What a wonderful day I've had! I really didn't do much this morning, just got the clothes sorted for laundry. I very nearly, several times, thought I would go ahead and do them... but that chore can wait for Monday, I do believe. After all, I don't usually have anything but school and my favorite tv shows scheduled for that evening. So there!
I had thought I might go to a movie, but I never really got motivated to do so. Truly, I pretty well spent the morning in front of the computer or filing things away. Amazing how quickly paperwork can pile up, given half a chance. The fellow who mows my front yard came by and did so, waiting until after 11am "in case I was sleeping in." The yard looks ever so much better, though the back is still a wreck, as it hasn't been mowed even once this year. I need to either get the lawn mower fixed or I need to buy a new one, because I really cannot keep paying to get the work done that I could be doing myself.
Anywho, I knew I had been invited to an early dinner with Deatre and John and the kids today, but I didn't know just when that was to be. Well, about the time the front yard (no, I can't dignify it with the word "lawn") was getting mowed, Deatre sent a picture of the kids to my cellphone. The time was then set at 5pm for the dinner at the Longhorn's in Pooler. Where it is allegedly cooler! hahaha! Where was I? Oh, yeah, not yet noon and I had time to do anything or nothing - so I spent a little more time on the computer, thinkin' 'bout this letter, but not quite ready to write it.
I finally decided to go ahead and get dressed in real clothes, rather than the stuff I was wearing. I knew I wanted to wear my pretty black skirt, you know the one I bought for the Mediterranean cruise years ago? Oh, wait, you were already gone for that, so I guess you wouldn't know. Anyway, it's a knee-length, lined, thin cotton number, with a pretty lace trim near the hemline. The top was one I had also bought for the trip: narrow horizontal black and white stripes, three-quarter sleeves, and a loose bow on the left end of the oval neckline. Together, the outfit is one of my girliest, and I always feel cute when I wear it. Especially with the little black leather flats I bought for dancing on New Year's Eve 2007!
So, there I was, all dressed up, nowhere to go... But, wait a minute!!! That's right, I had a concert to attend! Oh, Lord, what WAS I thinking??? The JEA was generously providing a free concert by the Savannah Arts Academy's Silver Winds Ensemble at 3pm... and it was almost time for it to start! Off I raced, getting there just in time for the beginning of the show, even managing to snag a seat. And what a wonderful concert it was! Dr. Hutchinson, the band director, is truly fabulous and we even, at one point, got to all say "Happy Mother's Day!" to his out-of-town mom. Lots of music I had never heard before and most likely will never hear again. Oh, except the one that was a medley of American folk songs, including "skip to my lou"! That was fun! The whole concert was fun, and I do believe that's the most relaxed I've ever seen Dr. H in all these years.
The show was right at 90 minutes, so I had to go ahead to Pooler straight off. I managed to find the Longhorn my first try (!) and even made it there ahead of the Denions (!!!), so I got us on the list and we waited. And waited. With an increasingly agitated 8-year-old and 4-year-old. For an hour. But the food was very good (I actually ordered a filet mignon, medium, and it was a choice bit of meat!), our waitress was pretty good at juggling, and I got to try something new: blackberry lemonade. Yum! Good food, great company! And when the bill came, they refused, adamantly, to let me pay for mine or even leave a tip. I even arm-wrestled John for it, with his weak arm (like THAT would make a difference!). The nearby table got a kick out of THAT, lemme tell ya. John and Deatre insisted that they had invited me, they wanted to pay to show me how special I was TO THEM. Wow. I told them how much it had meant to me for the kids to send me a "you've been like a mother to us" card, how very special they were TO ME.
You know, sometimes I forget I have such a loving extended family. Just because I don't have anyone in the house with me, I sometimes feel all alone, I need to remember that I am NEVER alone. Someone who knows me and loves me is as close as a phone call or a keystroke away. Even you are always just a thought away from me. Thank you for all your love, all these years, all of your support, even when you didn't believe in the path I had chosen. Especially when you didn't agree with my choices. I always knew that you loved me, no matter what I did, what I thought, where I went. Thank you for that.