Thankful.

I have a few traditions on this day. Not many - the menu, recording the Macy's parade so I can watch it and fast-forward through all the crappy pop music, commercials, and talking heads to see the twenty minutes of balloons, floats and high school bands I'm interested in hidden among all that junk  (although I will have to forgo that pleasure, this year, alas), and my list of some things for which I am thankful, in no particular order and in no way complete:

The house in which I live
The Evil Genius

Mum
Someone
Sprout
Gypsy, K2, Mizz A, Kit, Sam-I-Am, PJ, Mizz Beth, and all of my friends who put up with me when I am most myself and therefor least likable. They are the net beneath me when I fly and fall.
Bread
The scent of leaf loam and woodsmoke in the crisp autumn air
Books, music, and art
Clean, plentiful water
Clean air
Clean clothes
Freedom
Nature and the way she finds to show me something new of herself every day
Words
Song
Dance
Adversity, that joy is all the sweeter (Okay, okay, the joy is sweet enough, so basta with the adversity for a minute, please)
Every creature and plant that I consume to sustain myself, because without the life I take, there would be no life to live
Love - that it exists at all is a wonder, and I feel blessed to know it in many forms
Chocolate, gift from the Gods (yes, even the perversion called "candy bar") (Mmm...candy bar...)
Strong hands
Strong spirit
Strong will
Laughter
Cussed determination not to curl up and die just because life can sometimes be a succession of truly awful, bleak, and desolate days...but sometimes it isn't.
The Internet
You

I hope you have a blessed day, and that you the things you're thankful for outweighing the things for which you're not.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all, from us at Casa de Crazy to you out in the Blue Nowhere and beyond.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What's Fer Dinner?

Time for the annual posting of the menu!  You've been anxiously awaiting this post all year, haven't you?  I knew it!

Casa de Crazy presents:  Thanksgiving Dinner

Featuring: Mr. Thomas Turkey

Co-Starring:  Herb and Onion Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Turnips and Carrots and a special appearance by Can o' Cranberry!

Also Appearing:  Mrs. Smith's Dutch Apple Crumb Pie and Sara Lee Cheesecake along with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Reddi-Whip

Special Guest Appearances by:  Pitcher of Water and Stick of Butter

How's your Feast shaping up (if you celebrate, that is)?

The Countdown Begins

Thanksgiving is in four days.  Four days!  Where'd my year go?  Gah!!!

Ahem.

Today I am baking herb bread so I can cut it into cubes and let it go stale.  Yup.  That's how I do my dressing, and so far no one's complained they don't like it.  The dough is on its first rising as I type.  I dig bread dough - it's alive!  Watching it poof up, slowly encroaching on the edges of the rising bowl, is kind nifty.

In a couple of hours it'll be in the oven, making Casa de Crazy smell fantastic.  I'm baking two batches, which will yield four loaves.  Not all of it is for dressing, but I have learned that I need to make extra - filling the house with that delectable scent and not having any to nom on is just about the height of cruelty!

I'll be doing little things all week to get ready for Thursday.  We're not having a huge crowd and I'm not cooking a huge feast, I just don't want to have a ton of work to do in one day, and some things do better when they've had a day or three to sit and mingle.

Tomorrow I am shooting photos at K2's place - this time of year she comes off the road and updates her online presence and I help by shooting pics and writing Etsy posts for her.  There's a link on her sidebar if you're interested in some fantastic art and wearables!

The rest of the week will have me in and out of the kitchen and tidying the Casa (which isn't as much work as it has been because I've been kinds sorta keeping up with it a tiny bit more).

How's your week shaping up?

Do You Know Him?

He's an alcoholic and a drug addict and he carries his demons under his shirt and close to his heart where they claw and rend and he bleeds out anger and hatred and misery and love.

He carries his demons close to his heart and inside his head and they whisper and taunt and tease and blend with the voices outside his head that tell him he's useless and worthless and wrong and bad and a drunk and no good and unwanted until it all turns into this big noise and the I Love You gets lost.

The I Love You gets lost because he isn't capable of understanding it, can't comprehend how anyone can look at him and his scars from the all the demon-scratching and his bleeding and anger and drinking and pot smoking and still say the words with meaning, even after he has spewed so much anger and bitterness out that they have coated everything, my heart, my soul, our home, his eyes and ears, and taken all the meaning out of his own i love you.

His own i love you has no meaning to him because he can't believe he has value, because he knows what he has done in this life and feels, behind the curtains of his eyes, deep in his mind, that he cannot have value because he has broken the law, broken hearts, broken vows, broken his word, broken himself down and down until he is tiny fragments, dust to be swept up and discarded.

He is dust to be discarded because that, in his mind, is all he has ever been.  In his mind, in his eyes, in his heart, in his experience, he has been tossed away like refuse when he turned out to be a disappointment, when his imperfections, so many imperfections, burst forth despite his best efforts to hide them and pretend to be the person he wants to be, and so tossed away he has drifted far from his better self and become this drunk addict who feels the scorn seeping through his walls and into his bones.

He is an alcoholic and an addict because he is trying to hide from, trying to buffer himself from, trying to resist what he thinks is real, that he is no good and no one could really want him and the hammer will fall, the shoe will drop, and he will once more be thrown out the door he is always halfway through.

He is halfway through the door because he has created a life that is untenable, taken the love he's been freely given and twisted it up, torn it to pieces, tossed it about, trampled it, all because he can't believe it is real and simply love and not some desire to change or turn him into what he isn't, that he can be loved for nothing more than himself and so must lash out at what he doesn't understand because love can't be love for its own sake but has to have a dollar value.

He thinks love has a dollar value because he has only felt loved when he was approved of, was only approved of when he had a job and was a good boy, did as others wanted him to, hid himself away behind blue eyes and a smile that never reached them.

When the smile reached his eyes, he was afraid, because that meant something more than a plastic existence of pretension, it meant he was opening himself up to an honesty for which he was not prepared, and that honesty burned and ate at him until he had to call it a lie, but in naming it a lie has only wounded himself more because he knows that the lie is truth and he can't hide from truth in the one place he wants to, inside his own head.

He can't hide from himself, and so...he is an alcoholic...and an addict...

And I love him.

Six Things

Some while ago, I took part in some memery called Six Things, wherein one listed six things one found in various places.  I have had it in my head to play again, so here goes

In my laundry basket:
One sock made with recycled cotton yarn of varying blues and purples.  Where the other is I do not know, and Sprout isn't saying.
One pair of not-so-frilly unmentionables that I should bin, but can't bring myself to because they are soft and comfy.
One t-shirt.  How I managed to wear it is a mystery, because I don't wear that kind of shirt any more and won't until another fifty pounds have gone the way of the Dodo.
A Peek-a-Block
Something that looks suspiciously like a petrified cat hork.
A spoon.

In my bathroom:
A mini Butterfinger.  Why?
Four dry-erase markers.  Again...why?
A jar lid filled with honey and borax.  I know why.
The spout to my bathtub...on the counter...
A ghostly spider that is wondering why the dearth of insect suppers.
Cat litter...on the floor...no matter how often I sweep.

In my kitchen:
A plastic baggie full of white powder.  Guess.
A bright pink charger cord.
A terribly empty cat bowl (it will be filled this afternoon).
One yellow Playtex glove.
A magnificent cobweb.
A frighteningly poofed up milk jug.

In my refrigerator:
Something green and furry that may or may not have been edible at one time.
Something orange and furry that ditto above.
Something liquid that should probably be solid.
Something solid that used to be liquid.
A piece of brie of indeterminate age but impeccable breeding.
A questionable brownie that could double as a brick, it's been there so long.

In the pantry:
A light bulb.
A box of club crackers with exactly six crackers in it.
Some stale oyster crackers that no one wants to eat, but we can't seem to toss into the compost.
A cat toy.
A package of Fig Newtons with two Newtons in it, both of which bear more resemblance to blocks of wood than cookies.
A sock...but not the mate to the recycled cotton one, alas.

In my van:
A handful of Froot Loops from the stone age.
A piece of beef jerky that is slightly older than the Froot Loops and twice as tough as Chuck Norris.
A flashlight that sometimes works.
Three different toddler shoes.
A small jug of chocolate milk that occasionally hisses at me.
An astonishing assortment of crumbs of varying sizes and ages that bids fair to take over the back seat.

So...if you want to play along, just pick six places and list six things you found there.  Easy-peasy.

Oooh, 'ku!

I've been playing with Haiku on Facebook.  I enjoy them.  Here are a few of my recent creations:

Sunlight pours whisky
Through shivering Autumn trees
Illusory warmth
~
Small girl wakes often
Nestles late in Mama's bed
Warm nest hard to leave
~
Small girl has bad dreams
Crawls into bed with Mama
Mama holds, girl sleeps

They're not exactly master class, but I'm having fun with them, distilling a head full of thoughts into seventeen syllables.  Do you 'ku?

Veteran's Day

If you served, or if you are serving, heartfelt thanks.

If your feet walk foreign soil, I wish you a swift and safe return home.

If you came home broken, I wish you swift and full mending.

If you suffered loss, I wish you the softening of grief, and abundance in your future days.

Thank you Dad, Big Brother, Uncle, Cousin, Basque A, and all of those who step/ped up and put on a uniform.