traditions

There have been several in my family that are always observed, one of which all of our family sitting together for a Thanksgiving meal or Christmas breakfast prayed over by my Daddy before we hit the kitchen. Mom is one to make the occasion special so there's usually holiday themed napkins and centerpieces plus her specialties in the old farm dishes that my brother will inherit. Always, deviled eggs and asparagus casserole. Dressing and turkey..no ham. The rest varies but it's always good. Christmas consists of cheese grits, scrambled eggs and bacon and sausage plus biscuits. No gravy...ever. When we were kids she always made cinnamon rolls for early snack while we enjoyed Santa. Later the serious cooking began. As the years have passed we have taken over more and more of those traditional meals but always in HER kitchen and seated at THEIR table. Not this time.

The care facility is already decorated for Christmas since they had their dinner last week. The cute admissions girl was on a ladder trying to straighten the lobby tree when I passed through yesterday. There is nothing like traversing the halls of a place like that to make you pace yourself and give the residents and staff space to do what they do. BG has headed to the place where the Cadi was parked two or three weeks ago to try to get to the guy who said he would fix it for her. Carpooling has been a necessity that we're both tired of. Even though the Cadi guzzles gas, it gets her from here to there and back and I miss my (trusty old) Camry. You can hear it coming half a mile away but it does the job. I was shocked to find out today that the accident I thought happened in February was actually in December of last year, the one that tore my shoulder in half. I was way off on my recollections but then it's been a crazy year and one in which I've often not even known my own name much less what I had for lunch. It is what it is and I own that. Just had a chat with mom's occupational therapist about the plan to get her on the road to home in a week or two. We shall see if that's in the stars.

We stopped by Kroger to pick up my allergy meds this afternoon and everybody looked all business and on a mission to cook Thanksgiving dinner. There were several obvious out of towners wandering around looking all citified in the parking lot of a small town grocery store. It sits across the highway from Wallyhell which I haven't visited in many years, nor will I ever again. It's not worth the hassle and guilt on my conscience for their work practice to fight the crowds for 20 cents off.

Gobble gobble!