Poems, The Baboon Congress

tim’s turkey verse

120 Comments

in the name of virtual family values and holiday togetherness, today’s guest post is, of course, by tim

Its thanksgiving week here on the trail
were doing guest blogs in the absence of dale.
the week should be 7 days same as before
but without dales guidance
we could have crap blogs galore.

will jacque be sticking here head in?
will clyde show us that hes alive?
I love it when hes feeling chatty
but sad when its all before five

we all have some family to gather with
my wifes got to gather with mine.
last year we did it with her family
and other than that twitch im just fine

what im thankful for after watching the dust bowl
is for friends who will stick it out here
we miss the old days and we do all remember
and sometimes it does bring a tear.

this trail is the center of mornings for us
and the crew digs in deeper it seems.
we loose one and then two and then add a couple
wwhile dale cooks up stuff behind the scenes.

word press is a challenge for steve the blue doily
pj keeps us from going off track
renee is the foreigner among us
from dakota so cut her some slack

linda and ben offer baboon stability
sherrilee anna and krista our soul
we miss mig bib and allanna, hope someday they come back
jim has taken first to blogs daily role.

its an odd clan our internet family
who meet here each day on the trail.
news from space are our cranberries
and or politicic gravey prevails

discussions replaced the good music
obamas the turkey we share
dr baboon and bubby and old captn billy
cover topics about which we all care.

thanks to chidrader, the guy in the hat
and regulars who are not daily
we really enjoy the participation
and love it when you come in and playly

with donna we pass through school season
with holly we pull it together
and summarize days conversation
with a song that is true as the weather.

Ffod, books and politics theater arts
solar news and the state of the state
the baboon trail moniker touches our hearts
and makes us look forward to wait

the next days blog topic is always a treat
it’s a great way to start out anew
you have to react to the sideways end question
realizing someone is messing with you

its an odd way of life that weve grown to depend on
heart string tied to typewritten keys
with the people you list as your friends on
the place where the aim is to please

id like to say that it is you all im here for
im such a giving kind of guy
but the truth is that i do it all just for me
this blog daily fix makes my spirits fly high

so thank you to each and every baboon
who share the light of the new day
and all of the thoughts weve shared on the trail
and the things that you’ve all had to say

lets not forget lisa on edith or robin
cb bill and all of the newbies we’ve gained
ba’s back of late love to have her drop in
without them were only half brained

together we are better than we all are apart.
the power in numbers baboon
so along with the stuffing and pies this good season
thank the trail now please holly a tune….

What groups, clubs or organizations claim you as a member?                              Are you proud to belong?

120 thoughts on “tim’s turkey verse”

  1. I am part of an Orphan Thanksgiving tradition more than 30 years strong and together we sing
    My turkey tis of thee
    Sweet bird of cranberry
    Of thee I sing
    I love thy breast and wing
    Thy back, leg, and other thing
    Oh luscious bird

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  3. tim – what a wonderful way to start off the day. These days this is the group that I am very thankful for… it’s hard to explain to others why I enjoy the company of the Trail and its offshoots.

    I am also part of another book club (besides BBC) that has been meeting for almost 25 years.. we’re the Illiterati (sic, but well-read). I’m also part of Operation: Keep `em Warm, which distributes new coats to kids in need each fall. And I’m also a member of Hats for the Homeless, a group that knits hats for those in need. And, of course, I have a stamping group that gets together every couple of months and makes cards and other crafting projects. It occurs to me that this group doesn’t have a name – guess I’ll have to work on that.

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  4. Good morning. Well done, tim. A good one for thanksgiving. I have been active in my local chapter of the Sustainable Farming Association from the start. We have board meeting 6 or 7 times per year and sponsor some events such as field days and educational meetings. Also, I am active in the Seed Savers Exchange. I go to the SSE annual conference and I am in contact with some of the members by mail of email. SFA and SSE take up most of time and I don’t belong to any other groups although I have been active the local chapter of the Audubon Society in the past. Of course, I am in a group of interesting people who for some reason or the other call themselves Baboons, as you all know. I hope you all have a good thanksgiving.

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  6. Nice, tim. I’m rushing to an early doc appointment. My one organization these days is the International Wolf Center. It has a high minded mission statement. I support it when it honors its mission and I make myself a nuisance when it falls short of its own goals.

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    1. Steve, are you sure you have the date of your appointment right? I don’t think most doctors offices are open today. Wink, wink.

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  7. What a fun way to kickstart this Thanksgiving celebration, tim; nice job.

    I’m a member of the Danish-American Fellowship, an eclectic group of people most with Danish ancestry, some Danish immigrants, and some merely interested in exploring Danish language and culture. I’m not a regular participant in most of what goes on at Danebo, but on Sunday I’ll partake in a roast duck dinner with a Swedish friend as my guest. Can’t drag Hans to these kinds of functions. Mortensaften is the Danish equivalent of the Thanksgiving celebration without the Native American controversy, and with a roast duck instead of a turkey.

    I’m also a long-time member of a Danish book club. Originally dedicated to reading the same Scandinavian book in the original language, that practice petered out after about eight years because we rarely had a enough copies of the book chosen to get it to all six members between our monthly meetings. These days our meetings are more about food; we take turns hosting dinners in our respective homes, gabbing in Danglish, laughing, and swapping whatever books we’ve been reading individually. Our annual Danish Christmas luncheon is coming up on December 1st. It’s a pot-luck affair, and we’re each responsible for bringing the prepared ingredients that make this a traditional holiday feast. It’s a labor intensive, and expensive feast for any one to host, but as a pot-luck works beautifully. Looking forward to it already.

    I’ve got Mama Stamberg’s cranberry relish thawing in the refrigerator (made it yesterday), and now I’m headed to the kitchen to prepare my other contribution to today’s feast at Helen and Sarah’s house: Bosc Pear and Red Onion Gratin. Happy Thanksgiving to baboons everywhere.

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    1. ive got some bosc pears i need to deal with and i think i have a couple of red onions that i can throw in there. i will look it up i may have to check out the gratin stuff. i dont think i have any gratin sittin around

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      1. Easy, peasy, tim, here’s the recipe:

        Source: © EatingWell Magazine
        Pear & Onion Gratin
        Active Time: 20 Minutes
        Total Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
        Yield: 8 servings

        INGREDIENTS
        1 large red onion
        3 ripe Bosc pears
        3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
        1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
        1/4 teaspoon salt
        Freshly ground pepper to taste
        1 cup coarse dry breadcrumbs, preferably whole-wheat
        1/3 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

        Ingredient Note: “Panko breadcrumbs” work great in this recipe, but home-made work fine too.

        To make your own breadcrumbs: Trim crusts from firm sandwich bread. Tear the bread into pieces and process in a food processor until coarse crumbs form. One slice makes about 1/3 cup. Spread the breadcrumbs onto a baking sheet and bake in a 250°F oven until dry and crispy, about 15 minutes.

        Bosc pears are strong-flavored and hold their shape when cooked, making them well suited for this savory side dish. It’s a terrific accompaniment for a glazed ham or grilled sausage or most any roasted meat or poultry.

        DIRECTIONS:
        Fill a large bowl three-quarters full with water; add a handful of ice cubes. Cut onion into 16 wedges, place in a strainer and lower into the water. Let stand for 20 minutes.

        Preheat oven to 400°F.

        Halve and core each pear; cut each half into 6 slices. Drain the onion wedges well and place them in a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish along with the pear slices, 1 tablespoon oil, thyme, salt and a grinding of pepper; toss to combine. Cover with foil.

        Roast for 30 minutes, stirring twice.

        Meanwhile, combine breadcrumbs and cheese in a small bowl. Drizzle with the remaining 2 tablespoons oil; stir to combine. Remove the pan from the oven, sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly over the gratin, return to the oven and roast until the breadcrumbs are well browned, 20 to 30 minutes more. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

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        2. Just wanted to tell everyone that the pear and red onion gratin was a huge success. It’s very, very good, and couldn’t be easier to make.

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  8. Morning all and thank you for the kind words last night. While it has been a challenging year (especially this last half), I am thankful I can report that the s&h and I are both healthy and reasonably happy. I’m also thankful my pie (pumpkin-pecan) is cooling and my salad is chilling for tonights small feast.

    At this point, I guess I don’t belong to any organizations besides the Trail and church, both of which I am grateful for, as they have provided me with much in the way of joy and encouragement.

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    5. Welcome back, mig! It’s wonderful to see your voice again. I’m so glad you and the s&h are well. I have no idea what challenges you’ve faced but it’s good that you have returned to this group. You’re among friends here!

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  9. Tim, what a wonderful poem!!
    I belong to my church and to a bonfire group that doesn’t have a name. We have had a bonfire once a month for a long time now – we think maybe seven or eight years? Whoever can come, comes. We were all members of the same church when we started, but not any more. We all take turns hosting. In the coldest weather, we look for slightly warmer weather and then we may not last outside very long. The combination of wind and cold is the worst, but some peoples’ yards are better than others.
    And I am sort of a member of the baboons. Enough to have been in a poem about gopher feet (thanks, Dale!!) But teaching and coaching makes it really hard this time of year, so I don’t post often.
    I am thankful that I will see my sisters and brother today, and that my contribution to the cooking is almost done (ostkaka, pecan pie and fudge). And that I will see one daughter and her husband and already talked to the other daughter. And more – I could go on and on. I am grateful to you all for being there every day even if I don’t post.

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      2. PJ, You are so close! It’s Swedish. You curdle milk and then make the cheese into a sort of a pudding. We got the recipe from my Swedish grandma.
        A couple of years ago a friend went to visit her relatives in Sweden, and came back raving about a dessert. She wanted me to help “translate” the metric measurements into English units, but once I was done, I basically had my family’s ostkaka recipe. So we made it together. I don’t think everybody in the family likes it, but most do.

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        2. Sure, but I do have a few comments first. 1) My sister and I think you really need to have organic or raw milk. She has tried a lot of other milks that don’t curdle well. 2) It’s better if you are NOT making it the morning you want it. Baking it the night before is best – it’s better cold. Which means you actually have to start curdling it 24-30 hours before you really want to be eating. 3) The easiest rennet I have found is “Junket” rennet tablets. It’s in a lot of grocery stores somewhere near tapioca and jello products. Otherwise you can order liquids on line from cheese making suppliers.

          So, here goes:
          OSTKAKA
          Step 1:
          Rennet
          1 T water
          1 cup flour
          1 cup milk
          1 gallon milk, warmed to 100 to 105 F (Use a thermometer)

          Dissolve the rennet in the water. Mix the flour with 1 cup of milk. Add both the rennet and the flour/milk mixture to the warm milk. Wrap up the container or do something to help keep it warm. I let it sit overnight, but I think you need at least a couple of hours. Then slice through it with a spatula about an inch apart, criss-cross. Let it sit some more – maybe a half hour or hour. If it hasn’t set when it sits overnight, you probably need to try different milk.
          Now you need to drain off the whey. You should be able to drain off around a half gallon, but sometimes more. I do a combination of scooping out drier curds with a slotted spoon and letting the liquid drain out of a wetter mass through a colander or sieve.

          Step 2:
          Heat oven to 400 F.
          2 eggs plus one egg yolk (or three eggs)
          1 cup sugar
          1/2 tsp salt
          1 cup cream
          2 tsp vanilla
          1/2 tsp almond extract
          Beat together. Add to curds and mix. Pour into a casserole or 9 x 13 pan and bake 10 minutes, then turn it down to 350 and bake another hour, or until brown.

          Refrigerate overnight or until cold.

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        3. Thanks, Vicky. Have you ever tried it with goat’s milk? I’m asking because I have ready access to raw goat’s milk.

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    2. vicky
      i always fear or rather anticipate remorse when i do a poem with names because i know i will absoultly leave people out. where the heck is silver lake i think to myself everytie i see you post. you have kind of explained it but i like having it be a lake wobegon kind of place in the ambiguous out there somewhere mode. not many of us can say we have been in a poem about gopher feet. i like the idea of a blog post for a dya asking the baboons to write a poem about gopher feet that includes vicky in silver lake. ill bet it woud be interesting. then we could all belong to a group of people who have written poems about vicky and gopher feet.

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      2. Tim, please don’t feel bad. I didn’t care if I was in your poem. I really think one poem about gopher feet is about all I can bear. Really.
        Silver Lake – it is a very generic name, isn’t it? – north of Mankato, south of St. Cloud, east of Montevideo, west of the Twin Cities – what more could I ask? To be more specific, it’s on highway 7, the last town before Hutchinson. For school, we are paired with Glencoe, another town nobody knows the location of. (So it’s GSL. We are in one of the areas of the state where many schools go by initials. BOLD, BL-H, ACGC, MACCRAY, etc!)

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        1. Thanks Vicky I love that area
          I was thinking about end of the trail rest home last time I drove out that way
          Close enough and yet far enough you are right
          Possible to have critters work space garden and acreage and still be with range of the big city.

          Silver lake is the place where the gophers do tremble
          The farms there abound with gophers that resemble
          Stubby furry night crawlers writhing about
          They once had 4 gopher legs now theyre without

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      1. It is. Except sometimes – a lot of the people are political in ways that I don’t agree with, and mostly you wouldn’t either. So as long as we stay away from politics, it’s wonderful!

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  10. Over the years I’ve spread myself pretty thin between groups, mostly related to our life circumstances, then moving on. Kind of a serial monogamy pattern of group membership. One interest has usually branched out into several more intriguing tangents. While the girls were in school I loved teaching enrichment classes, not so much the phone bank for school referendums. Bill and I are are lifetime members of that ubiquitous group, the “usual suspects”, who have their hands in all the mundane stuff of neighborhood life, just in case you’ve ever wondered “who the heck organizes Neighborhood Night Out anyway?” When my dad died in the mid-90’s something inside shifted and opened up, followed by several moves, job changes, financial woes, some family turmoil, but I have made wonderful new friends along the way and somehow found my way here. It’s been a trip. Thanks Tim for this poem that makes me smile, to Dale for giving him the forum and somehow drawing this strangely wonderful group together, and to everyone on the trail for sharing your thoughts and lives. I’m happy to call myself a member of the Trail Baboons 🙂 Not sure if we’re a club? (not) An organization? (not) Friends? Yes.

    Let Us Give Thanks

    Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.
    For children, who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.
    Let us give thanks;
    For generous friends with hearts as big as hubbards and smiles as bright as their blossoms.
    For feisty friends as tart as apples,
    For continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them
    For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible.
    For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you.
    For funny friends, who are as silly as brussel sprouts and as amusing as jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions
    For friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter
    For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes
    For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts, and witherings
    And, finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter,
    For all of these we give thanks!

    Rev Max Coots
    Unitarian Universalist Church
    Canton, New York

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    4. Robin, I copied this poem and emailed it to a bunch of friends, and have received so many positive responses to it. One of the people I sent it to is a cousin, Lise (who I discovered I had maybe 7 years ago…. it’s a long complicated story. Lise’s mother is my father’s half-sister. My father was given up for adoption at birth.) At any rate, I have never had any contact with my father’s half sister,Birgit, who lives in Copenhagen, but Lise, (who I’ve met once) had forwarded the poem to her. Tonight I got this lovely email from Birgit, thanking me for that poem. I guess she’s prepared to admit me into her life and family. I’m grateful.

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      1. Well, PJ, that’s grace for you! I’m happy for you — there’s always room for one more, yes? I read it to my family today too. Coincidentally, several of us had brought poems or songs to share. My family sings a lot which may initially feel strange to the assorted partners, but it’s what we do. We sing our graces, we sing in the shower and in the car, we sing to the tiny girlies, and today my two sisters and I sang through a litany of Japanese songs and lullabies for an hour or two. It’s fun to do it together because we remember so much more in tandem and once we get started, we’re unstoppable. Obnoxious, maybe, but it makes my mom beam and that’s priceless. I’ve been haphazardly collecting Japanese lullabies/children’s songs for a few years now and yet we always seem to come up with a few more that I had overlooked. SO much fun! 🙂

        Tim, we’re also charade maniacs when we do get around to playing. Thanks for reminding me because we haven’t played for a few years — there’s always Christmas!

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  11. Pies are baking and rolls are rising. Everything smells good. I always feel better when the Ffod is under control. 😉

    Besides being a Babooner and a member of BBC, I’m occasionally a member of another book club that doesn’t really have a name. I’m sort of a member of the Riverview Garden Club, though my contributions there are infrequent and haphazard. I’m a member of a dragon boat racing team, but more of a recreational member than a competitive one. And there’s a group of friends called Fun Club, which has an annual bonfire, among other things. I missed that this year. I aspire to retirement – I always think then I could participate more often in more activities, though that’s probably just an excuse.

    I took a minute this morning to go back and read last year’s discussion of Thanksgiving songs, a guest post by Clyde, and it was fun to read through and remember. (http://daleconnelly.com/2011/11/23/over-the-river-2/ if you’d like to revisit.) Krista outdid herself that day, and wrote a Thanksgiving song which I will repost despite not having her permission, hoping for forgiveness:

    I never had nothin’
    Not a dollar or a dime
    My clothes are torn and tattered
    My body feels the time

    Looking out this window
    Gray trees and dull gray sky
    I wonder about tomorrow
    And finding peace by and by

    Chorus:
    An attitude of gratitude
    Can change your whole life
    Be thankful for the good times
    And keep smiling in the light

    Memories of kind friendships
    Of fire, hearth and home
    I’m thankful for my mother
    And my father who never roamed

    I remember one kind lover
    Warm sunshine was our way
    And my sweet dog in the kitchen
    Who wagging greets each day

    Chorus

    I remember friends and music
    I’ve loved each singing tune
    With smiles and food and bonfires
    And a halo ’round the moon

    So I’m grateful for the laughter
    For the roof over my head
    For the songs that fill the rafters
    For the warmth of my small bed

    Chorus

    Thanks for the song, Krista! Thanks for the poem, tim! Thanks, ‘boons, for getting my day off to a lovely and lyrical start!

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    1. Thanks Linda, for remembering. Krista, your poem is beautiful and if Linda hadn’t remembered and shared, I’d never have seen it.

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      1. Also really liked this one from BiR:

        To the tune of Come Ye Thankful People Come:

        Pie is the American
        Symbol of prosperity,
        And it contents varying
        With the seasons’ quality.
        Pie is the heroic food
        With it yummy, tasty crust
        No pie-eating people can
        Ever be completely snuffed.

        And this one from BiB:

        The Goats’ Thanksgiving Hymn
        They gather together to ask the goats’ blessings
        They milk us, they brush us, they bring us good hay.
        They help us when we’re kidding,
        They feed us at our bidding.
        They think that we should thank them,
        Well, they are just wrong.

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        2. Yep, gonna take us two days at least!

          Thanks, Linda – had completely forgotten the last year’s poetry.

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  12. Wonderful tim – and all. Proud to call myself a baboon. Like VS, I am in another book club besides BBC, but ours has met a mere 18 years. A fabulous group of women who make me laugh heartily and often and who have held me up when I was low or down. I don’t have much extra time these days for formal groups beyond that. Other time is filled in as a loose member of the gaggle of volunteers at Daughter’s school (I am inordinately pleased that kids there recognize me as “the music lady” and get excited when I show up with my bag of goodies).

    Happy Thanksgiving all! So glad I have you lot in my gaggle of friends.

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    1. P.s. feel a bit like I’m cbeating today – my contribution to our family’s feast is steamed broccoli and a couple bottles of wine…mom is sort of cheating this year too, though, as Mrs. Kowalski did the heavy lifting in the kitchen (Mom just needs to re-heat the feast). We don’t believe in high-stress meals or holidays in my family. Another thing I am thankful for on a regular basis.

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    2. Anna, BiR and I are in a “book” club much like yours and that has seen us through some major highs and lows as well. From time to time I think to myself, “No more groups!” but I, for one, am glad to be in your gaggle. Gaggle on!

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  13. Happy Thanksgiving! We will have our feast on Saturday. Today I will spend at my computer doing a power point for a 4 hour inservce I am presenting on Dec. 8th at Moorhead State University. I am behind schedule, so I am thankful that I have today to work on it and I am also thankful that all the people we are having over for Thanksgiving can’t dine with us until the weekend.

    Thank you, Tim, for your kind mention of me in your poem. As usual, though, I have a bone to pick with you. I can understand your reference to me as a foreigner, but the last time I looked, South Dakota still hadn’t been annexed into Minnesota, so, by rights, Donna is a foreigner, too. South Dakotans who live west of the Missouri often feel that those who live east of the Missour within the formal boundaries of the state lack a true South Dakota identity, so I suppose you could be excused for thinking that Donna was a Minnesotan. I wonder how she feels about it? Does Donna profess to be a fully fledged South Dakotan, or is her identit, her sense of self unstable and confused because of her Iowa roots? I would love to know.

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    1. renee i see this often, the fact that outsiders and pretenders want recognition as an entitled part of the core group. my new son in law from kosovo has a hard time with the fact he is viewed as an outsider. i understand. certainly donna is also an outsider but she doesnt come around much anymore i think she has realized her true position. we like you renee but your lack of guest posts and references to politicians from a red state are far from typical baboon like behavior. please forgive me if asking the true baboons to cut you some slack is derogatory and you would like to pretend there is no true issue here.

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  14. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Great poem tim. Thanks

    I don’t belong to much these days–too busy and several former organizations that used to get my energy changed in ways that left me cold. So I am waiting for the next prospect to come along. So Baboons and BBC are the few non-professional groups that claim me these days.

    Today I am in the cooks club though. Just took a minute to poke my head in here before I take a shower and boss my mother around some more.

    Have a grateful day.

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  15. No turkey at our house this year. Both daughters and their families will be here and they are all vegetarians. I don’t mind not having turkey, although I’m not a vegetarian. We will have some very good “meat” balls made without meat and another vegetarian main dish made with quom, a source of vegetarian protein. The rest will be tradition things with no meat in them including stuffing and gravy. I know a few of you are also vegetarians and i’m sure the ones that are vegetarians will also be enjoying some good tasting vegetarian food.

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    1. we are having a vegetarian Thanksgiving that is all about PIE. Lovely quiche, knishes, apple/cranberry and pumpkin/pecan. Oh, and some salad, just to make us feel really virtuous (never mind all those walnuts and bleu cheese on the salad;) )

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    2. i love making my family turkey and am getting prety good at it. they made me some veggie lasagna that will be good but i honestly do just fine with side dishes of sweet potato mashed potato wild rice asparagus with hollindais, green salad , green bean casserole. rolls pie and frozen fruit cocktail. new mashed potato recipe with cream cheese looks real good. and pear onion addition from pj thanks

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  16. So many good lines in there, tim:
    and love it when you come in and playly
    but I think my personal favorite is:
    and other than that twitch im just fine
    I can relate, but won’t go into that now. Hassing gathering isn’t till tomorrow, so today is a free one to cook and bake.

    I was just thinking about this the other day – I a member of 2 folk dance groups, one chorus, Robbinsdale School Volunteers, an “Artist’s Way” type group of women (hi Robin 🙂 ), our neighborhood night out group, and then there’s the families! Probably no more than a lot of people, but I manage to take on some kind of organizing role with each one, and this year it’s getting a bit thick. I love them all, and can’t imagine cutting any of them out of my life.

    Here’s one we always post, it seems, on T’g:

    or

    (which may not imbed)

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    2. I just listened – this is a very funny version, PJ! All baboons who think you know the ending, listen just to the last 5 minutes…

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  18. Well, here in the big house, I’m part of groups that I am not proud to belong to and did not choose. But I will try to do the best I can with what I’ve been handed in this life. I am grateful to be part of the baboons and wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving day.

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  19. I’ve come to expect holidays to be a bit painful. For me, they seem to cast a spotlight on aging and the natural losses which come with it. My nostalgia for holidays past grips me emotionally when I reflect on the decades of everyone being together. There were 45 T-Days and 45 Christmases out here in this enchanted cottage in which I now live alone. As in most families, the deaths of my parents kicked off the cascade of permanent changes, followed by a few divorces, kids moving out of state, and grandkids growing up. My daughter’s been hosting most family gatherings for several years now since, unlike me, she’s a great cook and prefers not to get her tribe of six coordinated to travel elsewhere. I did think of something extra to look forward to: I’m taking my brother to see the highly-acclaimed movie “Lincoln” tomorrow! I’ll spend as much time on the road as in the movie, but it’ll be great to share this experience with the only remaining member of my generation. This season is the only time of the entire year in which I haven’t learned to defend against a slight bout of grieving, but at least I’ve let go of the expectations of a Hallmark card experience which made it worse. The gratitude and sense of abundance I bask in all year round takes a holiday on these holidays, but resumes as soon as they’re over. I wonder if most people with six decades of life lived struggle with these feelings? If so, how do you manage to have high spirits??

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    1. chicken and the egg cb
      go in looking for trouble you will find it
      go in looking for grace you will find it.
      thank this trail for its grace

      enjoy the movie.
      say hi to your brother for us

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    2. Following up on my Debbie Downer post, I’m wanting to list some things for which my gratitude is strongly felt: Obama’s victory and the man himself; a Middle East truce; our first gay senator; more women in Congress; the MN DFL resuming control; the amendments defeated; marriage equality in more states; no more dozens of pleas for donations on my email; every member of my family is healthy, including myself; several intimate friendships; and this little cottage always hugging me. And this is just the short list:)

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    3. Interesting that you should ask about this, CB. This year, the more I thought about the changes since last year at this time, the more I realized I simply did not want to try and create a “new normal” by doing a lot of the same things, only different.

      So we’re eating different food, with different people, in a different place. We thought about what we would really LIKE to do, to mark the day and celebrate the things we count as blessings.

      I don’t know if we will be doing it with high spirits (note to self, remember to find bottle of cranberry wine from Wisconsin, bought with this day in mind), but we will be doing it with thankful hearts.

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      1. thank you ladies. it is good to celebrate what is celebratable and to do the best we can from where we are. hope things get better and the day is the begining of it.

        from my favorite quote thanks to wayne dyer way back in his dedication of pulling your own strings
        all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

        this group does what it can to right itself.
        thanks

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  20. Happy Thanksgiving to all from sunny California. It has almost the same temperature as the Twin Cities this year but I am VERY much enjoying the green and all the fascinating flora.

    Great lead-in poem, tim and contributions from the rest of the dear Baboon tribe.

    I belong to my church and the choir therein. I’m part of an organized “friendship group” through the women’s association (of which I am also a member). I am actually not crazy about the friendship group. There is one woman who means well but who is not my favorite. She really needs the friendship group as she often tells us she doesn’t have friends outside of it. I find that when our monthly gatherings approach, I wish that i didn’t have to go. But I’m too chicken to bow out.

    I belong to another unnamed book group of which I am one of the recent additions – all but two of us are in the OT-PT system for local schools. There is a lot of “shop” talk but I don’t mind as it’s often very interesting.

    The camp I attend isn’t really a club but it might as well be. Subsets of that are my movie group and Breakfast Grlz.

    Last night #1son and I made buckets of his great-Grossmama’s (on his father’s side) stuffing. He has never prepared it for so many people (only 11) and I haven’t made it for years so we made way too much (one veggie batch and 3 pork sausage batches). Apples, sausage, onion. bread and difficult-to-find summer savory. Ugly looking but decadent and delicious. Today we make the sweet potato pie and then off to some friends and acquaintances of #1son and DIL. #2son is with us too.

    Happy TG to all!

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  22. Evening–
    The house is quiet again and mostly cleaned up.

    Thanks for the ode, tim. It’s a tough job always being the stable one… but someone has to do it I suppose.
    I sure do enjoy being part of this group. Thanks to all of you for being there.
    I’m especially proud of my wife today; we host her family every year. She won’t claim to be the best cook and yet she still manages to get a turkey, ham, potatoes, rolls, two kinds of corn and two different stuffings all ready at the same time. (A normal stuffing and a gluten free stuffing).
    We miss those that have passed away and welcome the new infants.
    I was invited to sit at the kids table this year and enjoyed dinner with two charming young ladies.

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      1. one of my favorites from the quote selections. thanks ben
        charades provided my family with the best belly laughs we have all year. it is a new family tradition maybe 5 years old and it is sooooo everyones favorite. my mom at age 80 laughs so hard she has to catch her breath. the folded up slips of paper get her laughing as she is writing. new sil from kosovo had a fear of not being able to act out the concepts. he did really well. we told him you can only fail 4 times. thats all the turns you get. there is no timer and if you get stuck we provide assistance.
        xanadu and even steven were the hard ones this year.

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        2. I’ve only played charades once, and it wasn’t nearly as much fun as yours sounds like, tim. Let’s try it out sometime at BBC.

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        4. Charades is SO much fun! Do you think we could play at book club some time, tim? We could bribe the naysayers with tiramisu. Or baked beans.

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        3. I’ve heard of wild rice stuffing…maybe that would be worth a try sometime. (I’ve never tried it myself, but it sounds like it would be tasty.)

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