Holiday Looms Ominously

During the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, in 1997, the Cat-in-the-Hat balloon hit a lamp post and fell on folks, putting one woman, Kathleen Caronna, into a coma for more than a month. A few years ago, an airplane crashed into her apartment building, killing the student pilot, (a Yankees pitcher, Cory Lidle) and his instructor. The engine of the plane landed in the woman's bedroom. Fortunately, she wasn't home, but you have to wonder -- maybe some deity has it in for her ...

So, Thanksgiving is in a couple of days. For those of you not up on this aspect of U.S. history, this is a holiday that celebrates surviving in the new world, and achieving, with the help of the local indiginous people, a harvest and enough food so as not to starve. Not so celebratory for the indiginous folk, who eventually came, I am sure, to regret being so nice. It cost them.

Randy Newman had it:

Hide your wives and daughters, hide the groceries too/
The great nations of europe comin' through ...

But, it is what it is, and it comes with a full plate around here this year -- we have fifteen people lined up for turkey dinner at our house, kids, parents, grandparents, in-laws, as much family we have as is local, plus a couple of imports. First time, I believe, that all the grandparents have been to dinner at the same time.

My wife is taking the day off work tomorrow to cook. And I will be doing yard work, house-cleaning, and the like, today and tomorrow.

We've already moved all the furniture around, figured out what to do with the dogs and cat to keep them from being squashed under foot, and started moving things we don't want to see broken or hidden high enough to keep them from small and bored fingers. Our TV remote disappeared one Thanksgiving and stayed gone until Christmas. We are pretty certain the grandson who hid it in November simply fetched it from where he put it in December ...

What I'm thankful for is that this only happens once a year ...