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Category: The Thankfuls
It’s common practice on Facebook to list what you are thankful for during the month of November. Here’s a collection of my favorites from the years I participated.
I was idly scrolling through Facebook tonight. It has become a time-consuming bad habit during the Q. I could be using this time to read, or throw out receipts after checking them against my bank statements, or cleaning baseboards. But no. I’m watching TikTok videos that y’all share (because I refuse to download the app), or laughing at inappropriate memes, or rolling my eyes at y’all trying to convince one another that A) our only “safe” option is staying shut down until flu season or B) that China is trying to kill us by selling us hospital-grade masks that actually recirculate deadly carbon dioxide. I don’t even know anymore. But I do know that I’m not missing people breathing on me in line….but I miss hugs and impromptu drinks with friends at the local watering hole more. So anyway. Back to this post. My hair is, to put it bluntly, crazy. It’s virtually untame-able without the aid of an industrial can of hairspray and a flat iron jacked up to the highest setting. I don’t even try. I’ve just been embracing my curls as they fall after I shake them upside down and scrunch a handful of mousse liberally into them. Seriously. That’s my styling regimen. Some days I get lucky and it looks like I tried. Most days I look like I stuck my…
You ever feel like enough is enough? As Gus says, “That. Is. E-NOUGH.” I can’t take one more quarantine post. Not one more. Whether it’s funny, political, informational, factual, or pure made up CRAP, I’m DONE. So. Here is my reprieve. And yours too, if you want it. Day One (too bad I’m not starting this on the first, but that’s just like me, a day late (or six, but who’s counting?) and a dollar short). Someone you are grateful for. Well, I’m grateful to a lot of people but in the spirit of keeping this light, I’m gonna be grateful to the writing team on the Greatest Sitcom Of All Time: FRIENDS. Bright/Kauffman/Crane. I mean, they’ve kept me going all these years, through good times and bad. You could always depend on them for a laugh a minute. Still, to this day, I will laugh out loud watching that show. And I’ve seen every episode at least three dozen times. It wasn’t always squeaky clean jokes, but it wasn’t nearly as raunchy as what’s on now and passes for comedy at prime time. Chandler, Rachel, Monica, Joey, Phoebe, and Ross keep me in stitches no matter what they were doing. And they did A LOT in ten years. They played endless games of foozball, got married, got divorced…
I’ve been super scatterbrained lately.I went to the mailbox last night for the first time in about a week. I tend to forget about mail. Snail mail, email, whatever, all of it. It was stuffed, but half of it was junk, so I still don’t count this as notable.This morning, I was just driving along, thinking about Cookeville, and all the differences citizens have in their commute today. That is, if they’re even able to go to work. And I put my turn signal on to go around the curve at Indian Warpath 🤦A few minutes ago, I’m washing my hands and I’m looking in the mirror above the sink. My face looks different. Something isn’t right. I realize I’m not wearing eyeliner. More than that, I’m not wearing mascara. For a redhead to be without mascara…well, the term “pig-eyed” comes to mind.Now I’m trying to decide how vain I am, if I’m going to run to Walgreens to get a tube of cheap-o, because I have a new Clinique one at home.I’m pretty vain, but I don’t want to go to Walgreens. And who knows what might happen to me if I vary my routine today. I’m crazy enough already.~~~~~~~If anybody needs somebody to pray for, the list I have just…
Do those two words conjure dusty corners and musty smells? Do you think of lamplight and heavy drapes and threadbare cushions on antique furniture? Do you envision leather bound tomes, heavy as bricks, piled on every surface and crammed into shelves that reach to the ceiling? Do you picture bespectacled old women, peering at you from under steel gray buns when a book from your pile slips to the floor, causing a disruption? Do you conjure up card catalogs and rainy afternoons and periodicals enjoyed by a large potted plant? Perhaps you are remembering hours spent in your school library among books on spaceships and whales with rainbow posters on the creme colored cinder block walls. Maybe you remember being slumped in a plastic chair at a round table with a chipped veneer finish, #2 pencil in one hand, the other in a fist at your hairline as you tried to determine what the differences are between porpoises and dolphins for your research paper. Or was it college, when you were there in your cubby, scratching out an outline to your thesis and some grad student was being helpful and surfing through ten weeks worth of newspapers from Chicago’s Great Fire on the microfiche to help you. You were taken into the archives by a lady who probably painted lines up the back of her legs during WWII. You’re tapping away on one of those newfangled Apple computers, the monitor the color of a cherry Lifesaver…
I start these blogs and I never really know where I’m going. Or I do know where I’m going, but not how I’m going to get there. Did you know that Gone With the Wind was written backwards? True story. Mrs. Mitchell knew how she wanted it to end, but not how she was going to develop the plot to that outcome. So, like Margaret Mitchell, I don’t know how long this blog is going to be. I expect it to be one of my rare short ones, but you never know. As I type, I’m thinking about typing on the typewriter yesterday. I have to fill out 1099’s at my job. The government does not accept PDF fillable forms. I can mail this type to the producers, but I have to have one red copy to send to the IRS. And if I’m gonna do that, they’re attached to carbon copies, so why would I bother making separate ones on the computer? What I’m getting at is typing on a computer is far removed from the days of the typewriter. I will liken it to the days of film, versus the digital cameras we have today. You got one shot- don’t mess it up. You have to be perfect the first time, as soon as you mash the button. It’s permanent. You had to be sure. There…
Dear Santa, I hope this letter finds you warm and well at the North Pole. I also would like to extend my condolences to Mrs. Claus, who is probably the most harried woman in the hemisphere right now. Although some of my mom friends are snorting with derision, no doubt. Hey, they brought it on themselves. Dern kids. I was never taught to believe in you. I think I waited until third grade to ruin it for everybody else, though. Seemed like about time to be growing up and putting away the foolishness. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve found Santa in some. Really, it’s Jesus but some of these good people are self-proclaimed atheists, so let’s just agree to disagree, yes? In the spirit of Christmas and all. So what I’m writing to say, is what everyone writes to you about- my wishes. I’ve been good….but I’ve also been bad. To be honest, it’s probably an even split. I won’t even try to convince you, you see me when I’m sleeping, you know when I’m awake…but even you gotta admit, Santa, that I got pushed to the edge and when I’m cornered….well, it ain’t pretty. I normally wouldn’t write on behalf of anybody but there are people in my life that…
Yesterday morning I had a visitor to the office. I’ve known him since my earliest days at the Co-op, and I really enjoy our chats. We have those deep conversations that flow easily. Those come way too infrequently for my liking. Most people talk to brag, or talk to gossip, or talk to hear themselves talk. Not him. And it really touches my heart when he takes time out of his day to sit down for a spell. He’s a busy man. So we got to talking about how fortunate we are, and how we’re not thankful enough for what we’ve got. And, as our conversations invariably go, he got around to telling tales about his dad and his group of buddies. They were truly a redneck gang. They loved to play practical jokes on one another…sometimes even mildly dangerous ones. And ALWAYS ones that will make you late for whatever your next task will be. So he’s recounting some story about a notorious fishing trip and it made me think. There just aren’t friendships like that anymore. I have one friend I could call for anything. Annnnnyyyyything. We even had a code for in the event I killed my former husband. I have no doubt she would have come a-runnin’. There might have been more than one or two “oh shit”s uttered, but we would have taken care of…
I was working on one of those time-wasting questionnaires on Facebook this morning. I need an activity while I drink my coffee, otherwise my dog thinks it’s my job to pet him with my free hand. And I DO pet him, but it’s never enough. He is such an indulged glutton. Anyway, I’m whizzing right along answering the “Adult” questions- no, no, not like that, they were the style of “what bill do you hate the most?” and “which housecleaning chore do you put off until you hate yourself?”, stuff like that. Then one gave me pause. “Found Love Yet?” Well helllll-o. Of course if you live past the age of seventeen you’ve found love. But did love reciprocate? As you grow older, you come to realize that love isn’t just about spending the rest of your days with another human you’ve found attractive. Well, I hope you realize it, anyway. You’ve loved your whole life. You loved your mother, you loved macaroni and cheese, you loved your tire swing, you loved your mangy dog. Whatever. But of course this shallow test didn’t mean that. It meant the “traditional” sense of finding love. Well, sure I found it. And it was reciprocated. And we were bound by vows given in fancy attire in front of our closest 125 friends in the sweltering…
I hope you have a friend that sits. I hope you have someone who won’t ask questions, or tell you what they would do in your shoes, or how they’ve handled a similar situation. I hope you have a friend that sits. I hope you have a friend that will take you to a restaurant and buy your lunch, and not expect you to eat a bite. I hope you have a friend that will ask the waiter for a box while you cry quietly. I hope you have a friend that will come pick you up and take you to church with them and sit, holding your hand as you weep into their shoulder. I hope you have a friend that sits. I hope you have a friend that opens their home to you when you cannot bear to be alone. I hope they putter around busily, making dinner and coffee and maybe baking a cake for a coworker. I hope you have a friend that is kind and quiet and keeps the TV on the cooking channel. I hope your friend has a dog. Because dogs help everything. And dogs sit, too. I hope you have a friend that isn’t ashamed to have no other purpose than to be on suicide watch because they love you. I hope you have a friend that goes with you when you’re ready, no matter what it is you’re ready for. I…
This is it. The end. And I just found out I’ve been doing it wrong all along. Today’s challenge I saved for last. That’s a lie. I put it off till last. Because I didn’t “have time”. I should have started with it, and used it as a guide the whole way. But no. I thought I knew best. What a joke. As a reader, I am constantly finding things I want to read and people are relentless in their recommendations to me. As I am to them. And I appreciate it! I have found many great reads from the persuasion of others. But what with book club, and books I have had on loan through READS for eons, plus the ones I continue to buy and pile up, I am inundated with material. So when I asked my Aunt Brenda what to pray for and what to fast in her honor, and she said, “I want you to read the book of Matthew,” I will admit, I swallowed hard and immediately began thinking, “well, I’ve got plenty of time to get to it.” And here I am, on the last day, middle of the afternoon, a full six Lent writings behind, and only in the eighth chapter of 28. The reading isn’t hard, and it is quite enlightening, the stories familiar and comforting, but I don’t think I’…
