SPAGHETTI WARS PLANNED FOR THANKSGIVING

This is the year everyone goes elsewhere else for Thanksgiving and so we have been invited to go to Taylor and Sharee's house. This is what she said in an email today:

"We can laugh and throw spaghetti at the cats or just put their heads in socks and watch them try to get out. At the very least it will be laugh therapy. "

Now, I ask you, how could things be better than that?

One year we were at their house for Thanksgiving. The weather was like September. My dad came up to spend Thanksgiving with us and we sat on the back porch, in the sun with him. Dad's gone now. He lived seventeen years after Mom died and he took such good care of us, his adult children. How I miss him. We all miss him.

I don't know if it's the same year or not but one year we were at Taylor and Sharee's house and I bought Silly String for every member of the family. I told them to come out back--it was warm so maybe it was the same year. Some of the parents weren't coming so I nagged and said at least bring your cameras--of course, no one did so there are no photos. Finally everyone was there and I "armed" them.
The Silly String flew. The laughter bubbled up in explosive bursts. It was one minute of craziness. If I remember right I was covered with every color. I could hardly see out of the tangled mess.

One grandson couldn't get his silly string to work. He was simply too little. Every one's canister was empty but Mark's. He kept saying in a little voice, "I can't do it," while the frenzy was in full force all around him.

When everyone's Silly String canister was empty, Tricia--generous girl that she is--said, "Here Mark, let me help you." She picked him up and the two of them sprayed all of us, laughing like two happily demented people. I can still see the two of them, spraying the last burst of colored goop. We were too startled to do anything but just stand there and take it.

Sometimes Thanksgiving's aren't traditional. Sometimes they are extraordinary!

Here's hoping your Thanksgiving--and ours--is one of those extraordinary ones. Or one with someone you love, sitting in the sun, talking and storing up a feeling of peace you can draw upon in years to come.

LIZA'S BAPTISM AND SOME RAMBLING

This is a picture of my granddaughter, who was baptized today. She is barefoot because by the time we got to her house, after the baptism, she had already changed out of her church clothes and I made her change back so I could take a picture. She looks like she's trying to be patient with me, doesn't she? She really wants to go play with her cousins.

Her Dad had changed too and I made him change back. I'm bossy that way.

He baptized and confirmed her a member of the church and gave her the gift of the Holy Ghost. I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost before the baptism. I tried to make it simple for her and another darling little boy who was being baptized too. It was a beautiful day for us and for Liza. I am so happy for her.

She will do well in this life. She is a sensitive little soul, very caring, very loving and a hard worker. And loved by her Daddy.

Here is my son, mugging for the camera with Phil. He's such a joker, my boy. As you can see, Phil loves it.

I'd show you the picture of me but, sadly, I look my age and it makes me ill so there will be no illness here today.

This is the backyard. I am so happy to learn how to download pictures that I take pictures of everything, except for my old self. This is the arbor that one of my other sons, Bentley and his new wife, Trisha, stood in front of at their wedding reception a year ago last August. It was so hot we thought we'd die and now look at it.

That's the way things are. You can hardly stand whatever you are going through, sometimes--not the wedding , it was a wonderful thing--but I'm speaking metaphorically here--I got off on this tangent remembering the heat at the reception.

So, you are going through a bad time, a hard trial, maybe, you are despondent and sad or anxious or however you experience tough times. I get a horrible anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach and I imagine the worst. Then, six months later, you have gotten through that time and you look back and can think of it differently. I often am able to write about times of stress with humor, later--not that I'm successful at the humor but you know what I mean, at least I can see it differently. Some people can't. They never let go. They remember and are angry or sad or hurt or whatever it is that they feel justified about.

I am sad to have to admit that I am that way too with some things and wish I weren't. My birth dad got on a private plane in a blizzard when I wasn't quite two years old, with my mom pleading for him not to go. The plane crashed and she never saw him alive again. I have been living with that abandonment all my life. Angry at times, hurt at others, feeling like I was not important. I have got to learn to let it go. To realize that he, my birth father, has other responsibilities. One of them may be to watch over me, to whisper in my ear when I need help or comfort. Do I realize that? Now, as I'm writing this, I do, but not as I live my life, realizing I didn't know him, wasn't taught by him, didn't learn the things that he held dear.

Well, I had no idea this post was going this direction. Maybe I needed to think this through a bit. I really do need to let it go and not feel cheated. Mom did remarry and Daddy loved me with all his heart. He was a good father, he even taught me to drive my sister's Army jeep which is more than any father should have to do. That is another story for another time. What a dear, patient, Daddy he was.

Okay, enough of that. This is the arbor up close.

And Chloe, who lives outside and loves it. I wanted to take a picture of of Pinky--the cat--with Kate, the four-year-old, but Pinky was asleep on the arm of the couch and Kate somersaulted onto the couch and flipped Pinky, head over tail, right on the floor. Poor now-awake Pinky was frozen, wondering how he got to the floor. Walter, the pup was banned to Chloe's doghouse until all the company was gone so no pictures of him either.

This last one I loved for no reason.

Have a great Sunday one and all. Thanks for stopping by and wading through my pictures and odd thoughts.

DENTURE FUDGE

While we were at church a blizzard waltzed through town. Just before church ended the Bishop said, "The parking lot is really fun right now." Our bishop is young and slick roads are not a challenge but a fun ride at the amusement park. It doesn't hurt that he works in construction and drives a truck that could climb cliffs while whistling "Climb Every Mountain," in a monster-truck-whistling sort of way.

We worried that Bentley and Tricia wouldn't come back down but they scoff at slick roads and came anyway. Optimistic youth was everywhere today.

The rest of the kids that weren't here for Christmas came for leftovers and Cindy's Fabulous Spaghetti. We ate and unwrapped gifts, laughed and watched the kids play with their new toys and then we went back into the kitchen around the table. I brought the fudge, caramels and muddy buddies out.

Bentley and Sharee were deep into a discussion about which bike pedals are best, which shoes have the best gripping ability or some such thing. When you get those two biking people going its hard to keep up. Especially since I'm not a biking person and the thought of riding down the street on tires the size of linguine noodles makes me nauseous.

I was washing pans and loading the dishwasher when Tricia and Taylor--who were grouped, along with every single child, around the candy--erupted into laughter,"

Denture fudge," one of them snorted. "It's denture fudge."

"Denture fudge?" one of the kids asked.

"Absolutely! Look at this?"

I had made caramels with almonds at one point of the holiday preparations but they were too large so I dipped them in chocolate and cut them in half. The almonds, sliced in the middle looked just like teeth. Teeth embedded in caramel with chocolate lips. They held the offending candy up for everyone to see. The kids thought it was pretty funny too and their laughter added to the merriment in the kitchen.

Bentley and Sharee talked on, about spokes and camelbaks and bike gears, never noticing the silliness going on at the other end of the table.

Tricia and Taylor got more wound up, deciding how to market the denture fudge and what to add to next year's product line. Each suggestion burst forth with a new round of laughter. How I wish I had recorded all their nonsense. I could have sold it to hospitals with depression clinics. People would be cured after one session of listening to denture fudge laughter. I could market the CD with tins full of chocolate covered caramels with almonds. Two for one. Laughter-therapy and treats. It would be a hit, I'm sure of it. I could be rich. The world would be better off, sad people would be cured and back in the work force. The economy would boom.

It's my fault that we won't have a booming economy next year. If I had just recorded that denture fudge laughter...