Friday Five: Thanksgiving Thoughts

Jan brings us this poem and an opportunity to reflect on Thanksgiving for our Friday Five......

The Cure
Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I'm not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she's just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it's snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She's been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.
--Ginger Andrews (from Hurricane Sisters)

So this Friday before Thanksgiving, think about Aunt Bert and how she'll celebrate Thanksgiving! And how about YOU?

1. What is your cure for the "mulleygrubs"? Distraction, distraction, distraction! Doesn't really matter what as long as it interrupts that mulleygrubbing cycle. Some of my favorites are music, a good book, a rousing bout of cleaning, a walk with the dog, a talk with a friend, a computer game or some blog reading, or if time permits....a sure cure is always a road trip to just about anywhere in the little red Mini-Cooper!

2. Where will you be for Thanksgiving? We will be up near the Big City at my future SIL's house. Tradition says that R's clan gathers for this holiday for a day of food and family. This will of course be my first time attending (LOTS of those this year) but they are such a welcoming bunch that I already feel pretty much at home.

3. What foods will be served? Which are traditional for your family? It's potluck, and as the new kid I'm not sure if there are any hard and fast "traditions." I'm sure there will be turkey and all its accompaniments. We are charged with dessert. R is a fabulous baker so we will leave that to him! His cakes are already legendary in my workplace (and as of this week, so is his banana bread).

4. How do you feel about Thanksgiving as a holiday? I think it's good to be reminded to stop and be grateful. The historical underpinnings leave me mixed.

5. In this season of Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?

• First and foremost my sweet, sweet guy! I still have to pinch myself now and again to make sure I did not just dream him up. I never imagined I would find someone who is a such a "fit" for me and with whom I could have so much fun as well as feel so safe and secure. He is such a gift to me and I thank God for him all the time!
• I am also grateful that XDO has found a new beloved and is moving on into a new bright future. That makes more happiness in both of our lives. I am now able to be grateful that XDO and I were. I learned a lot in our twelve years together and I have learned a lot in our almost two years apart. XDO did not pass through my life and leave me unchanged and I am grateful that I can be glad for that now.
• I am grateful for my job....first of all to have one and the way that they have hung in here with me through the last sixteen months of this uncertainty....which I am also grateful will be over soon.
• As always I am grateful for my ministry...for being called, for the congregation I serve, for the ways in which all the funny twists and turns of my life brought me to this place.
• Friends! My soul sisters, C, my virtual friends from RGBP that I have met IRL, and those that I have not yet. It's a wide community that holds me and I am thankful.
• My clients. I am grateful for their trust in me. I am grateful for their tenacity and their courage, their resiliency and their hope. I am grateful for all the things they teach me.

BONUS: Describe Aunt Bert's Thanksgiving. Got an e-mail from Aunt Bert.......she says: "I've been suffering from a case of the mulleygrubs. It's been snowing here and we haven't been able to get out of the house atal. Not sure how we are going to git down to pick up the fixins for the Thanksgiving dinner. Jest looked in the pantry and its purty bare. Gotta a ham in the freezer and some things put up from the garden of course. Theres taters in the celler and onions. So we wont starve. And I can always make a cake. It won't be traditional but we'll eat! And we will have the family if they can get here. Elswise itll be Frank and me. And thatll be ok too. We have spent many a day just the two of us...and if needs be, I guess we can spend one together just being thankful and having us a good meal. So I guess them mulleygrubs is lifting a little now that I think of it, so I best git to cookin! You have yourself a Happy Thanksgiving all y'all!"