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an
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Today's
Bird Sightings This
Year's Bird Sightings Today's
Reading: This
Year's Reading: Photos Glass on Table Turkey Photographer |
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For some reason Andrea is singing that lesser known verse of America the Beautiful over and over again: O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years My mother likes the Phillis Wheatley poems too.
There was somebody parked across the street from the goat farm this afternoon photographing the goats. I couldn't tell if she was recording them as quaint New England goats or as evidence of some goat-related crime. A goat farming zoning violation? Failure to observe the established setback from the road for goats? Thine alabaster suburbs gleam from goat to shining goat? More disjointed thoughts there could not be. This year Thanksgiving is supposed to be special. Our President and the press both tell us so. I confess a sin, well maybe just a faux pas because I really didn't mean anything by it... Last night someone called from the Manhattan Club taking a survey. She asked "how often do you travel to New York on business or for pleasure?" I blurted out "Never have, never will." She was a little taken aback and remained silent for a few seconds. Oops. She allowed as to how there was no point in continuing the survey and hung up. I felt great remorse as I recounted this story to the gathered multitudes today. I am sensitive and patriotic and all that, but the only thing I ever do in New York is change planes at JFK and it is not a pleasant experience. Running from the American Eagle terminal to whatever international gate I'm supposed to be at and can't find is not my idea of a pleasure trip. Other than that, New York does not loom large in my travel plans. Cities are just not my thing (with the possible exception of Budapest for unfathomable reasons of unexplained cathexis (how's that for an Alzheimer's-preventing sentence?)). I might enjoy a weekend in Portsmouth, or Portland (Maine), or even Montreal, but New York is not even on my radar as a weekend getaway destination. I would rather spend a weekend in the White Mountains or the Isles of Shoals or Block Island or even Martha's Vineyard (which although it's technically legally part of Massachusetts is totally New York in spirit). I'm deeply sorry if I hurt the feelings of the Manhattan Club surveyor/recruiter but if President Bush wants me to go to New York City and spend money he'll have to draft me to do it. And last time I checked the news, he hadn't reinstated the draft yet. Oh I am such an unpatriotic and ungrateful wretch. I have so much to be thankful for: my family, Nancy, Wilbur, all the shelter cats that have found homes this year, my friends, the 26 piping plover chicks fledged this year at the refuge, the snowy owls I haven't seen yet, the unusually warm autumn, gainful employment among people who don't hate each other, life itself... And I am grateful for those things. I truly am. I love my family, my friends, and my country. Yes, I do love America. I'll put my queer shoulder to the wheel (that's a literary reference, 10 points if you get it) any time for the USA. Next to of course god America I ... (another literary reference worth 5 points) and so on and so forth. The thing of it is that as an American I reserve the right to spend my tourism dollars in Boston, Providence, Newburyport, Groton, Salisbury, Cambridge, Somerville, or even Lawrence - g*d knows Lawrence needs the money - if I want to. And now back to our regularly scheduled random mental breakdown already in progress... A wonderful Thanksgiving has been had by all and the leftovers are hung by the chimney with care in the hopes that the rabid coyotes soon won't be there and reindeer last in the door yard bloomed by the rude bridge that arched the flood where once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the dinner table ... if you miss the train I'm on you will know that I am gone ... and all the world rejoices in the sure and certain knowledge that the sun will come up tomorrow... |
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Copyright © 2001, Janet I. Egan |
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So
Ned called this morning and I told him about my
There's
turkey, which being vegetarian I don't eat, sweet potatoes
(unadorned), squash, Thomas' famous mashed potatoes, green
bean casserole, stuffing, vegetarian stuffing (formerly
known as wet croutons, but now Andrea likes it), cranberry
sauce, gravy, pickles, olives, dinner rolls and pies of many
kinds. Before dinner we pass a loaf of bread around the
table. Each person tears off a piece of bread and says what
they are thankful for. Everyone is thankful for family and
friends. Nobody makes fun of me this time when I say I am
also thankful for the earth from which the food grew. Either
they're humoring me or they've stopped seeing me as crackpot
- and possibly pagan - environmentalist. Shortly after the
bread completes its circuit around the table, BiB calls from
Kaposvar and we pass the portable phone around the table
along the same path. 
Andrea
borrows the digital camera for the duration so I am forced
to use the N80 to record this family event. Gotta practice
with it sometime, I guess, if I decide I'm not going to give
up photography after all. Family members and hard core
readers can check out