This being Sunday, I had planned all week to make my Sunday rounds, per usual, and now that Sunday is here, I'm staying here. I don't feel really bad, nor do I feel very good...I just need to take sometime off from the routine that has become my life. Bubba is fixing veggies and he brought home an already bar-b-qued chicken from Wally World...we are about to have a nice early Sunday dinner. Then, he plans to continue placing blocks for our new back-yard sidewalk. We plan to watch a movie together this afternoon after he wears himself out working on the sidewalk. I, in the meantime, may dust & sweep, but then again, why bother? I live on a dirt road and have 3 dogs-dusting and sweeping is a never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way...I may blog (who'da guessed that concept?), Or I may read...I have 2 novels by John Grisham that I haven't even glanced at since discovering blogstream. In happier days, my Mom & I would trade Grisham novels back and forth, and always go to the movies together when someone was intelligent enough to set his great stories to film. Who knows? I am taking the day for me...Dad cried a little, but by & large, I think he understands,Deb misses me but realizes the need for "me" time, Deb & Jan will miss me but they understand. Mom has already forgotten the nurse told her I wasn't going to make it. It's a beautiful day in Indiana, and it's my day off, so I'm taking it! Carpe Diem!... to us all!

Today, they concentrated on food, celebrating Thanksgiving. Twice, they went to Nebraska, and I wondered if they might have run into Wally somewhere along the way...I mean, how can we pull off Thanksgiving without Scram Gravy? I miss Wally. I would be thankful if he would come back to blogstream...most folks around here would be thankful, as well...It's a shame so many folks will never know his gentle humor and kind intrest in us all...OH Wally! Couldn't you just visit for the Holidays?

It wasn't my first Thanksgiving Dinner in a nursing home, and it was noisy, crowded, not bad, but so surreal...talk about contagious dementia! Mom wanted to smoke, it was cold, I had a headache and left Mom smoking with my sisters, and as I don't touch the stuff, I bowed out shortly after the meal, and headed for home.Filled up w/ga$ @ $2.03 a gallon, observed the speed limit all the way home, where I put an icepack on my head & took a nap, and now I feel better and I feel like telling the true story of the Thanksgiving Dinner I spent in San Francisco's infamous Haight Ashbury. It was shortly after Sean had dumped me, and I lived in that hovel in East Oakland, and had had a coupla dates with an old friend from Rock Medicine who liked to go by the name of "Noodles"-and who was I, a hippie chick he knew as "Moose" to think it odd that Rick wanted to be called "Noodles?" He was a nice guy, never made me feel uncomfortable, took me to see Lily Tomlin's One-woman show in SF-it was delightful. Noodles knew I was sad about Sean, and he was kind and considerate, and did not want me to spend Thanksgiving alone, so would I go with him to a friend's house in the Haight? And I said, "Yeah..thanks, I'd like that" So he picks me up on a beautiful Thursday and drives the gorgeous drive from the East Bay into the City, and we were laughing, at ease, having fun, enjoying each other's company, and when he drives down to the Haight he gets a great parking space right in front of the glorious bright purple San Francisco-type classic (2-story homes like they always show in movies in SF), which was our destination. This looked good, already. We are welcomed at the front door by the hostess, a Rubenesque typical Haight-Ashbury dweller, with a twinkle in her eyes, cheery infectuous whole-faced smile, with a hug for Noodles, and a hug for me, whom she had just met. And it was a genuine hug of good cheer, and I had no doubt that she was indeed, so very happy to meet me. As she led the way, she informed us that this was to be a role-playing Thanksgiving feast, and Noodles has been chosen to play the role of Elvis Presley, and I was to be Priscilla. Noodles did an occasional hip swivel and snarl, and I, unsure of what Priscilla would do, I just giggled and fawned all over Noodles, hoping Priscilla had a Southern accent, cause I poured my souhern accent on sickenly-sweet and over- the- top strong... It was a warm, not overly crowded comfortable gathering of single, gentle, intresting hippies. I had my first oyster dressing, and other distinctively San Francisco slants on the cuisine. Shrimp, Crab, Sourdough bread...my first anchovies on buttered sour dough bread-starlingly, intensely stimulating. About the house games were in progress everywhere you looked, as ice-breakers. I had seen parties where they played Charades on TV, but had never done it before myself until then, dominoes were being played while right beside the game, others were setting up other dominoes for a fall, right next to some folks playing that "Mousetrap" kid's game, and a coupla hands of poker(nothing serious), off to one corner and Scrabble, where everybody was jokingly cheating, peaking over shoulders, giving over-the-top hints. It was all cozy and fun and the only real rules were that it was not whether we won or lost, it was how we played the games-with delicious wine tasting, and the usual mellow herbal indulgences, we played the games well. Lots of Grateful Dead, CSNY, Allman Bros, Moody Blues, etc, being played at just the right volume. The dinner was proceeded by prayer to a distintively female God. We held hands when we prayed, and we meant it that we were thankful because we were having a truly joyous holiday. We started to leave after everyone did the dishes, helped clean up, and put away the games. Everybody hugged every one goodbye, with heart-felt hearty hugs, whose sincerity was without question-you could just feel the love in all the good folks there. So nice. Noodles drove me back to my hovel in the midst of a spectacular sunset. He kissed me "Goodnight", at the door, but respected my recent Sean-inflicted injury, and he was too kind to ever make me feel uncomfortabe, so he left it there. It was a great Thanksgiving. I still hear from Noodles now, and again. He has been living with "Palace", one of the rock n' roll lady leaders of the catering dept., for backstage gigs. Palace and Noodles are very happy last I heard, living together, in love, in Richmond, CA. And he tells me that he is really happy that Bubba and Moose(pls. call me, Cher!) are living happily together, in love, in Indiana.

Oh Man! I spent 3 hours Thurs. eve, and 3 hours Fri. eve perfecting the true story of the time a guy dumped me at a party for another guy, and all the intrinsic before, during and afters of the event...I was routinely doing what I thought I was supposed to do so as not to again fall prey to premature deletion as confessed to a coupla weeks back during a different true story of this long, strange trip I've come to know as my life. I would occasionally do what I thouight was saving my work by putting it in a file...it had worked w/ the Hooker's Ball Tale...but now I have it in a file, and can't seem to move the file back to Blogland, where it belongs! I will have to work on it when I have more time...but not today! My sisters have been telling me all week of their good visits with Mom this wek, reassuring me that I had just seen her on a bad day last Sunday (no arguement, there!) And I must steal away against my wishes from Blogland to return to Mom's nursing home, where I will meet my 2 sisters, and maybe their spouses for an early Tnanxgiving dinner at the home @ Noon. gOTTA MAKE THIS LONG STORY SHORT! Anyhow, Bubba will be in town at a different family celebration & miss my family's, but if I play my cardw right I can. as earlier mentioned, perhaps steal away home and return to Blogland where I find one good reason after another to feel good about my life...my dogs, my warm house, a cup of cocoa, spinning and reading yarns...I'm very happy in Blogland...& happy Icemelts has returned with good news and awesome poetry...and await the reurn of Glorious Dan...(he might have found me a feather for my own nice story-telling hat!)...and go in search of more of my brothers's blogs, etc. So I gotta go..Bubba is back from second breakfast and he finds it amusing to distract me from blogging and thuswe all have him to thank for truly making this long story short, aand i love him madly, but look forward to this afternoon, early eve when I can maybe trll y'all another not-so-short story. We are laughung alot now, & I must go prepare for my Thanksgiving duties...Hopefully be back atcha soon, still in good spirits...hey Pop! Thinkng good thought about you & Colocnnect & Silver Moon of Hookaville's 6 degrees of seperation. not enough time, never enough knowledge...ya know?

4 friends, 2 sisters, 4 brothers, and oh, so many good folk & siblings from the mystical, magical friends of Blogstreamland have all come together this week to bombard me with love and good cheer. Again my head is spinning, but this time, happily so, as I am showered with prayers, wise advice, and caring souls. I think I discovered Blogstream exactly when I needed it most. It has added a depth and quality to my life that I was unaware that I was missing-and,oh, how I had been missing it. It is filling a void that I never knew was hidden within me, and is filling it with hope, promise, and kindness. It's kind of like "You've given me fame and fortune, and everything that goes with it, I thank you all...."but, it's not, since you didn't, but in a way, you did. Saturday, I go to Mom's nursing home for Thanksgiving dinner. On the way home, I will pass Bubba on the highway, goin to the same town that I have just left so that he can attend his grand daughter's birthday party w/his mom in tow,and she is also a member-in-good-standing of dementia-ville...but the jist of the matter is, that I shall have a few hours alone w/blogland & my dogs & my music...my idea of how to partydown on a Saturday night...here's hoping for minimal drama and feeling no pain, and then, I will don my nice story-telling hat(healthy competition for Dan's nice hat) and tell a story worthy of my friends in cyberspace. I hope to be worthy and up to the treasured task of telling a whopper. But, tonight, I just wanna say, "I thank you all."