After much tweaking, daverea.com now has (drum roll please!) live comment previews! So if you click on the comments link below, then start actually making a comment, a spiffy little live preview will appear below your handywork.
I’m hoping its a good incentive for some of y’all to post some comments. Because this whole writing a lot and nobody ever saying anything about thing is getting kinda boring…
If daverea.com were a newspaper, some readers might throw it aside in disgust at what I’m about to write. Others might read the sentence two or three times, then bust out laughing and spill coffee on themselves. Still others will probably end up shaking their heads as their impression of my masculinity fades away…
It’s fun to watch cats sleep.
Yes, I admit it. I am sort of, a little bit, reluctantly, a “cat person”. I love dogs, and eventually I’m sure Kelly and I will get a dog. There’s still some disagreement over the breed, but rest assured I am not a cat person exclusively!
The queen of our house (or so she believes), a 12-year-old Tortie named Coco (a.k.a. Meatloaf, Runt Burger, or Porkchop), is only with us because she landed here after being evicted from my Dad’s home following his marriage to Barb – a wonderful, but decidedly non-cat person. Everyone likes Barb except for Miss Nicknamed-after-meat-products, so she got to come live with us!
Anyway – watching Coco sleep is nearly as fun as watching her chase the red dot from a laser pointer – which is just about the only thing she gets excited about at her advanced age. Whiskers twitch, ears move, claws extend and retract, and every once in a while she snores. If cats dream, I can only imagine what she’s dreaming about. Maybe mice? Maybe that laser pointer. Maybe – perhaps – she’s dreaming about revenge for all the times I bought the wrong flavor of cat food, or didn’t feed her on time.
Do cats get sleep apnea? Maybe she wouldn’t snore if we got her a little feline CPAP…
At this point, I applaud anyone who’s still reading. And those of you who spilled your coffee on yourselves… Coco and I have no sympathy for you. Now I’m going to go out and do something to regain my masculinity – maybe I could dig a hole, or weld some stuff, or go test drive a four-wheeler, or go lift some weights…
It’s Thanksgiving time again – time to visit family, over-eat, watch football, and enjoy all those other wonderful clichéd Thanksgiving bounties that abound at this time of year. Of course, as with most holidays, it seems to get easier and easier with each passing year to lose sight of the reason we’re celebrating in the first place. Could it be that our grade-schoolers, toting home construction-paper cutouts of turkeys and hats with buckles, are more tuned in to what we’re celebrating than the rest of us?
Browsing around the Thanksgiving history sites, there’s some disagreement on just what the Pilgrims and Native Americans at Plymouth were celebrating, how they celebrated – and even just when the first Thanksgiving feast took place. But common to all of the theories are two elements: celebration, and gratitude. Whether they were thankful for the coming of a mild winter, the welcome and eventual rescue they received from the Natives, or their cooperative triumph over a particularly difficult first winter, they were grateful just to be alive.
Nowadays, we certainly seem to have that celebration thing down to a science. But for many – especially those who seem to take for granted the cooshy lives they lead – it’s just a day off from work and a big meal. Nevermind that most folks neglect gratitude – trace it back, and I bet you’d find that most people don’t even realize how thankful they should be.
This Thanksgiving, I could be thankful for all the material abundance and good fortune that surrounds me. I could be thankful for having a good job, or making a good salary. I could be thankful for the new home I’m moving into, or the wedding that Kelly and I are planning. Don’t get me wrong – I am thankful for all these things – but being thankful for this is most decidedly secondary when Thanksgiving arrives.
The genuine, heartfelt gratitude that filled the first Thanksgiving wasn’t there because of material plenty. Yes, there was lots of food – but it wouldn’t have been there without the unity that was achieved with the Wampanoag Indians. Just as important, the colony certainly would not have survived had it not been for the union of the Separatists and the Strangers – the two factions of Englanders that managed to avoid each other on the Mayflower.
The Pilgrims and the Indians at Plymouth were celebrating things far more important than mere materialism or hedonism. They were celebrating survival, freedom and each other. And those are the things I’ll be mindful of and thankful for this Thanksgiving.
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful that I live in a country where I can say and do as I choose, without the fear of being imprisoned, tortured or publicly executed for doing so. Just as the Pilgrims at Plymouth were thankful for their newfound freedom, I am thankful for that freedom sustained through centuries – through all manner of assaults against it. This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful that I live in a place where we can serve any dish imaginable as we gather at the table – not because we can, but rather because our economy, our businesses and our technology make it possible to do
This Thanksgiving, most of all, I’m grateful for my family. In the 1620s, the Pilgrims were thankful for those family members that survived the trip across the Atlantic. I’m thankful that nothing today threatens my family the way that lethal journey threatened those weary travelers. I’m thankful that we’re able to be together, and – for lack of a more eloquent way of saying it – that we love each other!
As you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this year, what are you thankful for? Being thankful for material abundance is great, but it’s not what this holiday is about. There are bigger things that deserve your gratitude this year.
The closing went smoothly on Friday – my hand didn’t cramp up from all the signatures or anything… In fact, I only had to sign about 60 times! As one might expect, the attorneys were all very well-prepared and all the paperwork was laid out ahead of time.
This past weekend was spent in Bolivar, where we ate lots of deep-fried food, listened to Carl tell army stories illuminated by gas lights and heated by woodstove, and (unfortunately) didn’t shoot any deer. I saw a few, and attempted two shots, but both found trees before they found deer. Let’s just say shooting a mammoth pistol 110 yards with iron sights is – um – not exactly easy.
Next year, I’m hoping to have the gun scoped, so that won’t seem like quite such a long shot!
Now we’re back, and I enjoyed an uneventful ambulance shift last night. Getting a good night’s sleep was a good thing, since today is moving day! Photos should be posted soon…
It’s been well over a month since we placed the offer for our new house, and we’re finally closing in on a closing date. If all goes well, I’ll be gearing up to sign, and sign, and sign again a week from Friday. The lead-up has been a rollercoaster ride of mortgage documentation, fax after fax after fax, enough “sign-and-returns” to fill the mailbox three times over, and so many phone calls I’ve got the numbers for the mortgage broker, the attorneys, the insurance company and the realtor memorized.
Despite all of this, we’re counting our blessings – the move will be finished before the winter hits, and the destination is a beautiful home that’s sure to get better and betters as the months and years go by.
I think my Mom must be getting a little senority up there in Heaven. Not that seven years is a long time to be there, next to eternity, but it must be enough to slip a request or two through when it comes to sending things our way down here.
November in Rochester is usually a pretty dreary time. After Halloween, we don’t often see the sun until April or May. Last November, and the year before that, we followed the template.
This November second, I think Mom’s annual requisition for a beautiful day finally made it through. I spent my lunch hour walking along the small-town streets of Honeoye Falls, watching the late-autumn leaves fall around me as if in slow motion. The noontime light made the buildings glow, and the village looked like I remember it looking on all those Mom’s-taxi trips to school, scouts and friends’ houses.
No one’s memory is perfect, and the good things that mine retains usually tend to yellow around the edges. When I think about times spent with my Mom – or with my family – they’re usually overlaid with a touch of haze, soft around the edges, cast in that warm, comforting light. This usually breeds disappointment when I return to the places featured in the memories, only to find a boringly clear view through the eyes of the unaugmented present.
But once in a while, I can experience memories now the only way it’s possible: since those flickering mental pictures of years past can’t be reconciled with the world of the present, the world makes due and bends around to match the memories.
Yesterday, during my stroll through the Falls, I didn’t need imagination to return to what now seems like a past life. All I had to do was look around, and take in the beauty of the real-life memory that Mom sent my way.
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