Turkey and Dressings and Gravy, Oh My!

I have only spent Thanksgiving with my family twice in 31 years that Bill and I have been married. The first was the year my father died on Thanksgiving morning, and the second was the next year as we grieved that first anniversary of his death.

            That is no reflection on my family – mother, three sisters, brother-in-law, numerous nieces and nephews and now great-niece and nephews. I would love to be with them on Thanksgiving. Rather, it’s a matter of distance and logistics. They’ve almost all lived within an hour or two of each other, although my sister Beth has made Eureka Springs, AR her home now for a few years. Traveling eight-plus hours from Pittsburgh in late November, only to turn around and do it again four weeks later, was hard to manage. Living in northeast Florida doesn’t make it easier.

            Over the years Bill and I have hosted friends at our home in Pittsburgh or been with friends. A few times his parents come from Phoenix. Several years it was just the two of us; one year I got the turkey dinner from Boston Market.

            Our first year in Jacksonville (Thanksgiving 2011) we had only been here a month, had not made friends yet and were still getting to know our way around the city. We had a lovely dinner at the Chart House on the river’s edge…again, just the two of us.

            Last year as we dithered whether to go it alone again – I actually did make reservations – a boater decided to host a potluck at the marina. Party-girl that I am, I immediately threw my hat into the ring and my flatware into the buffet. There were 22 of us at that “first” Thanksgiving.

            This year we’ll be 40 or so at the Thanksgiving feast, with turkey and dressings, ham with raisin sauce, macaroni and cheese, several potato casseroles, butternut squash, mashed turnips and mashed potatoes, corn soufflés and green bean casseroles, biscuits, potato rolls, corn muffins, cranberry sauce, pumpkin bread and lots of pies and other desserts.

            Tomorrow morning I’ll decorate the clubhouse, set up tables, count out the plates and flatware and give thanks for God’s plan to bring this diverse group of boaters together for a time.

Too good not to pass along

Each Friday morning our pastor emails a message that – if he were a blogger – would surely garner comments. This one was too good not to share!

Today's message:

I have a “burr in my saddle” this morning.

It’s been a long time since I used that phrase. Like I even have a saddle or a horse to put it on. It has been some 46 years since I’ve ridden a horse … and if I remember correctly … the two of us didn’t get along very well. But as the phrase implies … something is bothering me this morning.

Now a lot of things “get on my nerves” … like when cling wrap isn’t clingy …

            … when remotes have too many buttons …

            … when spellcheck is WRONG …

            … when a book has no chapters …

            … when my blue socks don’t match …

            … or when something is advertised as “new and improved.” So which is it?

Yeah … I know … these are little things … but they “get under my skin” every once in a while.

But the thing that really bothers me this morning is the plethora of pharmaceutical commercials we have to put up with on television. When did our televisions get overtaken by medicine commercials? I don’t spend a lot of time watching TV but in the brief times I do … I have noticed the uptick in commercials for medicine. Even more annoying, these commercials spend two-thirds of their time describing side effects and some of them are downright embarrassing when watching with your kids or grandkids.

It seems we have pills for everything these days. Of course, we’ve always had medicinal helps or headaches, flu symptoms and tummy problem. But today … we have cute little Zoloft ads and coy ED spots that we don’t want our teenaged children to hear … much less our grade school youngsters. We have pills for arthritis, constipation, diarrhea, senility, blood pressure, cholesterol, depression, emotional stress, acne, weight loss, body odor, joint pain, asthma,

water retention, and on and on.

And the claims these ads make are … well exaggerated! “Instantly take off 10-15 pounds!” “Stay sharp and mentally focused – even to age 90!” “Be sexy into your 70s!” “Look younger longer!” “Eradicate crow’s feet and facial wrinkles!” “Have smaller thighs in just weeks!” “Boosts immunity for colds and flu!”

It’s like the “snake oil” salesmen of a century ago have returned in the form of TV advertisements … enticing, wooing, luring, seducing, tempting the viewer to try this or that product as a remedy for just about anything … and everything.

Frankly, I think there should be some kind of medicines out there to help with other problems we have. How about a pill for automatic memory recall? Maybe a pill for improving your vision? Or for improving one’s IQ? How about a pill for being more civil … more kind … or more loving? WOW! That would be a major breakthrough!

But the pill I’d most like to see marketed is a prescription medicine for Common Sense! There seems to be a real deficiency of this formerly standard characteristic. And should this ever be discovered … the law of the land should be that every politician be mandated to take two pills every day and call us in the morning. Maybe … just maybe that would make a difference in what comes out of our centers of government … at all levels.

Dear friend, guard Clear Thinking and Common Sense with your life; don't for a minute lose sight of them. They'll keep your soul alive and well … Wise living gets rewarded with honor; stupid living gets the booby prize. [Proverbs 2:21, 35 – The Message]

Have a blessed weekend in the Lord … I know I will, now that the burr is out of my saddle …

Pastor Rick

Note: In my research, I found that only two countries in the world … the United States and New Zealand … allow pharmaceutical companies to market their products directly to consumers in commercials. And … not surprising to me … a new study finds that when over-the-counter and prescription drug companies make commercials trying to sell the public on their product, they’re not always the most truthful.

Of Wine Tasting and Ribbon Cuttings

     Ah, small town life! I would never have said that the country's largest city in terms of land mass and 11th largest in population would fit that sentiment, but Jacksonville is, indeed, a small "everyone-knows-everyone-else" kinda town.
     Many of the stories for our monthly community paper are fun to cover and, selfishly, I keep most of the good ones for myself. This past month I partook in a wine tasting for the opening of a new wine boutique, shot a doughnut-eating contest, watched the demolition of a 50-year-old garage, covered the ribbon cuttings for a new credit union and an assisted living facility, took a "dusty shoes" tour of a memory care facility not quite ready to open, covered a back-to-school backpack giveaway for underprivileged children, and witnessed the honor of Jacksonville being named the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 14th city in a partnership program called Any Given Child. I also attended a Dreams Come True event for a young girl whose wish was for a miniature Australian Shepherd.
     I took a photo of one woman who was closing her florist shop after 30 years in one location, another couple celebrating 25 years of their floral shop, and interviewed a 90-year-old blind quilter. I ran around taking photos of historical markers and huge murals, and I talked to arborists, bakers, construction workers, girls who went on mission trips, women who run food pantries, men who have started late-in-life careers as an owner of a health store for Baby Boomers or as a community courier service for people who can't get out to the grocery store.
     Every day is bright with opportunity to meet more people and connect the dots. "Oh, are you related to...?" "Do you know...?" are questions I ask regularly.
     Next month I will attend a quilt show and I hope to shoot photos from a small boat of 10 people who will swim the St. Johns River and in November I'll most likely be manning a booth for our newspaper at the First Annual Jacksonville Honeybee Festival. Life is good!

Roots and Shoots

     Bill and I are halfway through our second summer in Jacksonville and, at this point, I think I can say that we've started to take serious root.
     I love the way God worked in our lives -- and is working still -- to move us into jobs that are pleasurable and allow us to entrench ourselves into our new community.
     I'm still pinching myself -- even after two years of full-time living on our boat and after 21 months in Jacksonville -- and wondering when I'm going to wake up from the dream.
     Today we did things we probably would not have dreamed of doing in Pittsburgh. Nothing stupendous. Just different.
     Our marina -- which is resort-like, rather than the typical boatyard-type marina -- is a fun place for other boaters to come for part of a day. We've hosted two poker runs for boating clubs this summer, providing a two to three hour stopover for fun in the pool before the boaters head off to their next "poker hand".
     Since I've taken on part-time marketing for the marina, my job is to photograph all the parties and post them on the marina's Facebook page. Today I shot 173 photos and culled them down to 42 for Facebook. And, yes, I shot a lot of buxom, bikini-clad women, inevitably pared with older, paunchier cigarette boat-owning guys.
    Bill, the dockmaster and our new dockhand ran themselves ragged helping the 33 boats into empty slips among our four docks, while I captured it all on "film". It was sweltering hot and we hustled for two and a half hours. But, wow, would we be doing that in Pittsburgh?

     That's become our refrain here. "Would we be doing this in Pittsburgh?" we ask ourselves as we sit up on the flybridge, reading and sipping a glass of wine (me) and smoking a cigar (Bill) before dinner.
     "Would I be doing this in Pittsburgh?" I ask myself as I navigate my way around town and end up in a private small group meeting with the Sheriff of Jacksonville or the Mayor or one of our City Council members.
     "Would I be doing this in Pittsburgh?" Bill asks himself as he puts to use the trade skills he learned more than 50 years ago to engineer improvements at the marina.
     We loved our time in Pittsburgh -- don't get me wrong. It was the right place for us at the right time for 30 years. I still miss my friends and am so grateful for Internet technology that allows us to keep in touch and stay in tune.
     But I feel the roots starting to put out those small offshoots that help secure us to new soil -- right here in Jacksonville.

Funny what triggers a memory...

I think this is a Canary Island Date Palm, but I’m not sure. 

I thought it was a type of palmetto, which got me thinking about palmetto bugs, aka flying cockroaches, which reminded me of growing up in Miami and why to this day I put glasses and mugs upside down in the cabinets.

Then, upon pondering my childhood in southern Florida, I remembered the time in 1964, when my mother was in the hospital delivering my youngest sister Lois, that my sisters Patti and Beth (and maybe I was involved, I don’t recall…) pitched tons of apricots from one neighbor’s yard over a very tall hedge into another neighbor’s yard. Our grandmother made us go over and pick up all those apricots.

The neighbors who we assaulted happened to be an older middle-aged couple, probably in their 60s, named Bonafiglio. I think her name was Isabella and his was Frank or Vincent, but the family anecdote is that he was retired Mafia (or maybe he wasn’t so retired…who knows?).

Isabella had waist-long graying hair that she normally kept pinned up in a chignon and when she washed it once a week she would sit in the back yard in a kitchen chair to let it dry in the sun. She also had a capuchin monkey; we were invited inside the house once. Mr. B wore a wife-beater undershirt with slacks and a belt and dress shoes. At least, that’s what my memory says.

Awesome, Not Aww-some

On my daily walks around a very well-to-do neighborhood, I try to find something new every day. This neighborhood is ranked among the top 50 wealthiest communities in the United States. Last fall I amused myself by keeping track of the number of Romney signs versus Obama signs. I happened to mention that to someone recently and she said that some of the more strident Romney supporters would repeatedly remove the Obama yard signs. One woman got a bit more clever:

I alternate between two routes in the middle of the walk, which begins with one bridge and ends with another. One route takes me past that house, which I call the Talking House because the owner puts a new message up every week or so. Some of the banners are fun and whimsical; others are honest and full of hope:

Earlier this week on a walk, I was thinking about the whimsical and winsome nature of some homes in this neighborhood, crammed right next to more stately, grander homes. The former have something about them that causes the passer-by to say “Aww!” And then you come upon a monument of a home that invokes awe.

So much of what we gravitate towards has the Aww! factor. I’m sure you’ve seen lots of puppy and kitten memes posted on Facebook and watched more than a few cute YouTube baby videos. But a steady diet of things that make us go Aww! can cause us to miss – or dismiss – the things that awe:

While pondering the human penchant for cute and cuddly, it brought to mind a trend in faith and religion – that of trying to take the “awe” out of God in order to make Him appear more approachable, more buddy-like. While there’s a time and a place for knowing Jesus as a friend, I worry that our culture will more and more favor the image of the Baby Jesus and forget about the Savior Jesus, bowed and bloody on the cross.

I don’t know about you, but I want my God and my Savior to put awe in my heart and soul. Someone who has laid down his life for me is more deserving of my unending awe than a momentary Aww!

It's just stuff.

            “What were we thinking?” Bill said as we surveyed the contents of the U-Haul truck. “What are we going to do with all this stuff?”

  

            Well, back in June 2011 when we packed up the townhouse in Bradfordwoods, PA, I know what I was thinking… “We’ll need this stuff for our land-based home in Jacksonville. After all, we won’t be living on the boat forever.” Silly me, what was I thinking?

            It’s now clear that we may delay the purchase of a condo long enough that our memory and eyesight will be dim, and it will once again seem like new stuff.

            I honestly thought that we had pared down quite a bit back in Pittsburgh, selling rooms-full of furniture, exercise equipment, tools, books and household goods. Even in a 1,200-square-foot condo, surely we would be able to fit the contents of one bedroom, one study, a dining room, and living room, right?

            Lesson learned during the past two years: I can count on one hand – and still have fingers left over – the number of items that I could have used but managed to make do without. And now that my Mixmaster is finally in the same state, did I bring it back to the boat? Um…no. It’s still in storage because, after all, do I have time to bake? I’ll wait until Christmas to haul it out, dust it off and turn it on…maybe.

            Now, after two eight-hour driving days of a punishing ride (no cruise control, no air conditioning), and another eight hours of wrestling that stuff off the truck and into the double-wide storage unit, we have all our stuff in Jacksonville. (I did not participate in the driving trip, but I hauled my share of boxes from the truck to storage.)

            My husband, being the über-organizer that he is, arranged all the boxes with the labels facing out so that we can more easily get to some of this stuff when we need it. Never mind that we can’t read our own writing on some of the boxes. And there are a couple of mystery boxes with no labeling at all. Oops.

          The empty shelves are for the stuff we have in a small offsite storage unit nearby, which we'll vacate soon. 

          I have four file boxes of my father's sermons...50 years worth. By the time I'm retired with free time to scan and save them, the paper will probably have long crumbled to dust.

          Bill rigged a long pole down the center of the double-wide unit to hang cold weather clothes, for that once a year Christmas trip north.