THANKSGIVING JOURNAL

(Buttermilk pie)

it was a tough night because i was thirsty and i'd run out of all bottled water, juice, or even soda near my bed. bad planning. i'd been up and around the house earlier, pushed to my limit, and the idea of repeating a foray to hydrate seemed too much to bear. (try to get upright with major joint issues, wearing an abdominal binder and not using any abdominal muscles -- it's an olympic event.) i tried telling myself it was about self-love, but even that didn't work.


dry-mouthed, i began watching a pbs docu about the mamas and the papas, and got engrossed in spite of myself. i was struck by michelle philllips' mature appraisal of her strengths and weaknesses, and her unstinting affection for mama cass -- she called her "huge" with a humor that had no tinge of fat phobia. she deftly put paid to the "choked on a sandwich" canard about cass, and outlined the reasons why cass would have gone on to be a superstar had she lived.


(Mama Cass, Mary Travers and Joni Mitchell singing "I Shall Be Released", 1969)

i intended to watch the independent lens docu which followed called objectified, about design, made by the folks who made the excellent "helvetica", but I fell asleep. when i woke up four hours later, i had the will finally to get up and bring liquid back to my nest. i took my hydrocodone for the day, recklessly not saving it for a pain crisis -- i think it will be okay today. i plan to have human conversation, excellent food, and do some writing. it's a day off.

i couldn't eat my threadgill's chicken-fried steak last night; my capacity and appetite are very diminished, and i begin meals with what my body is most craving, which last night was tomatoes and cornbread. this morning after i was hydrated, the cold meat sounded appealing, so i had it for breakfast while watching the start of the parades on TV. to my surprise, dinah offered to share the meal with me. she typically is skeptical about humin fud but she remarked that any dish containing the names of TWO meats was worth a look-see. she approved. still couldn't finish it so will save the rest, although with the other food here, something will probably get thrown out before being eaten. i do have a slice of buttermilk pie (my all-time favorite) which WILL be eaten.

quick question: is anybody else around my age who DOESN'T have joint problems starting to have serious difficulty loosening bottle caps and jar lids?

aside from cass's soaring voice, what else is intruding into my thoughts is the PBS episode of "secrets of the dead" yesterday about the terrorist attacks on mumbai a year ago. i had mixed thoughts about trying to watch it, but now i can't recommend it highly enough. two different set of survivors, married couples, one of whom (an elderly turkish pair) went through unspeakable slaughter which splattered all around them, gave riveting firsthand accounts which ended, eventually, with a version of compassion for the ignorant, terrified young men who were controlled by a remote terror network into becoming tools of murder and suicide. it was so damned good to hear a detailed, NON-American take on terrorism. catch it if you can, and be ready to grieve in a productive manner.

i'm experimenting with a shareware program that will cartoonize and/or make line drawings of photographs. the one i'm trying for free, photo to cartoon, is adequate but i suspect i could eventually make use of a lot more bells and whistles. anyone out there have recommendations to make? i'm not a skilled graphics person and i use PCs, so those are limits to keep in mind. also it must be either free or low-cost; i'll definitely use it for blogging but i can't justify high expenditure for this, all the same.

okay, it's 10 a.m., i'm going to eat the pie now. my daughter worked for amy's ice cream when she was a teenager, and their employee T-shirt was the first place i saw the adage "life is uncertain. eat dessert first."

i'm past the point of dying young and leaving a beautiful memory. i'm planning for happy, meaningful old age instead. that's new, folk. time to turn off this idiotic parade, eat pie, and untie my brain.

(Maggie and mother Mary Jo in passport photo to India, 1956 -- cartoonized by Maggie)

[Cross-posted at Meta Watershed and Group News Blog]