Thanksgiving traditions

I hope everyone had a relaxing Thanksgiving. Ours was probably one of the easiest (and most relaxing) on record. It was just King, our granddaughter and me.

It was a meal with minimal fuss. While I had thought a turkey breast would suffice for the three of us, when I mentioned my plans to King the look of disappointment on his face was readily apparent, so a couple of days before Thanksgiving I bought a small turkey. King is still "enjoying" leftovers. I suspect he is beginning to tire of turkey sandwiches, turkey with gravy, turkey with stuffing and turkey with mashed potatoes. I thought about making soup, but to be honest, no one in this family ever eats it. I may get ambitious and make a casserole but King is somewhat of a purist and enjoys his turkey straight up.

Last year King and I went to my younger sister's home for the holiday but being somewhat immobile this year we opted to stay home.

The year before last I had visions of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner -- the kind for which my mother was famous. I spent days cooking and prepping and on the big day our son dropped off the older grandchildren. No  family gathering. No memories of Thanksgiving past. Just King, a retired school administrator who is somewhat tired of teenage drama, five young women between the ages of eight and 20 and me. Sometimes I believe it is our son's goal in life to put the "dis" in front of "functional." The day was an unmitigated  disaster. Boyfriends fought with girlfriends,  significant others argued over money in front of everyone and the door slammed more times than I care to count. At the end of the day King looked at me and said, "Well, that was fun," and we decided that was our last attempt at a traditional Thanksgiving. The one bright spot in the day was I was able to sit down with one of our granddaughters and showed her how to use the sewing machine. Together we made a set of potholders for her Mom for Christmas. The reality of the day was bitter, but the good times were there as well.

It has taken me a long time to realize traditions can be a good thing, but only if everyone buys into it. When I was young Grandpa Stehouwer and his cousin, "Uncle Andy" would travel from Grand Rapids to our home in Hamilton for dinner. We had the traditional Thanksgiving meal, followed by my father's traditional Thanksgiving Day Ride on horseback around the block, followed by the family sitting in the living room around a big bowl of assorted nuts.

When we grew older Thanksgiving traditions meant traveling from wherever we lived to Mom and Dad's house and helping Mom with the meal while the men watched football and the children played outside. My sisters and I each had our assigned tasks to help with the last-minute meal preparation, but Mom -- as was her tradition -- would have spent days and days getting ready for the meal. Families grew and each of my sisters and I started our own family traditions and Mom and Dad became our guests in turn.

In years past, we had a family member who did not seem to enjoy the holiday. She would become uptight over the timing of everything, about making a mess in the kitchen (unless you have an "open concept" kitchen, that is what doors are for) and could barely wait until everyone was finished eating to start clearing the table and putting food away. It was so awful that one Thanksgiving friends and co-workers left early and talked about it for days after at work. Yes. It was that bad. But it does no good to dwell on her bad behavior and to be honest her absence is sincerely felt. I would rather have her with us, bad mood, bossy kitchen manners and all.

It is funny how stressed people get over serving what is supposed to be a relaxing meal meant for thankfulness. It is just a meal and it is simply family.

While I miss the traditions of years past, life marches on and one can dwell on what once was or be content to create something new. Our granddaughter said this year was one of the most relaxing Thanksgivings she could remember. I would have to agree. I served everything buffet-style and it was only at the last minute that I decided I should actually put the food in serving dishes rather than serve from the pans they were cooked in. I saved Mom from having to roll over in her grave.

We ate, watched football, slept and ate some more. The most prepping I did was defrosting the turkey. I liked it that way. Mom would work for days and days getting ready for the holiday. Pies, homemade cranberry relish, rolls, stuffing, two different kinds of jello salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, several different kinds of vegetables, sweet potatoes and homemade bread for Thanksgiving evening sandwiches ...Mom enjoyed all the fuss. In her mind nothing said love like an abundance of food. We all enjoyed Thanksgiving at Mom's house and the traditions it brought. But families grow and change and traditions that worked 15 years ago certainly do not work now.  And as I learned we move on and enjoy change because trying to re-create memories seldom works.

Eating, sleeping and watching football was not all that bad.

It's all a matter of perspective

It is the middle of November. The skies are steel grey and the wind and rain have stripped the trees of their leaves.

It was an unusual fall. I had knee surgery in the beginning of the month. Before surgery the trees were holding on to their leaves for dear life -- some trees were still green, some were brilliant orange and yellow and a few gave up and let their leaves go. It was a mixed bag of fall color, punctuated by summer-like weather followed by days and days of rain. Yesterday I looked up from my view from King's recliner and realized the branches in the woods outside our living room window were bare. "About time," I muttered to myself, "but when did that happen?"

The rains of October left the pond in the back filled to the brim. At one point it overflowed and spread into our driveway and the bluegill and perch stocked in the pond enjoyed a brief swim in the driveway. The waters have receded somewhat, but the woods next to the pond are still flooded. A first for us since moving here seven summers ago. I have to wonder if it will eventually completely recede or if we will have an extended skating rink this winter.

Logs were delivered this summer.

Fall continues and King has been busy cutting, splitting and stacking the load of wood we received this summer. Generally he is done by this time of year but the "help" that was hired to learn the ropes and eventually take our place as caretakers has not been a lot of help. On day two of his new job he put regular gas in the chainsaw, rather than a gas/oil mix. After the repair shop confirmed the chainsaw was beyond repair, the owner of the property promptly purchased a bigger and better chainsaw. And our "help" went back to the city to work at one of the owner's properties there. The new chainsaw and King made short work of the 10 foot logs (some with a 42 inch diameter) and our "help: returned from the city. And then the log splitter broke. So the "help" went back to the city to work at the owner's property in the city once again. He returned to Michigan a couple of days ago. His return timing was pretty good as the log splitter had returned from the repair shop a day or two prior to his return. The "help," however, has retreated to his cozy cabin and has been AWOL while King splits the wood. I am wondering how long King will hold out before he stacks it himself as well.

South Beach

North Beach

Today after King and I dropped our granddaughter off at work we took a drive to the lake. I remembered to bring my camera with me this time. The wind was coming out of the north/northwest and crashed against the north pier with a vengeance.
The waves on the south beach were rough, but were relatively calm when comparing the two. Yesterday the kite surfers were out in droves. Kite surfing looks like fun, but I have to wonder how warm a wet suit can actually keep someone when the water temperature dips to 48 degrees and the air temp is in the 30s. I am fairly certain from their perspective the fun outweighs the cold.

And November marches on. Since I am more or less confined to the house I have started hand embroidering pillow tops. My aunts and Mom used to do all kinds of needlework when they had their monthly gatherings. The five of them would sit in the living room and talk and stitch the day away. In the days leading to one of their gatherings, Mom would work feverishly to get whatever piece she had been working on during their last meeting a little further ahead. She was the youngest of her siblings and I realize now she was always working to keep up appearances of being the diligent housewife and mother. And to that end she was. By today's standards she was very old-school. By her sisters' standards she was a slacker.

It's all a matter of perspective.

The more things change...

It looks as though this year's trip is going to be put on hold until 2018.

Twenty-Eighteen. 2018. Two thousand, eighteen...No matter how your write it... it seems a long way off. But as I have learned, it does no good to wish your life away. It is something my mother told me countless times -- and now I finally get it. It is too bad it took this long to fully understand what she meant.

For the next 12 months (give or take a few) King and I will be sharing our home with a teen once again. (Never ever say never, remember).

For many years King and I were parents to our son's youngest daughter. Neither our son nor our granddaughter's mother were fully capable of taking care of a child. It is not that uncommon for grandparents to take on the care of grandchildren and I am seldom surprised at the number of grandparents who do.

When our granddaughter reached her most rebellious teen years she opted to live with her father and her new step-mother. It didn't work out as she had hoped and she is back with us, struggling to finish her senior year in high school after falling remarkably behind. Of course finishing school is more important than our trip. But that does not prevent me from occasionally emitting a heavy sigh. But self-pity gets no one anywhere and I find myself beginning to look forward to Senior Pictures, football games and maybe even a homecoming parade.

It really did not take a lot of soul-searching to come to the decision to open  our home to our granddaughter once again. The child (or young adult as the case may be) needed some help to move on to the next stage of her life -- whatever that might be. Our granddaughter's mother has been in and out of mental institutions in another state. The woman has some pretty serious problems. Our son has issues of his own. Her new step-mother does not like King and I. (What's not to like? We are such agreeable people...) I would be lying to myself and everyone else if I did not admit it has been a very rough summer. There is no need to go into detail.

So this past week I found myself driving our granddaughter to her first day of school. She is participating in an alternative ed program. The less rigid structure works well for her. She is also starting a new job. She is 17 and will turn 18 in February. When I was her exact age I was graduating from high school -- and did not turn 18 until two months into my freshman year of college. I was an adult and I was not an adult... pretty much in the same boat as she is now. Of course I'd like to think I had more maturity. I don't know if in reality I truly did.

It is an interesting time. The other day she asked to spend the night at a male friend's house. King looked at her and said, "I am pretty old-fashioned." Really King? Old-fashioned?  I don't remember that. I guess 40-some years kind of blurs the edges of memory a bit. For some more than others.

Life goes on and we adapt with the ebb and flow of events. This winter rather than debating whether to take a northern route or a more southern route we will be discussing the pros and cons of insuring a new driver (should she complete driver's training), fixing braces, getting new glasses and trying to explain why -- despite being children of the 70's -- we are still fighting the notion of co-ed sleep overs.

Never going back again

I spent close to 40 years writing for a living.

I never got rich from my writing, but that was not the point of pursing a journalism career. When I went away to school back oh so many, many years ago it was more for the thrill of discovering something different. It was for the challenge of becoming the next Woodward or Bernstein.  No one I knew, or my parents knew, or my friends knew were reporters. I had more than one person tell me I'd never make it. My father hated the media. According to him they were all biased. But I stubbornly resisted. And pursued my idealistic goal of changing the world through writing and revealing the truth.

It was a bumpy road to graduation. But I did it. A marriage, several stops and starts, and four children later (well, almost four children... I graduated three months before our fourth child was born) I donned a cap and gown and received my diploma.

I remember my first newspaper job. I was the Lifestyle reporter for the Lifestyle section of a daily paper in Zanesville, Ohio. My editor, Virginia,  was a crotchety woman who was nearing retirement. It is hard to believe that back then she was the same age I am today. We butted heads on more than one occasion but remained friends long after I moved away. I recall asking her one day if she planned on freelance writing once she retired. She looked aghast. "Why on earth would I want to keep writing?"  I was dumbfounded. Who wouldn't want to continue to write? Writing was fun. Writing was cool. You could get paid (albeit not much) for writing.

That was 39 years ago. And in that 39 years, I wrote and wrote and wrote. I covered county board meetings. I wrote about city council budgets. I covered EPA superfund sites. I interviewed veterans. I attended school board meetings. I watched and reported about personality fights between citizens and board/council members. I worked nights, weekends and holidays. Sometimes I dragged my children along. I cringed when editors changed my stories and then had to face the backlash from sources I worked long and hard to develop. Then I became and editor and dealt with people who took exception to news articles I ran. (I also had an unfortunate five-year foray into public relations which I would just as soon forget).

And Virginia, today I get it. I never want another writing assignment again. Ever. I don't want to be on deadline. I don't want to worry about pissing someone off and getting angry phone calls. I don't want to read and re-read what I write, checking for commas and dangling participles (and I don't even know what those are, but they are deadly).  I'm done. It is not a "done" that comes with being fed up ... it is a "done" that comes with "I've done enough. Let someone else with more energy and fortitude go forth and conquer."

I write this blog when the spirit moves. I used to get messages from the blogger Gods and Goddesses telling me my fan base missed me and I needed to write another blog post. Fan base? Really? All five of them? The blogging Gods and Goddesses  don't send me messages any longer. I am not worth the effort for even an automated message.  Facebook still reminds me that I haven't posted to my travel page in a while and I am losing customers. Hmmmm. Customers would indicate I have something to sell. I don't. Apparently the Blogging Gods and Goddesses along with Facebook have never heard of doing something simply for the joy of doing it... as in when the spirit moves.

Once in a while I look at ads for turning my blog into a cash cow. I can't get past the fourth sentence in the "how to make a million dollars from your blog" how-to article and my eyes glaze over and I think to myself, "Even if I knew what they were talking about ... it sounds like WORK." And, in case anyone is wondering... work no longer sounds appealing to me. I rather enjoy retirement -- early retirement. I am a little shy of 62.

I am infinitely glad some people still want to work. There are things we need -- like electricity. And I like playing on the internet. I like going out for dinner and a movie occasionally. I am glad, despite dwindling newsroom staffs,  I can still read newspapers and watch CNN. And having food is really, really nice. I am simply ready to be on the receiving end of services.

I never got rich being a writer. I never became a Woodward or a Bernstein. I doubt I made much of a difference. I know I made more than a few people angry. But I have no regrets. Sometimes it was fun. Most times it was work. And I am ready to pursue other interests. They just have to be cheap interests.

And to that end, I am surprised that my list of "must haves" is actually quite small.

So here is to hoping Social Security makes it a few more years, our insurance continues to cover necessities, Medicare is still available when I hit 65 and food is still affordable. Because if I can help it, I'm never going back to writing for a living again.

Home again, home again

We made it back to Michigan the first part of April. So here it is mid-May and I am working on becoming acclimated to life back home.

Generally in the spring I am fairly busy getting gardens ready for summer. King and I are caretakers on a gentleman's hobby farm in Southwest Michigan. The owner lives in Chicago and comes to Michigan on weekends. We keep things running, mow lawns and tend gardens during the week in exchange for free housing. This is our seventh summer and before taking to the road last fall we did this year-round.

This year, however,  I finally bit the bullet and decided enough was enough and I am having knee replacement surgery at the end of the month. I have osteoarthritis in both knees, but the right knee is worse than the left. After spending the winter sometimes crawling into the trailer, King and I decided it was time.

Which means I am not doing much in the gardens this spring -- and won't be able to weed much for six weeks after the surgery. Gardeners know what a six-week hiatus from weeding means. So we are scaling back.

We have three large gardens and multiple raised garden beds. When we got back I spent two weeks weeding the raised beds --  off and on. It took its toll and I spent many evenings in a recliner icing my knees and being generally bitchy to King. So now I stay inside spending my time sewing tote bags, baking muffins and teaching myself to make rag rugs. (And nursing my guilt for not being outside to help King. He truly has not complained).

This past weekend the owner brought some purple asparagus crowns for transplanting. King put them in a couple of the raised beds. I pointed out to him that he rather hates asparagus because their fern-like growth annoys his sense of order and perhaps he should have put them in an area not in the middle of the yard. He ignored me. At least now when the asparagus grows to unmanageable heights he can't say anything to me.

Today as I was putting another rag rug in the trailer King was working on the garden next to the trailer.

"I really think we need a small area of broccoli in here," I said.

King rolled his eyes. "I'm not weeding around broccoli," he said. "I don't even like broccoli."

"Just put some shade cloth down along the edge, I will plant the broccoli and you can still get in here with the tractor. The broccoli will be out of the way."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

It was my turn to roll my eyes. "The black plastic-like material we used on the tomatoes last year. We also used it in the pumpkin garden."

King said he would think about it. A few hours later he came in the house and said the "stuff" was down and I could plant whatever I wanted.

I'm thinking broccoli and a few tomato plants. I also need peppers and green beans and ...

Why we travel

A Joshua tree.

We spent a week at Joshua Tree National Park in early February. It was a good trip and our first trip to the desert. I would certainly go back.

We did a lot of exploring and took a lot of day-trips. We don't do a lot of hiking as I am a candidate for knee replacement surgery (a consult is scheduled for April when we return to Michigan). But it was a good time and we did take many walks along easy trails in the desert.

King liked to climb hills in
the desert while we were on
our walks. He wanted to see
how high up he had to go to get
cell phone reception

One morning a group of three college students knocked on the trailer door. They were from a liberal arts college (and I can't remember the name) in northern Arizona and were interviewing campers to find out what brought them to Joshua Tree. I think they were rather surprised that a couple from Michigan even knew about Joshua Tree. Much as I am surprised by the number of people who do no realize just how big the Great Lakes truly are.

The students were rock climbers and I learned from them Joshua Tree has some of the sharpest granite in the U.S.. They showed me the cuts and scrapes on their hands -- although I would not have doubted them anyway.

Their interview made me think about why King and I travel.

King probably has his own reasons. I doubt he can even put into words why. But for me ... it is something I have wanted to do for a long, long time.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college I was at home working for my

We visited the General Patton Museum on
one of our day trips. This is a 1950
military fire truck. My father was
a firefighter on an airfield in London
during World War II.

father in the dog food factory he managed. Two semesters of college in and I was already tired of studying. I stood on the line packing dog food and thought about what I wanted to do. It was a miserable summer. I had been away from home for a year and although back then I was a pretty straight-laced kid, being back home under my parents rules was difficult to say the least. Living in a small town where my every move was reported back to my father was grueling. I wanted to buy a van and just go. More than anything. Just go. Not acceptable as far as my parents were concerned and in truth, I never told them what I wanted to do. So being the good kid I was, I worked all summer, loaded my belongings into the family car and Mom drove me back to school in the fall.

King and I got married before either of us graduated and moved into married student housing.  It was an entire community of like-minded students -- an interesting time and probably as much education as classes.

Finally we both graduated (I graduated three months before our fourth child was born so mine was a long-track degree). Family, jobs and all the responsibilities that go with everyday living put the desire to just take off and travel on the back burner.

Sunrise in the desert.

Apparently, however, that desire for adventure never went away. It popped up again when King retired... but the timing wasn't right. My father's health was failing and after he passed Mom needed my sisters and I to watch after her while she slowly faded away with dementia...so we stuck around for a few more years.

King and I started talking about traveling more seriously after Mom died. My older sister, I later learned, thought we were nuts. But to her credit she never said anything to us. I may have caught her rolling her eyes as I talked about de-cluttering and down-sizing our home. But I tended to pretend I didn't notice. I don't think she truly thought we would actually go through with our plans.

She was the one who planned everything in advance and made reservations for dinners six months ahead of time. She died before she did everything on her bucket list. It was our wake-up call.

King in his winter coat.

So here I sit, less than a year later after her death, sitting on my bed in our travel trailer. I took a break from my writing to help King find his winter coat as it is a little chilly at our new location in the Angeles National Forest. We are heading back to Michigan in about six weeks because we told the gentleman whose hobby farm we are caretakers for (our post-retirement gig) we would be back for one last season.

We are learning the ins and outs of living in a 16-foot travel trailer (technically it is a 19-foot trailer, but you can't count the three-foot hitch as living space). It's a lot of togetherness. Which is probably why I am sitting on the bed writing and King is outside  reading. 

But we are doing what we want. It is different -- not having commitments or a time frame. It takes a little getting used to. It is easy to lose track of days (is today Wednesday or Thursday)? The start and the end of the weekend are no longer looked upon with euphoria or gloom. They are just days.

It is a good thing. No looking back. No regrets.

Road trip within a road trip

We arrived at Monte Cristo campground in the Angeles National Forest around 5:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10. It was by far the most nerve-wracking drive to date. Around 18 miles of uphill hairpin turns (and I am terrified of heights) at dusk in the rain. We pulled off at every turn-out to let the faster commuters pass us but still received a one-finger salute a fair number of times (or perhaps that is the way people of California demonstrate their age or IQ to out-of-staters).  I am not a big fan of Californians at the moment...

Hairpin turns through the mountains
were a test of our endurance... for each other
and commuters on the road.

 I will never again call a FIP (Fantastic Illinois Person) a FIP again. Don't call me a Troll (someone who lives south of the Mackinac Bridge) or a Fudgie (someone who visits Mackinac Island and visits the Fudge shops) ever. Name-calling is so cruel. So is extending a middle finger.

After our trip here I kept insisting we needed to go back to Michigan and I have to say for a minute I think King agreed with me. But in the morning we got up, finished setting up our campsite and drove in to Palmdale. I think it is about 20 miles from the campground, although it is an hour drive with the roads. Even MapQuest agrees with us on that one. The road signs (Angeles National Forest Highway) suggests snow chains for all vehicles, but it is 56 degrees at the moment and there is no snow in the forecast. We did see small (as in tiny) patches of snow on some hillsides.

On Sunday afternoon we watched as a parade of cars drove through the campground. A lot families pitched tents and we watched campfires from our campsite during the early part of the evening. Monday morning by 7 a.m. when we got up they were gone. They must have left fairly early in the morning. I will note that many of the cars driving through Sunday did jut that ... drove through and left. Some stopped and chatted for a few minutes. I will let you draw your own conclusion.

We hiked a little during the week and spent a lot of time reading. When campers would leave King would scour their campsites and pick up un-used wood from fire-pits so we had campfires often. We would drive in to Palmdale almost ever day to use the internet and look for campsites in other areas. We actually woke up Wednesday (Feb. 15) with the intention of leaving but decided to make a day-trip to Hermosa Beach instead. Our second oldest son lived there for a few years so it was something King really wanted to do. I am not a fan of driving in traffic but King does not seem to mind -- although we snipe at each other often about which lane he should be in. Drama on the home-front with our granddaughter, her father and step-mother (via phone conversations) kept the trip home even more

Hermosa Beach

interesting.

At any rate, it was a pleasant day at the beach -- a long-sleeves and jeans type of day. We got back to the

campground early in the afternoon and decided it was time to move on. Sooo this morning (Feb. 17) we hooked up the trailer and drove to Beaumont, Calif., and are staying at a small county park. We are the only campers here. It is a lovely park, although the information I had for it was rather dated and apparently reservations were supposed to be made online. No internet service is available here so I guess we will pay retroactively after we leave ... unless the campground host boots us out before then. We got into the campground by paying via an automated machine. King had to stand and flag down traffic trying to break a $20 as it took "exact change only." I believe the $10 we paid was simply an entrance fee. Guess I will figure it all out when I get online again.

As we were parking the trailer a nice gentleman came and talked to us four about 45 minutes. "Bob" -- a retired U.S. Marine -- is a volunteer at the park. When he learned we were from Michigan he asked us what was going on in Dearborn. Guess I have some news to catch up on when we get back to civilization ... or maybe I won't even try. I hate to bury my head in the sand but ....