Brown and Gray

I was talking to a friend tonight who said, "Every year I feel I have less and less to be thankful for." Maybe because we remember better times, I suggested. And we've lost a lot along the way, including the little things like patience and our minds.

These are the days when things are getting very real. I've stepped back from Fecebook. It can take over your life, especially when you volunteer to admin or monitor a page. Or 5. The constant barrage of opinion, right or wrong, agree or disagree, judging judging judging, is darkening to the soul. Too much news is as bad for you as ignorance. I remind myself this crapola is why I gave up cable, and that the intrusive Comcast homepage plastic news is bad enough to have to see. "News" media has turned up the volume, and I'm just going to try not listening for once. People pieces, the ones on BBC, are enough to tell me stories. The Guardian is not purposely traumatizing. Though don't get me started on the BBC.

Tonight it's finally cold. Fall is here. It's Thanksgiving week, I have no idea what's going to happen with Billy beyond he'll be here Thursday and probably Friday. This is because of medication timing and confusion, along with whatever else. I try not to speculate. Kick and Scott will be by on Friday, I haven't seen her in years. Billy gave Patrick his old leather jacket and she sent a photo. I can't believe he's a 6' tall 17 year-old wearing Billy's leather. Strider had a kitchen fire and was burned pretty badly on her hands and arms trying to put it out. But she's okay and the house will be fixed, hopefully by the new year. What's verynot okay is that there was a baby's death in the family. That's never going to be okay.

And all of that and so much more is why I haven't done much besides read historical background for the Beest book in weeks. Maybe for once I'm actually doing this bookwriting thing the correct way. It's good dissociation from the holy shit-look-what-happened-my-opinion-is-better-than-yours circus of the day world we live in. We didn't used to have to know people this well. We didn't used to have to know everything that everyone on the planet said. What the hell? I'm better off learning about the battle for the Somme or the Red Baron.

Yes, times are hard and even scary. People are nuttier in greater numbers than I've ever noticed. Well, we were all nutty in the 70s but that was in a friendly way. This isn't. I'm already treating gut problems (and miss my percolated coffee!!) and I don't need more tsuris. So to hell with it, let me map out Beest's travels around France as an Allied spy in WW1. She's roughly following my Uncle Bert, who bicycled around France carrying maps and intelligence from unit to unit. It's not a happy place, but a hundred years later it's pretty straightforward and not as terrifying as say, any of the current Republican Party Presidential candidates.

This Thanksgiving I do have a lot to be thankful for, and I'm trying to be mindful of it. Good friends, family, enough. I could do with less of some things and more of others, but enough is what I have. Which makes me a very lucky woman.
Happy Thanksgiving
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