al compartir lo poco que hay, recibimos plenitud

Events both good and bad sometimes fall together in a way that allows one to shine. Sometimes those moments are sorely needed.

My son had a tonsillectomy performed the Friday before Thanksgiving and doctor’s orders necessitated his remaining calm. No running or jumping. He loves every holiday wildly and acts in just that manner. While most of the time he listens well to me and my wife, we knew Thanksgiving would turn into a day of calling him down if he were unleashed into the wilderness kingdoms of either of his grandparents houses. Evasive action would need to be taken, so my lovely and I threw a Thanksgiving coup. We contacted the parents explained the situation and asked that we have Thanksgiving in our home this year.

My mom agreed immediately already having to acquiesce Thanksgiving for Friday years ago, as my gender cheated her out of her yearly stuff them until they die fest, knowing protocol in our families insisted the husband attend the in-laws feast. My mother-in-law was a little more hesitant, because it meant a lack of control, the menu wasn’t going to be her anti-Southern stance it had been in past years and most of all my progeny would be in a controlled setting where jabs at parenting skills would come much harder. (It should be noted at this point and not just to save my ass, my mother-in-law is a good person, but a strong personality that thrives on sucker punch type vocal jabs and therefore one must be on their feet or be made sport.)

To describe the two Thanksgivings my wife and I come from is to see the differences in our backgrounds. My Mother’s family put on a feast of casseroles and spices and to stand back and look at the spread was to know the King’s stores had been opened. Green beans, potatoes, yams, corn, okra, carrots all treated in some way with a cream based something or other and a myriad of cheeses melted in, onions, garlic and some cayenne. Just to look at the colors and smell the mixed aromas was to make a mental note that one may want to make a check up appointment with their doctor before Christmas. On the far sideboard lay the still cooling pumpkin pie, chocolate fudge pie, and mincemeat and vinegar pies. The only foods that actually made it to the dining table were the platter of meats and a huge basket of yeast rolls. Yes, I said meats. The turkey was present of course, and it was flanked with country and city hams. The other platter contained the yield of the land. Dove breasts, venison, catfish, and rabbit and occasionally squirrel. Eight to ten was the usual number at this annual event and there existed enough food for thirty. We would eat this meal for days and be miserable. The conversation hit all the social faux pas it could cover politics, religion, deaths, infidelities, and a general critique of life’s direction.

My wife comes from two Midwestern Catholic families and many years attended two Thanksgivings. Both meals consisted of traditional Thanksgiving staples followed by apple pie and pumpkin pie. Both families were large in number and personality. The foods were prepared with the number of attendees in mind and the more aggressive made quick work of anything that looked to be a potential leftover. A much more conservative common sense approach to a celebration of gluttony could not be found.

With my family there are no place cards or floral arrangements, you grab your own chair hopefully next to someone less annoying than one’s self and the beauty to behold is how intricately the many samples of food have been placed or piled. Experts know all the gravy items should occupy the same quadrant. There exists no choice of wine with the meal, if one is of drinking age than they are pretty well pickled by the time the feast begins.

At my in-laws it is much more formal. The table looks like a magazine spread. Place cards are in place. As has become the tradition I have never been placed by my wife or son. I did sit next to my daughter once, but she had been an absolute brat all morning and I am pretty sure she was shuffled to my corner keeping us both in check. One of my first interactions with the family was Thanksgiving. I was placed next to a family friend and what would soon be my sister-in-law, it was her first appearance as well. Everyone was asked to state what they were thankful for which I assumed was family tradition. I later found out that was the one and only time that occurred. Seems the hillbillies sitting in the cheap seats received their first sucker punch test. The conversation remained civil and shared old family memories and the occasional spar with my mother-in-law, but never approached the fire brand debates I was used to preparing for each year.

This year the feast was mine to plan and execute. I can cook and needed to do something that showed I had some form of talent. It has been a bad year for me as far as job outlook and future plans and I had been feeling particularly sorry for myself. There would be ten in attendance. I was determined to show my mother that you could send leftovers home with everyone, but at a more reasonable portion, and to show my mother-in-law that a little decadence was good for the soul. I knew I needed to put a meal on the table that both groups would be comfortable with, but something different enough that my own abilities made their case.

First was the logistics of having ten folks in a small cape cod rife with rehab projects. A general cleaning took place as both matriarchs have spotless well appointed homes. We have the projects, hobbies and unhung art work, and toys taking up much of our abode. Once that was performed I realized without the above diversions we were kind of monkish. Sparse matrix came to mind as I looked at the open paths and walls. The only seemingly out of place things, the very large desk I scored at the Habitat store for mere dollars, my treasured 1971 Panasonic Multiplex Hi-Fidelity system and my son’s collected hawk feathers that he demanded we pretend were turkey feathers for the day. The ‘Big” table received its extra leaf and the kids table was placed nearby. Leaves were collected and taped underneath a roll of butcher’s table on the floor while the kid’s colored fall like colors on the top bringing the leaves forms to bear on the new table runner. A simple flower arrangement was placed in the middle of the table. The two inherited china sets one a lace white and silver, the other a sienna and cream toile were mixed for the day. No place cards, but a balance of the two histories.

Finally the food! Traditional tweaked to my liking. Home made cranberry sauce with ginger and orange zest. Stuffing made with Spanish Chorizo and pears. Mashed potatoes mixed with parsnips and shallots. Oven roasted Brussels sprouts in pesto and parmesan. Asparagus roasted in sea salt and olive oil served with simple balsamic vinegar. A roux and white wine based gravy. The nod to my mother-in-law a perfectly cooked twenty pound bird and no other beast to take away from the turkey. (I stopped shooting at animals about the same time I first dyed my hair blue-black, donned an overcoat and began to write rhyming suicide notes I called poetry.) In my moms honor the corn pudding. Carbed over with yeast rolls and finished off with pumpkin pie, chocolate-nut and bourbon pie and a cinnamon sweet potato tart.

There we sat the traditional Republican couple from the Midwest, the Liberal Democrat couple from Kentucky, their married slightly anarchic couple. My brother -in-law and sister-in-law (Teabag republicans) backed out. The Panasonic belted out the vinyl versions of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Gershwin Song Book and Miles Davis’, The Birth of Cool. The conversation only briefly touched politics. I explained why the Occupy movement is smart by not making demands. A slight discussion about the new Catholic mass, no death or infidelity discussions or vocal sparring and hours of family memories while I watched the two matriarchs soften into comfort and being pleased someone else had the reins I knew the experiment had proven successful.

Maybe it was the first time I was thankful at Thanksgiving or for the past few months. Either way the coup was in place. As a good friend of mine would say, “The day sir is yours.”

You'll Wind Up in Some Factory

You'll wind up in some factory that's full time filth and nowhere left to go…


The above phrase danced through my MP3 player on a night a couple of years ago when I was trying to determine a path for my life.


I had been in a job I never cared for nearly 15 years. I tricked myself into thinking the good money (and it was), the good healthcare (it was great), and the chance for advancement were all things important to my family. I did not include me in the equation simply because my position in that building was me atoning for perceived past sins. The part of me that remained true to myself never spent time thinking of retirement. That part of me turned its back when certain promotions were offered when I saw the gains required of me to let go of ideas that were purely my own. It required of me to step on others. When a restructuring occurred that took a quarter of my pay away, changed the health package to one of the worst I have heard of, took away 50% of my earned time off and presented a production schedule that was based on forced overtime to get to the next layoff on time, I jumped ship.


This led to a two year journey of a return to school and getting a base level degree to go back to work. I hoped to find something more charitable, a heart payer. While my education still chugs on I have reached that first level goal, but have entered a job market that is truly a nightmare. Then the job I hoped for came along and I was lucky enough to gain an interview. It appears that I did not get the job. The shell that I was carrying around until I met my friend for a coffee a couple of weeks ago would have thought myself a failure, but the fact is the dream job exists and it will open again and I will try again.
The coffee I mentioned I thought would just be a pleasant outing, but it became quickly eye opening. I found out I was not alone, that we shared some situation in which we put on ourselves some pain or humiliation that we intuitively credited to someone else. As I listened to her I realized I was mistaken and so was she. Our transgressor had done nothing more, but be rude or arrogant. Showed his true colors when no witnesses were around and I and my friend internalized his actions and started the process of allowing it to get to us. Finding out you are not alone really isn’t a surprise, I think back and that epiphany comes again and again in my life.


I wasn’t alone in leaving college in my youth to pursue something that meant more to me. I started a music label. It was semi-successful, my partner and I after two years did not agree on directions and I left. The label went on through his efforts and following our original plan for another decade. I am not the first person to follow such a path. I counted my leaving originally as a failure. I look back now and I was true to myself. Shortly after leaving I met a girl and we dated, as I was about to leave she told me she was pregnant. I did what I considered was right and married her. We lived in misery until she slept with a mutual acquaintance seven years later effectively ending the marriage. In that time our son was still born due to doctors trying to make sure they met an insurance quota (yes, they do exist, I have the documentation). The marriage and my son’s death were two things I internalized as my fault and let them dictate a nearly decade long disappearance on my part. I meet people all the time with similar stories and reactions and realize again I am not alone. I had an active role in the outcome of the marriage, and in the birth I was a helpless bystander. I owe it to me to have learned from both.


I forgave someone. In that act they asked me to make some promises, which I thought was bold and arrogant on their part, but I agreed because I wanted to move on. I at that time made a second promise to myself that I would not be blindsided again by this person. The very promise that was asked showed me this was necessary. More and more signs popped up and I realized to keep the promise I must vacate the situation. Any distaste I held for the person, or any supposed trespass against me was all my doing. My coffee date showed me that.


So coffee lady (she had wine), I say openly to you. Being true to yourself first, is good for you, for your family (blood or engineered), and poison to villains. Failure I am seeing is a necessary tool in success. You and I my friend are never alone.