Thank you

Well, it's back to the "old grind". Thanksgiving break is over and we're all back at our various jobs and performing our various obligations and displaying various attitudes and various emotions about said duties and schedules. It simply can't be helped.

The weather was trying its best to upstage the Thanksgiving Holiday last week. When we left mid-morning from here in north east Kansas, the sky was wet and very foggy. Temperatures burrowed down in the mid thirties. When we stepped out of the car in central Oklahoma, the temperature had rocketed to a record breaking high of 80 degrees! We were dressed for thirty degree weather in pants, sweaters, etc. Overnight the temperature plunged back down enough so that rain formed into icicles on the trees and roof edge.

My sis is the premiere host and went to great lengths to provide comfort and welcome to all of us, her guests. My family was privileged to stay in her son Tuker's room (thank you Tuk!). Jack slept in the top bunk of the bunk bed with me and thought that was the carnival worker's tattoo! (An awkward idiom, I know, but was trying to find a modern equivalent of the expression: "the cat's meow). He and Tuk played and played with Tuk's toys (again, thanks Tuk!) and they even let Leo pal around with them most of the time, which Leo thought was the barbers' scissors! (again, a failed attempt at renewing/ rejuvenating the idiom "the cat's meow")

Macy schooled me in basketball. A 35 year old man; reasonably in shape, moderately athletic; "taken to town" by a 12 year old girl. Pathetic. This is a visual representation of what I felt like.

Kali, the younger sister, teamed up with Macy to "hand out the beat downs" on the ole' half court to the rest of the cousins and uncles who dared entered their "pain school". Notice, none of the aunts signed off on a shipment of hurt and humiliation, just cousins and their spouses.

Of course there was food. Oh, the food. Like our own private Sirloin Stockade of culinary delights. Smoked turkey and smoked brisket; salads and beans and desserts oh my! Snacks and drinks and goodies, too.

I interacted (i.e. joked and ate) with all the usual suspects. They made the lengthy trip down from Kansas. I know we were all glad to be together, and my sis was glad they were able to make it. I was leading a game of Phase 10, when we took what came to be a permanent break. We played Apples to Apples, a fun, easy game. All in all, a wonderful fulfilling Holiday which makes us thankful for all we have.

Dusty has built himself something to be very proud of. His house was beautiful and functional, two of my favorite things. I like the wide open spaces he's designed into it, and the outdoorsy theme complemented it well. The 1st floor  affords a magnificent view overlooking the south pasture which falls away from the house, and the surrounding lay of the land. I'm told Dusty completed 90 percent of the work and he did a great job. The two of them together, Clarie and Dusty, work very hard and they are two intelligent, motivated individuals capable of accomplishing whatever they want. They've got a great family. They are giving and modest. I'm proud of them. They are my family.