Thanksgiving and Iron Bowl

Somehow, the Thanksgiving season just is better with the addition of a good weekend of football.

I'll admit it.

I'm an addict.

And isn't that half of the battle?

So having admitted my affliction, does that mean a prescription of ESPN 1 & 2 can help me through my withdrawals from society, activity and life itself for an infusion of team spirit and yellow flags?

I'd love to have a wonderful set up like they have at the electronics stores. Multiple screens, sound systems that rival a theater and a remote control to command everything into action at the touch of a button.

I feel the testosterone level in the room rising.

Sure, I'm female but I totally get the gladiatorial competition and the need for conquest. It's a total turf war waged for a pigskin that doesn't even matter when all is said and done.

Except that it does.

Church congregations have actually split over the Iron Bowl bragging rights in this state. Everyone has an opinion and unless you are wearing the right team colors, your opinion is wrong. And it has nothing to do with which pew your family has sat in for decades.

Sadly, there are those in even good families who stray. For reasons known only to themselves, these benighted souls root for the opposition.

Perhaps it is a genetic anomoly? Some kind of DNA quirk that prevents brain receptors from seeing and hearing the same things that the rest of the family does?

Or is it sheer perversity that drives some to seek out a rival host to support their ego in an alternate universe from the one the rest of the family inhabits?

Whatever the cause, the civil war is still being fought in the homes that dot our nations when the rival colleges within our fair state toss the ball into the air on a crisp fall day and try to outlast each other until the final tick of the clock.

If you don't understand, I'm truly sorry. You are missing out on the spice of life.

Happy Thanksgiving

With all of the politically correct trying to revise history all over the place without regard for the truth, let's take today and be thankful for our freedoms.



Without the freedom of this nation, all of our women might very well be wearing burkas and not be educated at all.



Without the freedom of this nation, all of our young men might be killed in senseless acts of violence proclaimed necessary by a despot.



Without the blessings we have under God, we would have no choice of how, where or what we worship or even if we worship at all.



We have food, shelter, clothing and friends who make our lives pleasant.



And I am not unaware of those who suffer. We share our bounty each month to help those who are less fortunate.



Everyone should do so.



After all, if we are blessed to be here, we can surely pay it forward to those who aren't so fortunate today.



God bless America and pass the turkey and gravy!

Little things

So, the day has stroked by in a fog.



I stayed up all night and watched the little digital representation of the plane my son was flying to his new home in Germany.



For those who are differently attached to their offspring, watching the visual tracking doesn't sound like something that particularly sane people spend all night doing or admitting.

But to me, it was a comfort. The tiny plane wasn't just a plane going to foreign soil for strangers.

That tiny plane on my screen carried a piece of my heart to another place, far outside of my chest and taking that little boy now grown to man into a future that I can only hear about from a distance.

Being a mother is not for wimps.

Rotten, stinkin' cold & rambling

yeah.

I doomed myself.

I spoke evilly about the wonders of modern medicine only to wake up feeling like my head weighed roughly 235 pounds and my ears filled with sloshing sounds as if I had suddenly put out to sea during a moment of sleepwalking.

An enemy agent caught my complacency and sent for the reinforcements that held an invasion that would have made the infantry at Normandy Beach proud. . . except for the niggling little fact that the ENEMY took the beachhead, or in this case, MY head.

What is it about having a cold that makes everything seem just a bit too shrill? Sounds are more piercing and everything is just on the edge of annoying. And all of that is before we get to the real annoyances of daily living that make me wonder what was so great about leaving the hunter-gatherer time of our existence where NO ONE was concerned about having a shirt pressed before leaving for work!

Cave men, as it turns out, didn't think about pressing their mastodon skins for a night out with the missus. Fast facts garnered in the Smithsonian also indicate that they didn't really consider bathing and grooming essentials either.

Now, while I am perfectly willing to abandon ALL ironing for the good of all mankind, I TOTALLY draw the line on the bathing and grooming gig. After spending a great deal of time trying to encourage a child that a bath was a GOOD idea if they planned on living inside the house and seeing that battle become aimed in a different direction as he grew older (namely the 'get OUT of the bathroom now because OTHER PEOPLE NEED HOT WATER, TOO!' skirmish), I cannot begin to imagine just how funky fresh the cave was after a cold spell in the primitive winter of their discontent.

My father sagely pointed out that when everyone in your circle of friends smells like woodsmoke and cream of chipped antelope, no one really notices if you are a bit tangy. At that point I had to excuse myself and gag in another room, but the point was certainly made.

I have to wonder who the bright little bulb was who decided that a spritz of something floral or fruity was better than the smell of 'Fireplace in a Cave'. Did she think to herself 'hmmm, ooh aah goobah boo bah' (which translates to mean 'this smells so much sexier than antelope haunch')?

Or did the cold and flu season finally pass and they had an epiphany of sorts when they could finally breathe again?

We may never know.

But one thing is certain. While the way to a man's heart may have a pathway through his stomach, baby had better have a little sumpin' sumpin' on the back burner when the mastodon mixed grill is all gone. While our cavemen may bathe more, dress better and certainly smell nicer than the cavemen of yore, they are still susceptible to the olfactory attention grabbing skill of a female who can use her wiles judiciously added to a spritz of something more floral than firewood.

Well, I guess that's all for the moment. My headache is settling back in and I think it's just about time for another serving of that delightful cough and cold elixir that makes me wonder just how much alcohol is in that little dosage cup. . .and why on earth it has to taste so NASTY?

Aaaaah - chooo!