Thanks GIVING! Weekend Address

My fellow diners. Lincoln did it. He was a Republican, how hard can it be? At Glendale Lutheran our now retired Pastor Steve Albers used to read Lincolns Thanksgiving Day Proclamation every year. I internalized it, loved it, got sick of it, and came back around to it again. It is a pretty nice piece of writing:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm

There is much to be Thankful for this year. We are bringing troops home from over seas. The NBA season was delayed and almost canceled. The Republicans are debating every few nights and it is proving that the scariest ones, really are the scariest ones and as divided as we are, we really do not want obviously crazy people running the government. The Democrats should be doubly pleased because the only candidate who could obviously beat Obama, John Hunstsman has been abandoned by the party and the press. It has been a mild fall. Hurricanes have not been an issue. Corn prices are at a record high which is good for farmers and perhaps will make high fructose corn syrup too expensive to put in everything. According to the government more than 91% of us are employed. The economies sluggish pace, still appears to be a pace going up. Fewer Americans are killing one another. The show “Charlies Angels” was canceled. Indeed a great number of blessings.

As I prepare to write the annual family Christmas letter (I believe my son Jon took it over last year) I can really contemplate that despite all the negativity. Despite Glenn Beck predicting the end of the civilized world due to the dreaded and un-named “them” and the even more suspicious “they”... our democracy still stands free and America is still the most blessed country on the earth. Despite the inability of congress to do anything. Despite our President’s inability to lead on economic issues... I and my family are still eating, driving, working, sleeping in a warm, secure, gun free house. I am blessed with friends and acquaintances who tolerate me, amuse me and sometimes banter with me. I am, a lot to tolerate.

Once again despite the ravings about to come about this years “war on Christmas”, I continue to be allowed to worship at Glendale Lutheran Church with my family and my other Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim brothers continue to worship unmolested (with a few sad exceptions) as we, and they please. The ability to exercise freedom of religion is such a gift and it is not that way in all parts of the world and we should be very, very, thankful. We also are blessed with opportunities to serve other people every day and all of us have the talents and possessions to share to make other people’s burdens easier and that is a huge blessing.

I am pleased to have a newish band that I like named Dawes.

I am especially blessed by the tolerance of my wife and children...and the aforementioned friends.

I am really thankful we got most of the family over, our bird turned out OK and we had an awesome day.

I am thankful to catch up a little at work.

I am thankful that Michigan beat Ohio State.

I know it has not been a great year for everyone. I work every day with people who have literally had the shit kicked out of them economically but I am blessed because even these people, staring financial ruin in the face, are able to wake up every morning, put a brave face on and go out and do what they can to take care of themselves and their families. And in this great country they are able to. With all of the divisiveness, with all the harsh partisanship and name calling and petty bickering at every level of government and politics, this is a time to reflect on how blessed we are to live here. How blessed we are to fight with words instead of guns. How blessed we are to worship free. How blessed we are to gather with our families and be Thankful, for one long weekend every year, and have that spirit of gratefulness which God wishes we could muster every moment of every day.

So on this Thanksgiving day weekend I am thankful to God for the sacrifice of his son for my sins. I am thankful to and for my immediate and extended family. Life is good. Have a beer and go to bed.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

One of the things about having college age children home is that you want to do things with them. Other then being polite, hungry, broke and bored, they likely do not have a reciprocating interest. A desperate and conniving parent can work these qualities to their benefit occasionally and spend some time with their child or children who are home for the holidays. Notice I do not call it quality time. Quality time is of course a myth developed by over scheduled parents to justify the limited time they (we) spend as parents but even in it’s most defensible form quality time is focused on the parent being “in the moment” and the child is really just reactive or entertained. When your kids are in college quality time would require that they be “engaged” in the idea of interacting with you and generally my children do not. But they will do things with us because they are polite (guilt), hungry, broke or bored. Perhaps some time I will write a little primer for parents as to how to take advantage of these various states.

Yesterday was a full family day. I worked all morning because it is asinine to expect that your college age student would interact with you in any way prior to noon. I came home at 1 after meeting the entire male Kowert/Winstorer clan for a cocktail at Biggies before they ate lunch. These men are big, heavy drinking, huge headed mammals and when congregated it is always prudent to wade in early and wade out quickly. You want to get out before the political discussion… or the fantasy football discussion… or the will Notre Dame win the National Championship discussion starts…. or before the check arrives. So I got home at 1:00 at took the family to O’Connells. Always a winner and we gorged on meat. Jon, who is 21 then went with me to meet some Lutherans at the Village Bar where we cheered briefly for Auburnwho choked away a lead and lost to Alabamaand then we went home to pick up the rest of the family and see “The Fabulous Mr. Fox”.

I was hesitant, reluctant and well… passive aggressive and bitchy as 13 year old girl about having to go to this animated movie I knew nothing about. The fact that it was a Wes Anderson directed effort (Royal Tannenbaums, Rushmore etc…) ameliorated this slightly but not much. Still this was what a “good father” would do in attending a silly movie with his wife and children and not insisting on action or drama or at least a pretty girl. But I went because it was the dreaded “right thing to do” and as we all know I always try to be very competitive in the FATHER OF THE YEAR awards. OK, so it was a tepid effort, it was not taking my kids kayaking in sea caves but it was effort so GET OFF MY ASS!

We attended the movie at the theatre at “Crestwood Court(f/k/a CrestwoodPlaza). Crestwood Courtis a near vacant, sprawling development in mid south countySt. Louisand just south of our home in Lower Webster (Upper Crestwood). The entire family admonished me not to enter the cavernous parking lot which is evidently crumbing in on itself and has several areas no longer safe to drive under or park in but I braved it along with 7 or 8 other cars. Evidently the more intelligent (safer) people park on top of the decaying structure? Crestwood was a vast strip mall which they then enclosed in the 70s and spread it out back when you could still have a mall that was not adjacent to a major highway (the dark ages). It used to have about 75-100 stores. It now has about a dozen, and the movie theatre and has a vague post apocalyptic feel which is unsettling, creepy and kind of cool.

For whatever reason we got all the animated and children’s movies trailers. Should I care? I guess “Alice In Wonderland” with Johnny Depp could be cool but other then that I snoozed and prepared myself for boredom. Happily I was dead wrong, wrongy mc wrongerson. This proved to be an excellent little bit of entertainment. This Ronald Dahl guy was also the author of “James and the Giant Peach” and the seminal children’s story “Charlie And the Chocolate Factory”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_DahlHe died in 1990 but I think he would have been pleased with what Mr. Anderson did with his story which centers around Mr. Fox. The movie opens with the redoubtable Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and his young wife (Meryl Streep) unsuccessfully engaged in stealing some “squabs”. Out of love for his wife he foregoes a life of thievery and pursues a career as a journalist but alas…

After the birth of a new child he moves to a dangerous neighborhood against the advice of his badger lawyer (Bill Murray) and enters into a plan to rob three awful farmers (successfully) with his possum sidekick only to enter into a death struggle with the three farmers around which the central story develops. The story is a great one in my opinion . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantastic_Mr_Fox It is a classic morality play and asks all the big questions about parenting, marriage, our essential nature and… well it is just funny. Selfishly my favorite line is when he is lying in bed and life in his new house is falling down around him and he mutters to the ceiling with his wife turned away from him in bed, “I should have listened to my lawyer”.

Also well done is Jason Schwartzmen’s portrayal of their son “Ash’. Ash is an undersized, uncoordinated, bitchy, petulant unlikable fox who has to deal with his visiting, athletic, yoga practicing cousin. Much character growth and development here. The entire movie is well done. I laughed out loud and in this one case, this holiday weekend the chips fell into place and I enjoyed a few hours where my whole family was enjoying themselves together and unexpectedly. Life generally is not much sweeter then this.

Again…Happy Thanksgiving weekend and GO TCU Horn Frogs!

Vacation VIII: A Very Tiemann Thanksgiving

Soooo... Thanksgiving is a very special Holiday for me. I have loved it for years for so many reasons. The things I love that immediately come to mind are as follows:

1. 4 Day Weekend
2. Great Food (I love turkey and stuffing)
3. Friends and family get together without gifts
4. Fall is in the air and you can light fires
5. I can still go into work (if I want to) and catch up on stuff
6. I can sleep late or get up and go to breakfast with friends
7. Great food
8. Awesome smells
9. I like hosting it at my house which means I can have anything I want, the way i want it.
10. Beer, wine or both are normally involved.

Seriously, it is my favorite holiday and it is really nice getting together with family without any pressure for gifts and the bull shit that seems to surround Christmas. So it was with some trepidation that I allowed myself to be lured out to California (Godless place) to spend Thanksgiving with the Tiemann family.

There is always a problem with spending holidays with other people. They do not know your own traditions (they do things wrong), they do not know exactly how to prepare the food (they screw it up) and they do not let you edit the guest-list (their friends and family are jerks). These were just a few of my concerns. Additionally since it was California and since the Tiemann’s are faux healthy people I was threatened with the specter of Tofu Turkey which might or might not make me kill myself. The idea of tofu shaped as a drumstick is particularly troubling for me but i will leave that for me and my long suffering analyst. I had steeled myself to just going with the flow but my friends are after all my friends and they went out of their way to cater to all my whims and lubricated me with several bottles of wine along the way.

Tim Tiemann and I have a complex relationship going back to freshman year when my room mate was a gay guy and his was kindly named by our floor (The Pube). We did not bond all that well at the time but after college he dated and married a nice St. Louis girl and since then have served a father/confessor roll for one another as we amble through life. the best thing about Tim in this setting is that he is his mother’s son and he is a pleaser and that means he wants everyone to be at home, comfortable and have a good time and with his wife and families help he can really get it done. A role model as a host.

Their family and our family, although our kids are older, seem to get along pretty well and we added another family with two girls and a girl from Pepperdine (who is just too nice). The turkey was incredible. Tim humored me with the proper Pepperidge Farm stuffing. Tim had Jon make a spinach and pomegranate salad that was to die for (showing Jon how to separate the seeds from the mush in a bowl of water since they float), there were mashed potatoes and green bean casseroles and 4 pies... and more wine. It was a feast.

And the great thing about a Cali Thanksgiving is that you can walk a block to the neighborhood pool and hot tub with the kids and sit there for an hour and then come back and light a fire in the fire pit and sit there for an hour. the kids then made s’mores (very camp like) and we all sat around and chatted. Since all the adults (accept for the nice girl from Pepperdine) were drunk, everyone spent the night and it ended up being a friends and family Thanksgiving that at worst rivaled what we were missing with my extended family at home (although my nephew did bring out his girlfriend and her parents and I missed it).

It was a great time and a great time to be thankful for all God’s gifts to me and knowing once again, and having it emphasized that my family friends are ALWAYS one of the greatest.