After The Bird
Posted at 6:00 AM on November 26, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(13 Comments)
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and thanks for visiting the blog on your day off!
Congratulations to Lynn of Stacy, David of Crystal, and Michelle in Minneapolis, the winners of tickets to the Cliff Eberhardt / Storyhill concert at the Cedar Cultural Center on Sunday. Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing!
I am a virtual DJ today and tomorrow, meaning in reality I'm relaxing at home. The breaks between songs were recorded earlier this week so the voice you hear coming out of your speakers is a clueless robot - not all that different from the usual.
Any requests posted here or through e-mail today or Friday will have to wait for Monday.
I hope you all have the opportunity to enjoy a celebratory meal today. In response to a suggestion posted yesterday by Connie in LP, you are invited to share a description of your favorite / most useful / most therapeutic / post-feast family activity.
Some families adjourn to the area around the TV for watching football.
Others plan group activities, such as card games, extended passive-agressive silences and outright arguing about politics.
A few walk. Many nap.
Those opposed to after meal napping organize musical performances to keep everyone alert. You can see something like that is about to happen when you look at the eager and turkey-full faces of our Radio Heartland Community Band - Goat Bandana.
And of course somebody has to clean up.
What happens during the waning hours of your Bird Day Afternoon?
Comments (13)
happy thiankgiving, All!
we'll go to my Mom's place for a noon meal, prepared by the caregivers in a nice, central kitchen where the aromas of the homemade food drifts down the hallways: real turkey and taters, all kinds of traditional sides and we're bringing the pies and cranberries. there are 10 residents in this memory-care/advanced care setting and it's as nice as one could wish if one needed that sort of thing. so we'll eat with Mom, sit and talk awhile. today, as a little post-dinner activity, we'll try to remember the school lunch menus that she prepared for 35 years until she retired 20 years ago.
saturday, after the orphans' dinner we'll take a walk around our property with the local naturalist/phenologist - looking forward to that.
hope it's a good day/weekend for everyone
Happy thanksgiving Heartlanders,
Barb, I've been to a meal, like you discirbed, at a nursing home when my father was still alive. This year we will be celibrating at our house with both of our daughters and their families.
When both of my parents and my mother-in-law were still with us we would have them and our children and my Uncle with us on thanksgiving.
I'm not sure what we will be doing after our meal. Some of us might play a board game.
There might be a show for kids on the TV.
Some visiting with each other or just sitting around doing random things.
There might be some people looking at things on one or both of the lap top computers that will be here.
That probably covers most of the possibilities.
Typing quietly so the two grand kids don't wake up. They ended up here last night, and their parents will have noon turkey with us, when we though we were going to be alone. This delight was caused by the four-year-old's pink eye, Later today he can then be with and not infect his many S.D. cousins.
Wish I could go on the walk with you, Barb. I used to walk the Lake Superior Hiking Trail with the long-time naturalist at Gooseberry Park and a high school biology teacher. It was a sort of slow walk because they identified everything, except all little birds flitting in the bush the naturalist, and ornithologist, would name as "confusing fall warbler." There is a biologist/writer named Bernd Heinrich who writes books about his land in Maine. He takes you on walks through his land like you are talking about.
So to answer Dale's cyber question: after kids and grand kids leave, I will clean up while my wife naps because her lupus will have worn her out from the part she did for the meal, too much for her, but she always does too much. Then I will do my daily bike ride. It is a private tradition for me to ride this day, since I moved south.
Whew, too long a blog, but this keeps me away from the part of the house where the two kids sleep.
I forgot to comment on the Goat Banadana Heartland Band. Are those people all Radio Heartland listeners? What kind of music do they play? Will we get a chance to hear them? That picture of that band raises a lot of questions.
Good morning,RHers, and happy Thanksgiving! Barb, I'd love to be on that walk with you, too! I visit my sister, who loves to do the whole traditional feast. In the years when it is nice out, we go for a stroll around the neighborhood but I suspect that the brisk wind today will not be enticing for most. We'll probably play a board game or watch a movie instead. Quiet time, very pleasant, catching up with those I don't see often enough.
Wishing all of you a safe and happy day!
The Band--see Dale is still photoshopping!! Looks like a it could play some polka music for the goats; goats, I assume would prefer polkas. Hope it can do some Klezmer, to keep the holiday non-sectarian. Don't think it could march in the parade. By then end of the day it should be doing some slow music for all those napping. By Saturday they should be in plaid and flannel for the Blackhoof ramble.
Hello and Happy Thanksgiving Day to you Heartlanders, Dale, the virtual DJ is wonderful THANKS
I am counting blessings, five all almost grown kids and a husband who knows when to get out of the way and when to tell me to stop whining. I will be cleaning up my kitchen and drying the silverware that belonged to my husband's mother and carefully drying my Mother's (now chipped and very old)china that my Dad gave to her shortly after they were married, and I remember TG's that they were with us.
Help will drift in and out of the kitchen and I will sip my wine and clean up...
Love the blog, and thankful for RH
Jim, the band was formed quite a few months ago, with various members of the blog taking dibs on what part of the performance they wanted. all i know is Joanne in Big Lake chose to be a dancer and Donna wanted to be the "lead singer (or dancer), dammit!" (if i remember her words correctly :-) don't think anyone of the photoshopped band is actually a blog member (note the goat on the bass drum - cool?) but Dale put it together. when was that?
and Clyde - yes, our walk will be much the same as yours was with many, many stops to look at what we don't seem to see by ourselves. but this guy even knows all the birds.... will be fun, and yes, i wish you all could come along!
have a good day and weekend
apple pie is in the oven......
mornin all, barb its god to see you first this morning. all is right in the world. clyde. if you type other than quietly how do you do it? i suppose with radio heartland playing while you type eh?
the walk talk is inspiring and because of it i will lead a river walk this afternoon. it wouldn't have occured to me to plug that in the agenda but thanks to you all i will now.
my dad passed this year and my mom isn't up to the hosting bit. its a lot of work. so i have her and a sister and 4 of the 5 kids home for thanksgiving.
its a day of tunes and smells and laughter and family. my guess is that the pre meal activities will be the highlights rather than the after meal activivitee. one son is back from college for the day and he is off doing meals on wheels so we will see him about 3 this afternoon and meal plan for 5 oclock bread breaking which cuts down on the options for activities after. somehow if it is dark at 5 the optons for outdoor lessen. maybe we can do a bonfire. while the day of while the one son is off doing the wheels deal the rest of us will hang with art projects and card games, football and the radio playing in the background. i feel like i should appreciate the macys thanksgiving day parade and i just never have. i try every year to give the kids the proper intro to the holidays but they don't seem to get it either. i always think of 3 or 4 things to add to the menu at the last minute and scramble to see what i can substitute for the ingredients i am missing due to the last minute nature of their existance. food ends up just being the thing we rally round not the centerpiece of the day. lookin forward to it.
The quiet part of typing means not producing the various interjections, articulated and not, I make from my keystroke errors.
Good Morning Heartlanders,
Your posts this morning are a delight.
Two of my three kids are home. The one in Namibia is helping her study abroad crew cook as traditional a meal today as they can possibly manage. Looking forward to online chatting with her tomorrow or the next to hear how they did it.
I love this holiday. The amazing aromas, the buzz of conversations, the eruptions of laughter, the apologies for the dish that didn't turn out right (this is the 3rd year in a row I've let the pecan pie overbrown), pets underfoot (no grandchild yet, maybe next year..)
The sensory impressions of this holiday are intoxicating, with or without wine, although I prefer with.
Here's wishing all of you a day to remember.
Michelle - it's nice to hear from you. We need to request Tom Waits' Matilda song again soon, don't you think?
Clyde - you're an enjoyable addition to TB.
Barb - "just make sure I get to be the lead gyrator, dammit!"
Donna, do you keep a file of your contributions to the blog or do you have one of those (whatever the word is, i forget) memories??
gyrator is such a great word. i apologize for misquoting you :-)
and if you're so smart to remember that Michelle like Tom Waits' "Waltzing Matilda" why can't you remember to take the pecan pie out of the oven sooner???
and Tim, i'm feeling some stress now - to be sure to get up and at the computer each morning so i can be first to post and then all will be right in the world... i'm retired - i thought i had left all that pressure behind :-)
"see" you all tomorrow - sounds like you will enjoy your day however it goes. thanks for the fun this morning.
Thank YOU, Barb, for the good giggle!
I don't know what it is with me and pecan pie. Maybe the wine was a factor.
Hug the goats for me, professor.
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