Happy Thanksgiving!

I got some stuff right and I messed some stuff up.

I did manage to make cranberry chutney. How about you Wendy? LOL

It's a little thing, but it's my thing. So it was important. It's a good thing it's not complicated. I still managed to make it as difficult as possible.

Yesterday was very draining, so I knew driving myself to the supermarket was out of the question. And Grace had already done enough for me. So I sent a text to my good friend Kathy and asked if she was headed out to a supermarket. Everyone has some kind of last minute errand. Well, except for my father who had everything staged and at the ready yesterday. It's a military operation. And might I add....always a successful one.

So, of course, Kathy had to go out and she and her son were happy to take me along. They teased that I might not be up for the "Bucket", their nickname for the big, Market Basket in Chelsea. I was so tired and afraid of getting separated, they were right.

On a side note, that is one of the funniest of my quirks. The fear of getting separated in a store. I travel all over the country by myself. If I go with anyone, we all have cell phones. I had cash for a cab home. Nothing could possibly have gone wrong. But it's a fear my father and mother planted in me as a child. if I am in a store with someone, I must keep them in sight. So I kept watching her son who was always walking off. LOL!

Anyway, I had the shopping list for chutney - it's not long - but no mental skills. I needed 1/2 cup of sugar. I bought a 5 lb bag of sugar. Did I really think my parents had no sugar? Really? There were several things like that. My father mocked me this morning.

On the way back, Sean took us through King Arthur's parking lot. Kathy made the traditional "Do you want a club sandwich?" joke.

Once I was back at my parents, a little energy burst came. Can't schedule them or predict them.....just gotta wait til they show up. I made chutney and brownies and listened to John Batchelor on the laptop.

So this morning, as I have for several years, I walked over to my Uncle Walter's house with four hollowed out oranges filled with bright red chutney. I only put his in the oranges....no one else appreciated the presentation!

I made it up the stairs to a comfy chair and the two Toms, Walter and I had a nice visit. Best part was it was a nice NORMAL visit. I don't mind talking about the multiple myeloma, or the chemo or the transplant.

But I don't mind not talking about it either.

It's important to hang onto what you can hang onto. That was something I got done like any other year and I am very pleased about it.

But I did mess up one thing. Grace always comes over after her dinner, around 5 or 6. I went upstairs for a few minutes at 4:30 and sat in my father's ultra comfortable recliner. I flipped through the channels for a moment. Oprah was talking about her interview with John F Kennedy Jr., from 1996. It was kind of bittersweet. He would have been 50 today. My Tommy walked through the room and said "You got that magazine." Meaning his political magazine "George". He was correct, I had loved that magazine.

I'm not usually and Oprah fan. I don't dislike her, I'm just not very interested most of the time. However, I'll always stick with a Kennedy story for at least a few minutes. Oprah talking about how after the interview she stayed with audience to talk about the question she didn't ask him - when was he getting married. Oprah is a woman intensely in the public eye and she was relating to JFK, Jr.'s his need to keep some part of his life private. The difficulties of having someone in your life who isn't in the public eye. She talked about what the person, who never sought the public eye, now has to take it on if they want to be with you.

Then she began to talk about his wedding which happened to take place shortly after the interview. It was a secret affair on some coastal island off Georgia. And as she spoke about what it took to keep it secret, you could see this struck a real nerve with her. She said it could only mean one thing. It meant he had people around him that he could trust.

What matters more than that?

Anyway, a few minutes later I was gone. I heard my sister's family arrive. I could hear them talking to my parents and my brother's family. It didn't matter, I could not surface.

I missed the whole visit. We usually sit back down at the dining room table and have dessert. Now everyone is gone and I can't find the blueberry pie.