Thanksgiving Weather Post.. Windy Parade Day.. Watching the Wind...

Thanksgiving morning. Nothing like Thanksgiving morning to bring out the kid in a grown adult. It's the most common denominator. Kids, parents and grandparents all wake up and think one thing ... "Macy Day Parade!"

And, they smile... filled with memories of mornings spent watching the parade and various fall/winter festivities in New York. Down south we watch and smile and wonder on what like would be like on if we lived UP NORTH somewhere and had to wear jackets and coats and waited for snowflakes to fall from the skies. On rare freebie Thanksgivings we would have cold enough weather that it actually felt like Thanksgiving! Like this week... This week in Miami it was colder during the day than it was in Denver. The daytime "high" temperature reading was colder than many places up north as the El Nino Artic-Southern Express has begun to blow and bring with it... a real winter. A consolation prize to Floridians who actually like hurricanes and tropical weather... real cold fronts!

For the weather obsessed in Florida this winter has been the "REAL THING" and it's not even winter. Everyone is a little worried this is some tease where we "think we are getting winter" and then we look back at those November Cold Fronts and wonder what happened. We have been teased and tricked before by a Halloween Cold Front, a cold November and a way too warm December. Either way the Chamber of Commerce loses because they would prefer no Hurricanes and no Cold Fronts. Silly people, don't they know that's called San Diego?? (Been there, done that.. Mission Bay and Boungenvilla... oh I love San Diego)

So..........here I am. Thanksgiving Morning. Happy like a child on a day off of school and free to do pretty much whatever I want to. I even have the computer to myself! Mendy and Rivky are at Mendy's girlfriend's house hanging out and Moe and Deborah are in Italy with their Pre-Wedding, Post-Wedding, Whatever Wedding they are up to trip that was planned way before the Wedding of the Year. Alone with Zalmy and Carmella Corleone the Austrailan Sheperd that looks just a bit like a Wolf or Huskie though Moe says she is part Dingo.. he would know, it is his dog.

Had company last night and the Dog semi-behaved. She is still in the doghouse by me but at least she didn't bark like the Russians were Coming or something.. She smelled, she sniffed and she STILL barked... little "ruff ruff" barks like she was giving me her opinon or something, comments from the Doghouse. Yes, in my wierd world where art imitates life imitating life imitating art again... I'm stuck with a psycho dog once again who wants to attack a boyfriend. I wonder if I buy doggie biscuits..or designer doggie biscuits for Moe and Deb's dog if she will shut up when I have company. Does Coach make designer doggie biscuits? I wonder.. Either way she is sitting there quietly now, hanging her head with that "yeah, yeah I know you're angry at me" look..

Either way............. I give Thanks this morning for so many people in my life and out of my life. Online, offline. Kids far away in the other part of the house and far away at friend's houses and in Italy and Israel and "Up North" where the real parade is going to go on .. if the winds are below 23 mph.. sustained. Last time it was cancelled was 1971 lol haha haha .. giggling, just heard that on the news.. figures. I probably didn't even notice that year... But either way we are watching the weather to see if the Popeye Flies...

See? Weather makes the world go round.. Everything comes down to weather.. Politics, Economics and even the Macy Day Parade!

So.. I haven't been here for a while have I? Yeah, I know ... "you" love when I write. You love to read my writing. If I talked less and wrote more would you still write? Or would you just sit there smiling and reading.. making little faces when you read something you don't like or would you write even more? Not sure. Don't know. I never can figure you out and I have long since stopped trying. Now days I just enjoy the ride you take me on... wherever you are going this year, whatever characters you wish to create, whatever city or location you are working with... like little Jeanne in her bottle taken along to work with Tony... at Tony's desk as he tap, tap, taps the keys wildly... Sometimes, you better look in your little Genie Bottle because at times... I blink myself out and do my own thing. I know, you no longer worry... you have your little spy network and either way, when you least expect it I will pop up into your Space Capsule and surprise you and Roger :P Course if I could I would blink you away to Greenland or Iceland or New Zealand or some land.. until you pay enough pennance to come back to the not real world and fly me away on your magic carpet ride again..

So here I am... home today, computer to myself in an excellent mood and not even cooking for Thanksgiving this year. Going to Roberta's and Ronnie's and even Ronnie will be there to joke around with ... kids, turkey, stupid dog... (their dog, not Carmella who is smart as a fox and knows damn well what she is doing).. Alone with Zalmy (Mommy's "baby") and might go out, might stay home, might read the paper, go visit Aunt Ada.. might just lie in bed and listen to the Country Music on my Cable TV. What a world.. how far we have come ... took decades of Cable TV for us to figure out how to use it as an old fashioned radio without commercials.. Great music, left it on last night.. all night... in the background. Today's Country. Woke up, smiled, fell back to sleep. And, always... I knew just at the edge of my conciousness... tomorrow morning... Macy Day Parade, Oh Wow!! Even if I only watch a few minutes or so of it while listening to the CD I finally found.. "Don't Stop The Carnival" or maybe I will open up Caleb's music box and play one of the two records I found at the thrift store (Red, White and Blue) ..two of my all time favorites. Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Coal Miners Daughter. For real mental punishment I can try the Bryan Adams CD I found while out with Ronnie looking through some CD exchange store in Broward.
I can even make some pancakes with Maple Syrup or... French Toast... or... go out for breakfast.

Reading recipes today. Going to find five new recipes I have never made and make them this month. Found a great recipe for parsnip and potato pancakes for Chanukah. I have some blue and gold tinsel to decorate this house a bit.. not sure where but I'll put it somewhere. New house, different house, different traditions... even if I am only planning on being here temporarily. New kitchen to cook in :) Chanukah is coming. I should look for the menorahs as I have no idea where they are now that I think on it. Maybe in a box still? Reading some great stories on Southern Jews that are beyond inspiring, beyond inspirational, beyond anything you can imagine. It's like coming home and finding people who lived my life and my grandma Mary's life... and her mother's life. A world that gets ignored by most of American Jews who think the Mason Dixie Line is anything south of Philly and think oddly that those Jews in Baltimore are Southern. Not my family... when it gets to my family my grandchildren have to start using two hands to figure out how many generations American they are and they are from the South.. white toast, grits and potato latkes.

My first memories of Thanksgiving? Uncle Oscar's house and setting up the table with the little Pilgrim people and wax turkeys and table ornaments. Aunt Ada making her Southern Style Kosher Cracker Stuffing.. no egg.. she hated the way my mother made it with egg. Corn muffin like biscuits. Sweet Potatoes with marshmellow and probably kosher pickles in her relish dish. Sneaking off with my father (before he became Orthodox) to the Biscayne Restaurant on Biscayne Blvd and getting a turkey dinner with real stuffing and gravy on the mashed potatoes.. wasn't supposed to tell Mother who hated making "big dirty birds" and wanted to buy a little Kosher Empire Turkey Breast Roast that was not "big ugly dirty old bird" that she hated touching. Mother had a problem with BIG things it seems. I don't. And, I love turkey! The bigger the better and more room for more stuffing. Cornbread stuffing! Even have good memories with my ex-husband where we would sneak off every year to sara's Kosher Restaurant and get their Vegetarian Turkey Dinner which we would bitch about because they couldn't make Pumpkin Pie and had to serve some wierd applesauce for dessert. Speaking of ex-in laws.. oh wow.. Grandma Ruth (as the kids call her these days) made an incredible Turkey for Thanksgiving and for Chanukah... I should follow her lead this year and make Turkey, Latkes and prepare the cranberry sauce mixed with applesauce like she made it. I remember one year being so sick with morning sickness (which I always got at night) that I couldn't go near the Turkey for Thanksgiving and was SOOO thankful that it was gone by Chanukah when she made the turkey again and I got a second chance... and ate it all up! Yes, Thanksgiving is full of memories... of people no longer with us but happy memories all the same. Uncle Oscar, Grandma Ruth and the Biscayne Restaurant.. gone but not forgotten (I oddly have a postcard of it lol) and Jay wanting real turkey and Ronnie wanting real pumpkin pie and me wanting a real Thanksgiving... you know the kind where big goyish families somewhere in Kentucky or Missouri or somewhere on One Life to Live and As the World Turns have uncles and aunts and cousins and several sets of Grandparents who go over the river and throught he woods to Grandmother's house... Okay, my kids have that life but they are far away... and won't be here for Thanksgiving. Rivky and Mendy will get their butts to Roberta's house, Zalmy is still mine for a few years before he finds a girlfriend and divides time with Mommy and whoever and Miriam is in NY with the NY Meyers and Shayna is stuck in Philly missing her Mommy (smiling.. Mommy's oldest baby girl, very bonded to Mommy... and stop calling her Shay... it's Shayna, Esther Shayna) and Sruly is probably having turkey sushi somewhere :)


So...wherever you are this Thanksgiving Morning that has just a bit of the taste of Christmas, Chanukah and the End of the Year Holidays all rolled into it... know that I give thanks for everyone in my life (including you.. who knows who you are) and for second and third chances and for learning way too late in life to go after what I want and to take chances and oh...what is that song you always send me... Love the One Youre With? Paved paradise and put up a parking lot? Giggling.. Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow? Overjoyed or Overboard? Did Jimmy Buffett ever sing a Thanksgiving song... some over the sailboat and through the pass to Grandmother's Harbor we go? IF so I am sure it is buried somewhere in my Jimmy Buffett collection.

Don't Stop the Carnival... be happy, be healthy and be full of Thanksgiving today...a great day to give thanks not just at Modeh Ani in the morning but all throughout the day for those you love, have loved and are yet to love in your life.

Love Bobbi!
ps ...not spell checking because this wireless internet connection Moishe set up is wierd and am all alone with his internet and some guy named "Ted's Internet" running nearby (within 150 feet of my house ..it says??) and often for no apparent reason I get thrown off and shut down.. so running for the endzone fast while I can before I get tackled here from behind. Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow.. getting more coffee and have half and half and maple syrup.. I am a thankful puppy this morning :)