Thursday, 22 November 2018
Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, turns out the forecast was too generous. It was 16° at 7:45 this morning, but the wind chill took it down to -3°. No wonder I started worrying about frostbite after I'd had to take off my mittens a second time to pick up dog poop.
Today's high is expected to be 23° and tonight's low 8°, not accounting for wind chill. I have the heater set at the same temp I always do, which usually keeps the internal temp around 62° or so, but today the heater's been running almost constantly to maintain that. Really glad I got that propane yesterday.
Part of the problem is the pretty stiff breeze that blows under and all around the RV, keeping things chilly. Gusts occasionally strong enough to move the RV around. Sure glad I'm not driving today.
 |
| Gracie and Dexter |
I was stunned to learn in the campground office yesterday that about 20 groups were expected to come in to the campground for the holiday. And sure enough, this morning I can see that all the cabins across from me are taken again and there are quite a few new RVs around. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd choose to go camping in Connecticut for my Thanksgiving holiday, but maybe I'm not adventurous enough.
Or maybe a lot of these folks are planning to spend the day with family nearby and think a campground is better or cheaper than a hotel. But there's a LaQuinta about a mile and a half away and that would absolutely be my first choice - KOA isn't cheap. And unfortunately a lot of these newcomers have brought dogs with them, and my dogs are starting to go stir-crazy being inside so much, so taking them on walks has gotten a lot harder.
After my divorce when I was living alone in Washington, my friends would invite me over for Thanksgiving dinner, and that's what I did for several years. But gradually I decided that's not the way I wanted to spend the day. My friends' traditions weren't at all like my family's, so the day never seemed like Thanksgiving to me. I finally decided to ditch the expected behavior and figure out something that seemed a better fit for my sense of being thankful.
So what I've done for years now is fix a nice dinner for myself and watch Schindler's List. That movie makes me feel more thankful than any other I've found. Even when I lived with Momma and spent Thanksgiving with her and Anna and David, I'd pick out a day near then to be my Thanksgiving, and that day I'd watch my movie and fix a nice dinner for the 2 of us.
Momma never wanted to watch it - said she thought it'd be too depressing - so I'd go into my bedroom for the 3 hours the movie lasted. Finally, that last year, she'd gotten curious and said she'd be willing to watch it with me. I'm guessing she didn't see it as the life-affirming show that I did, because she never said a thing about it. Well, not the first time I noticed our taste in movies sometimes differed.
Anyway, here I am alone again, and Schindler's List is what I'm going to do this afternoon., thanks to Anna finding a copy of it for me, and thanks to David mailing it to me.
But I don't need a movie to tell me how lucky I am. I have health - as good as I can expect for having lived 69 non-conventional years. I have family - my wonderful brother and sister-in-law and lots of really great cousins. I have friends - the really good kind I can count on and trust. I have my pets - healthy and happy and, despite their high energy, very easy to love. I have a good home - an odd one, maybe, but comfortable and that allows me to expand my horizons far beyond what I'd expected. And I have freedom - the freedom to move around as I choose and say what I choose and live as I choose. What more, I ask you, can anyone want in life?
No comments:
Post a Comment