Thanksgiving

I haven't written for some time. Between Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas, it seems like I have had no free time. In reality I have had quite a bit of free time, but I have chosen to spend it being a slug and reading and watching trashy television. Tara has gotten me hooked on 16 and Pregnant and we are enjoying the guilty pleasure of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills!!! Throw in a bunch of reading while petting kitties that miss me while I am at work and you can see that I have had no time . Really. None at all.

In the meantime, Lee has finished the run-in shed in the other pasture in time for the winter. I don't know whether the horses appreciate it, but I certainly do. He also has built a doggy prison in the basement. He walled off a portion of the basement that includes the dog door to the fenced-in garden area off the basement. Now the dog can stay warm in the basement or go out side and bark and sniff and do other doggy things. Unfortunately he can also climb up the gate and hop over it. We have been working on preventing his escapes, but every time we drive up he is waiting for us in the driveway with a sappy grin on his face. I don't care if he is out as long as he sticks around, but we worry he will run down the drive and get hit or lost, so we keep "improving" his prison.

We had a great Thanksgiving. My brother Roland and his wife Jane and her brother Mark came from Alexandria. Tara has been living with them while looking for work and she came also. My Aunt Suzy from North Carolina came and brought her daughter Saja, who also happens to be my cousin Saja. Saja brought her husband Beau and also her two daughters, Evan and Addison. They are intrepid mule drivers and horse visitors, so they were barely seen and hardly heard. They did show up to eat, however!

The Fincastle Library has had a lovely volunteer for some time now. Her name is Rupinder and she and her husband have come from New Zealand, and before that, India, to live here. Her husband Parminder works for a New Zealand manufacturing company in Buchanan and because Rupinder doesn't know many people in the area and she can't work yet, she has been volunteering EVERY DAY.

One day I was telling her that we would be closed for the holiday so that she should not come. I tried to explain the concept of the Thanksgiving holiday to her and ended up inviting Rupinder and her husband to come and join us. I told her it was about families getting together, but also about welcoming others! They were able to come and we had a great time. Rupinder is a good cook and she brought many Indian dishes for us all to enjoy. They are vegetarian and so is Tara so we had lots of dishes for them to try also.

And so that is how we came to recreate the original Thanksgiving. We Pilgrims to Virginia served our food and the Indian neighbors brought their food and we had a great meal in fellowship and Thanksgiving for all our blessings. A perfect day.