Thanksgiving

I am really happy to be around for this Thanksgiving. Two years ago I was recovering from major surgery and wondering what life would be like in my future.

Today, we started things off with a visit to a horse ranch in Jamul where Andrea has obtained permission to take the hawks out to try to make a dent in the rabbit population there. We got there about 6:15 AM and the fog was still pretty thick. Between us, we had four Harris’s hawks and three dogs in the field. I think we saw about a dozen rabbits get chased. It must have really been Rabbit Thanksgiving, though, because nobody caught anything, which certainly surprised us.

We then went off to Chula Vista where Andrea boards her horses. A horse Andrea was leading to an exercise ring became uncontrollable and took about five minutes to run around and calm down enough to be caught again. A far more mellow horse of Andrea’s provided a mount for Diane and I to take a short trail ride. Fortunately, we did it all at a walk and there were no nasty surprises along the way.

That, though, did pretty much exhaust me. My stamina is pretty much the one thing that looks to be permanently lowered post-surgery. I had a bit of a nap.

I headed over to Mark’s place around 4 PM for Thanksgiving dinner. Mark went all out in putting together the traditional feast with turkey, gravy, stuffing, bread, and a dessert. Yams were unavailable, so he substituted a batch of sliced carrots cooked in brandy and topped with marshmallows. Brilliant. We made a small dent in the food, then watched a bit of “Ancient Relic”, a German film featuring time travel. Once the plotline became glaringly obvious, we switched over to “Timeline”, another and somewhat more challenging time-travel flick. We also viewed the “Soup Nazi” episode of “Seinfeld” and the “Inside View” documentary about how that episode came about. In that, it was revealed that the real-life soup chef whose character was the basis of the episode had gone off spectacularly on Jerry Seinfeld when Seinfeld insisted on visiting his establishment after the epsiode aired. it seems that not everyone agrees that any publicity is good publicity.

The big difference I’ve seen since my medical troubles back in 2004 is that I am mostly pain-free nowadays. It really makes a difference not to be in some level of pain almost continually. And I am continually grateful to the folks who have gone out of their way to make a place for me in their lives.