No dinner on Thanksgiving, helping someone out

11/25/10 Thursday
People keep asking “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”. My reply seems to throw them off “We’re not doing anything”. Here at Westbrook Farms there isn’t a whole lot of tradition. We are thankful for sure, for many, many things. Thankful for life and for how God has restored our marriage and so much else. Sure there are difficulties in our day to day life, but we’ve been enduring hardships for as long as we’ve lived here. This morning Cherie went to take a shower at the Stripes gas station/truck stop, because our bathroom is totally destroyed right now and taking a bath in the kitchen sink doesn’t work. This adds to Cherie’s stress level, already high with starting a new job and dealing with a friends erratic and unstable behavior.

So the idea of cooking a big turkey, or even chicken, dinner just for the two of us just doesn’t make sense. We don’t have lots of close friends and any family we have is hundreds of miles away so there’s no invitations to go anywhere. We are kind of looking forward to a nice quiet day together.

I did call the widow to check on her this morning. Mrs. G. has been sick lately. Her hip developed a hairline fracture and that certainly slowed her down. It adds to the already high pain levels she has with a bad shoulder and other areas. She had also come down with a nasty flu, of course right after her flu shot. Folks, don’t take flu shots. There is NO medical evidence they prevent anything and lots of medical documentation regarding the extensive problems they cause. Of course all of that information is suppressed by the billion dollar vaccine industry and their FDA lackeys.

Of course she asked “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” and I told her “nothing”. Her response was that if she’d known that she would have cooked a big turkey dinner and had us over. She’s such a sweetheart and probably would have done just that despite the intense pain and difficulties she has. She will be going over to a friends house for lunch. In the conversation I learned that she was unable to get her garden hoses in and also forgot to buy the protective cups to put over her outdoor water spigots.


Tonight it’s going down to 16 or 19 degrees, depending on which weather report you hear. I asked Mrs. G. to call me when she comes home from her friends. Cherie and I will run over there when she does. That way I can work to winterize her home as Cherie visits with her. I’ll take some duct tape and rags to wrap her faucets with. Won’t look pretty but should keep them from freezing. There are some trees and rose bushes she wants pruned back so I’ll possibly do that as well.

I’ve already protected all of our outdoor faucets and turned the water off to the irrigation systems. With temperatures falling into the teens comes another problem. Right now we’ve gotten by with just having the one space heater in the bedroom and dressing warm in the house, but that won’t cut it with a strong cold front blowing in out of the north. It’s already cold here in the house, cold enough that my feet are numb. So I will have to clear all the stuff from around the wood burner and fire that up for the first time this year.

This whole bathroom thing is a momentary fiasco. Part of that I see as the fruit from someone who is actively rebelling against God, and trying to do as many good things as she can to cover for it. Her desire to help us was good, but her methods of getting others to do so was so wrong. Telling them that we did not even have a working bathroom was a lie, and a lie is no way to start a good work. Now we have a totally torn out bathroom that indeed doesn’t work, with the exception of the toilet. That toilet I’ve protected diligently as we have no desire to use a bucket, as we had to when we first moved in. Ricardo never returned with his plumber friend, in fact he never returned at all. He’s a busy man who owns a company that requires his time, so what he has done so far has been a sacrifice for sure. I understand this and therefore am not upset that he hasn’t come. The plumber friend also has obligations and was going to donate his time despite having never met me, so I also do not judge him in this. Plus it’s the Thanksgiving holiday, a time of families getting together and practicing their traditions of fellowship and I certainly don’t expect anyone to disrupt that for us. The bathroom will get done, one way or the other.

I do wonder at this time, how my family is doing. I wonder about my sister, mother, and brother. Are they getting together today? Will they be having turkey dinner? I have no clue. I occasionally send an email and less occasionally my sister and mom reply. My brother doesn’t reply.

Then I wonder about the two boys I raised. Their mom I don’t wonder about at all. She made her bed many times and it’s the one she prefers to sleep in, but the boys are different. I raised them, in my inept way. Did the best I could despite the drugs and alcohol that ruled my life. I keep up kind of, through their facebook pages. There I can see from a distance, glimpses of their life. There is no response to my reaching out but this too I understand. Can’t change the past so I must live for the future, and the fact I have a future at all is a miracle and what I am the most thankful for.

So that’s it for now. I must clear out the area and bring in firewood. Then it’s back to working on the bathroom till Mrs. G. calls and we can run over there. I can’t think of a better thing to do on Thanksgiving, helping someone else out.