my day

It's Thanksgiving day and I have a turkey breast in the oven complete w/ stuffing and a pecan pie. My dad and mom will come by later and bring potatoes, cranberry sauce and "the green jello"... it will only be the three of us, but that's okay... I think I'll stick a log in the fireplace, it rained today, excuse enough to build a fire in Arizona...

I'm turtle sitting! And here he is, Lucky, the African turtle. My car pool buddy raises them. She has two really large ones that live outside, but they gang up on this guy so he can't get into the heated shed at night ... and she has little ones that live in an aquarium until they are big enough to not be bird food. Lucky gets moved in and out every day. At night he lives in a box in her bathtub, during the day he is out. I'm doing the same for him... look at him, isn't he a beauty?
I tried to get the glisten of the sunlight on the raindrops... it thundered here around 1 pm and dumped a bunch of rain, but in true Arizona style, the sun came out immediately after and the raindrops looked like thousands of diamonds on the leaves and buds... breathtaking!

Earlier today I took the grandsons to the Thanksgiving Day Parade in Fountain Hills. The parade wasn't quite as big as the year before... I think the rain kept some of the entrants at home... but P and W enjoyed it just the same and waved at every entry that went by, called out Happy thanksgiving, and scrambled for the candy that was thrown.

W. used to be such a sweet boy... but anymore he only wants to do these fierce faces... because he's a Ninja, you know.

Sitting on the parade route with Fountain Hills lake and palm trees in the distance... this is the time of year we are so thankful to live in the desert. (Lou, don't you wish you had had the sweats W has on? You always wanted to be a skeleton...)

Other than this, I have been thinking about status. I finally got around to establishing a trust and one of the questions was whether I was single or divorced... this always bugs me since I don't feel either... divorced sounds like such a looser status and single is a word that swings quite a bit more than I do... can't I be just unmarried but open to all of life's possibilities? Or person of independent means? Or grown woman? Something that really describes my situation...

I told Bill(who won't be here for Christmas) that L was bringing new friend home and that Katie was concerned about a Christmas stocking... I mentioned I would just give the new guy his. Bill objected saying he wasn't ready to give up his Christmas sock yet... then he said the new guy could use his but that it should say "boyfriend" with the suggestion that he might be able to upgrade to a permanent sock at another Christmas gathering. Wonder what Bill's sock should say, un-boyfriend?

My parents will be here in 20 minutes... they are never late and I still need to clean off the dining room table!

Happy Thanksgiving!