Thanksgiving 2013

 Tables were set the night before in anticipation of Thanksgiving.  I said on Insta, "Tables are set and now we're just waiting for Thanksgiving guests.  That coven of celli in the corner doesn't count.  At some point, someone is going to have to ask them to leave."  As it turned out, the "celli" celebrated with us.  They didn't want to leave their hospital beds, so we let them stay, along with all the sick violins you can't see in the picture.

We were lucky enough to procure Nana and Uncle Jim's family to join us as for the feast.  I was so excited!  More is better, for sure.  It was a beautiful day.  Gorgeous weather, relaxing setting, the best company and what my dad said was perfect food.  I would have to agree there.  I was so grateful to be home, surrounded by family, and also to have the Dopp Thanksgiving meal still to look forward to.  Today was just the start of a great weekend!

I think I may have bought too much butter.  I was afraid we would run out.  This was what was left over after all the cooking.

 Ptolemy just made himself comfy with the teens.

 DeBry girls

DeBrys doing what DeBrys do best: admiring one of their children.  In this case, Prince Ptolemy

 The whole King family, Uncle Jim included, used to wear tuxes and fancy dresses to Thanksgiving at my parents' house.  This time, Dad was the only one who carried on the tradition.  The rest of us aren't quite as classy as Felshaw!

 Our oven doesn't broil.

 See that knife in Dad's hand?  He - probably unintentionally, though we don't know - cut Scott's thumb with it as Scott held the platter.  It was a minor cut, but you wouldn't know it by the way Scott yelped!

 They always talk business.  Aunt Da is in Thailand right now, tied up on business.  DeBry Company's new big sellers are beaded purses, it sounds like, and Da is training some new employees.  We missed her!

 I wish this picture was less blurry!  Nana in all her glory.

 Kids' table with the cutest little kids!

 Mike and Jim.  We're so glad Mike got the day off at Fidelity to join us.  Everything is more fun when Mike's there.  He even tried to give us a cat.  "This cat is attacking my roommate's pit bull" wasn't a good selling point, however. ;)

 Emily and Ro

 I love this picture.

 The poor thumb

 King women

 Mom was showing off her nifty boots because she was embarrassed by her love of holiday-themed sweaters.  She's always a knock-out!  Coco's sense of style has been legendary for decades.

 Free, Traj, Mike, Danny

 Golda, Ruby, Jessie

 Isn't this what it's all about?

 Kids always find something to entertain themselves.  In this case, it was two hours' worth of costume changes.  Either that, or you're all starting to see our kids the way we see them: as angels, of course!

The Demon of Cheerfulness and Industry

It's Thanksgiving Break and we're so happy here!  We've been to a cello lesson and now we're home, setting up tables and breaking fan belts by vacuuming up necklaces.  A whole troupe of happy homemakers is what we are!  Actually, Tizzy and I may be the only happy ones.  The rest are in thinly disguised agony, which is exactly how I have it planned.  See, I don't do chore lists.  I've never said, "Here's a list of chores, and when it's done, you can play."  I don't know why.

OK, I know why.  It's because I am a control freak.  I don't want the kids to decide how long it will take them to do the chores.  I don't want them to have the option of not doing the chores because they don't care about playing.  I don't want to give consequences;  that's just extra creativity that I don't have.  I've tried that.  "If you don't take out this garbage...oh never mind.  Just take out this garbage!"  Also, I don't want to keep having to remind them about the list.  Plus, a whole list of jobs for a tiny person with the attention span of a pink poodle in a Milk-Bone factory is, well, soul-crushing.

Instead, I take a slightly less soul-crushing approach, which I now realize is the exact approach my mom used when I was a pink poodle in a Milk-Bone factory.  It goes like this:  I wake up on a Saturday morning, wander bleary-eyed into the kitchen and hear noises.  Outside, my mom is in the garage.  Oh, HECK no!  I down some Cheerios and trudge outside because I know it's what's expected of me.  My mom has been seized by some Demon of Cheerfulness and Industry, and she wants to share her zeal.

"Ciiiiirceeeeee!" she chirps.  "Help me move this trunk.  Now, we'll just move it right over here, but first we have to go through these boxes of books and rake up these leaves and put all the tools on this corkboard where I've drawn tool shapes and untangle the Christmas lights and hang this ladder on these ingenious hooks I have just installed and then alphabetize the bikes according to model names, and then we'll just sweep up and then we can go see Aunt Pat!!"

Even if I only heard the part about the sweeping, I know it's bad.  The sweeping part is when I usually have an asthma attack and can't breathe, and nobody notices because the Demon of Cheerfulness and Industry has cast a blinding spell which makes my mother unable to see any affliction, however deadly, that will hamper the completion of our project.  I know not to push the "dying of asthma" thing too far because if I get really serious about dying, I get the Evil Flutter Eye from my mom, which is just a more virulent form of the Evil Eye.

"Can't....breathe..."  I'd fall on the ground clutching my throat and my mom would look down, giving me the briefest Evil Flutter Eye, then step over me, musing, "Hmmm.  We just have to figure out a system for storing the sports equipment."  A minute later, I'd be trying to corral baseballs and basketballs into a big cardboard box that had been labeled with a thick marker, "SPORTS."

My brothers are there, too, all of us silently, miserably carrying out orders, knowing that by the time the job is done, all the good Saturday morning cartoons will be over.  We'll be lucky if we catch the last ten minutes of Fat Albert by the time we have hauled ten bags of old clothes, an outdated Vita-Mix and a broken Big Wheel to the curb.

Later, when the garage is organized and spotless, we do go visit the cousins.  Mom and Aunt Pat lie on the floor "perfecting the art of doing nothing," as they call it, while the cousins compare notes on who had it worse from the Demon of Cheerfulness and Industry that morning.  Pat's kids have likely been silk-screening hundreds of tote bags for their parents' business and rearranging all the furniture in their house, creating a new bedroom out of a storage closet.

So my plan, modeled after my mother's, is to get several good chores out of each kid by cheerfully, aggressively barking out orders, one after another, and if you fall behind, you get more orders, until one by one, each older child begs to be granted a reprieve.  "Yes," I say.  "You can go to Coco's and perfect the art of doing nothing, IF!...you take one little kid with you."

"Yes!  Yes," they cry.  Before too long, the heavy lifting ("We can TOO move this table, now push!") is done, the big chores are complete, and I am left in Pine-Sol-scented solitude to set the tables and garnish the room with Thanksgiving's finishing touches.  Which is what I'm going to do right now...

Standing in the Light

This year, Nutcracker for me was a bit blighted.  For starters, Ruby and Ari didn't make it, so we were a house divided going in.  Ruby's sorrow definitely cast a pallor over the whole season.  She would have taken any part.  Any part.  Soldier, Mouse King, Lady in Waiting, backstage crew...She just wanted to be in it.  I know a little bit of how she feels.  I tried out for Nutcracker at Ballet West several times and always got cut right away on the first cut.  I didn't make it until I was 14, and that was because the part - Oriental Servant - had been diminished to what they called a "furniture part."  We were onstage but didn't dance much more than the furniture.  I didn't care.  I was thrilled, and I'm still thrilled that I had that opportunity.

So this week, Golda had her friends by her side, for which I am grateful.  I knew she would have a great time and not be affected by my flagging spirits.  So that left me with Freestone.  Uncle Bob died on Monday night, and I was sad.  I needed a lot of mental space to process that, yet here was Freestone.  It was his first Nutcracker and he was excited.  He didn't need to be weighted down with all the other things happening.  I had to make this week special for him, and that was my task.  Freestone was the ray of light that I clung to all week.  I drew from his enthusiasm and tried to step into his world, where I could see Nutcracker from his youthful and untarnished eyes.  Through my spry, hard-working, funny little Party Boy, the world was set right many times throughout the week.

Despite Freestone's exuberance and my desire to be on that bandwidth, I did get into a little scuffle with another person who just happened to be complaining about Nutcracker.  Her point, that her child was "only onstage for 30 seconds," struck me as repugnant.  I'm afraid I gave her a smack-down to the tune of "if you think it's too much work, you should go home and you shouldn't be here next year either."  Don't talk to me about how much work it is, ya whiner.  Look around you at all the magic.  And if you can't see it, let someone who can see it have your part.  It just galls me when people act so put-upon over things that are actually the good things in life.  Oh, it's hard to be part of an awesome production and see your child onstage?  Boo hoo.  You know what's hard?  Living in a refugee camp.  Not having access to clean water.  Or just plain having to pull your children out of ballet because their dad lost his job.  You know what's NOT hard?  Showing appreciation that you get to be part of something iconic and beautiful.

Fortunately, I had the wherewithal to withhold SOME of those opinions.  But standing backstage in the dark with tears rolling down my face over the complexities and sorrows of life, I wasn't thinking about how HARD it was to spend all that time at the theater.  I was thinking how lucky I was to be cradled and shielded from reality, if only for those brief hours, by the blinding lights of the stage, the darkness of the wings and the sheer happiness on the faces of all of our children.  Most children in the world never get to be that happy, not even once.

You know where Uncle Bob was hours before he passed away?  He was at a dance recital to see Mackenzie, his grand daughter.  Let me ask you:  Do you think his family will ever complain about that night and the time it took to prepare that recital?

Freestone

Golda

Freestone getting his trumpet

My Chinese

Golda as Waltz of the Flowers

Finale

Gifts from friends

Golda and Freestone making me happy.

Ready!

Great group of girls.  There were moments...but they pulled it out and were just superb.

More fans!

Final dress rehearsal

Staging

Freestone's Party Scene "family."  His parents were Kate Robinette and Landon Hart.  Landon gave Freestone his stage name, "Barnabus."  They were the "Big Family."  Free thought it was hilarious that the "big family" only had four kids.  Next year, he wants to be in the Crazy Family.

My gifts for the Chinese

Despite the crazy picture, this was my most polite group of all time.  They were easy to work with, which was a blessing because choreography was hard for some.

Hanging out in the costume room with Sarah, the master seamstress.  Teachers have it so easy...Sarah was there sewing until late every night for costume committee.