It’s that time of year again. The turkey is defrosting in the refrigerator. I’m musing on all the things I should do before tomorrow morning. (Based on previous years, I’ll probably finish about half of them.) Dinner will be on the table tomorrow, and right now, it’s The Dauphin, Moose, Mojo, Oscar, and me. Our family’s Thanksgiving is happening this weekend, so we’ll have a somewhat quiet day tomorrow.
We have one ritual each year, though. Whether it’s the two of us or we’re blessed with friends and family, we go around the table and ask everyone what they are thankful for. Even closing in on the end of a rugged year, there are so many things and people that come to mind. We are so grateful for so much, and hope that we continue to share what we’ve been given so generously by so many.
Here’s the short list.
The Dauphin has a job.
We could never thank those enough that stood by us this year. Doug, we are lucky to know you, and we could never repay you and Tracey’s generosity and caring.
We got another year with Grandpa and Grandma. We hope we’ll get more time.
We have our house.
Clay. He knows why.
My friends in Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America, and those who mentor me. Thank you, Cherry, Mary, Jane, and Susan. I am the luckiest woman in the world to have such amazing authors take me under their wing.
We met a big brown puppy and fell in love. He joins his big brown feline brothers.
We get another year to try it again.
I’m also thankful for those who read TLPC, and hope that you sit down at a table full of delicious food, and all those you like and love.
On behalf of our chocolate Lab handful, Moose, just another reminder that there are many things our pets should never get their paws on, especially at the holidays. Moose turned Mommy’s purse upside down on Friday night in search of a plastic baggie of treats she forgot about. (Luckily for us, he ignored the bag of Dove dark chocolate I brought to the movie theater and forgot to take out when I got home the other day.) The treats were properly dispensed, the spilled chocolate was cleaned up, and I got yet another lesson in how determined (and hard-working!) our sweet boy is when he’s convinced there’s food in it for him…
If your puppy is like ours, it’s been a full-time job making sure there is nothing in his environment that can hurt him. Here’s a list from the “Dog Whisperer”, Cesar Milan.
This list is a resource to help keep your dog safe this holiday season, but be aware that it is not exhaustive. Many other human foods can be harmful to your dog, and depending on your dog’s particular medical background, any deviation from his regular diet can cause serious health issues. Consult your veterinarian for guidelines specific to your pet.
If you suspect that your dog may have ingested one of these foods or another harmful substance, call the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center National Hotline: 888-426-4435.
Alcoholic beverages
Avocado
Caffeinated tea
Chocolate (all forms)
Cigarettes and other nicotine products
Coffee (all forms)
Fatty foods
Garlic
Macadamia nuts
Moldy or spoiled foods
Onions, onion powder
Pain relievers
Raisins and grapes
Salt
Yeast dough
Products sweetened with xylitol (such as chewing gum, breath mints, and even some “sugar free” baked goods)
Turkey Skin – High fat foods, such as turkey skin, can be hazardous to your dog. Since the skin is hard to digest, it can lead to pancreatitis. If you still want to share your bird, give your dog a small piece of white meat.
Turkey Bones – Cooked poultry bones are brittle and splinter easily. If ingested, they can lodge in the esophagus or cause stomach or intestinal irritation.
Thanks again to Cesar for the list, and here’s hoping all pets have a safe and happy Thanksgiving with their people as a result!
WABC.com reportsOprah Winfrey will end her talk show. The announcement will come on her show tomorrow with the final airing expected to be Sept. 9, 2011.
The Oprah Winfrey Show airs on WABC-TV in the afternoons but originates from Chicago on ABC station WLS where it airs at 9amCT.
There’s a lot of things I could say about Oprah. She single-handedly gets people to read. She features topics and people on her program that have an instant, very influential platform. She succeeded in an industry that, twenty-five years ago, was dominated by those who didn’t believe daytime TV was an option for success. I don’t care about her celebrity profiles, or some of the other stuff she has on her show. I do care that she went inside the Louisiana Superdome shortly after Hurricane Katrina, against the advice of local officials. She has consistently worked to enlighten those who watch her show with any regularity on a wide variety of topics.
Oprah isn’t perfect, but she is an ongoing success story. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.
The first shooting began at about 1:30 p.m. at a personnel and medical processing office, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nathan Banks said. The facility, called a Soldier Rating and Processing center, handles administrative details for soldiers.
Banks says the second shooting took place at a theater on the sprawling base.
Sgt. Rebekah Lampam, a spokeswoman at Fort Hood, said it was not known whether the shooters were soldiers or civilians.
An Army spokesman said the base was locked down after the shootings.
I was attempting to work yesterday while listening to the coverage of the little boy and the balloon from Colorado. Today, it seems that there’s a bit more to the story.
Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said today that his agency has talked with the county’s child-protection agency about the Fort Collins family who lost control of an experimental balloon Thursday.
The Sheriff’s Office is now planning to re-interview Richard Heene, his wife and children, after a television appearance in which 6-year-old Falcon Heene said the balloon escape and belief he was aboard was part of “a show.”
“In light of the boy’s statement, we want to clarify that and put it to rest,” Alderden said during a noon press conference outside his Fort Collins office that was carried live on local television.
However, Alderden said that he is, at least for now, inclined to believe that the balloon escape was accidental and the family really believed Falcon was aboard.
The Heene family made two appearances on the ABC reality show “Wife Swap” previously. The investigation evidently centers on a comment made by six-year-old Falcon to the effect of (paraphrased) the balloon incident being part of “the show”. Of course, this is my opinion and not fact, but I have to wonder about a child evidently so afraid of any parent he would hide for several hours while many, many people searched for him.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone would believe their cell phone call was more important than the enjoyment of watching Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman on a Broadway stage, but it’s exactly what happened last week.
If you can’t remember to either silence or shut off your cell phone during a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the rest of us would like to respectfully request that you just stay home.
And Seahawks fans everywhere watched with their hearts in their throats Sunday afternoon as Matt Hasselbeck lay on the turf. Again.
It’s the week before my deadline. This would be a great week to let a guest blogger handle things, but unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury. Yet. As a result, the stuff that’s happened over the past seven days or so may slide for a few days more. I’m sure the blogosphere will not come to a screeching halt as a result.
There was a little football contest Sunday afternoon in San Francisco that did not go the way I hoped it would. Somehow, I think it didn’t go the way the Seahawks hoped it would, either. We now have thirteen starters out due to injury. Again. There has to be some kind of explanation for this, but I’m at a loss to what it might be. In the meantime, the blame is flying thick and fast, and some of it landed on the shoulders of my favorite.
He ran 79 yards for a touchdown with 2:36 left in the first quarter, the longest run of his career. Well, at least it was the longest for, oh, another quarter. Gore ran 80 yards untouched for a touchdown the first time he touched the football in the second half.
“I’m man enough to say that second long run, I didn’t fit in my gap the way I should have,” defensive end Patrick Kerney said. “It cost the team.”
Kerney took a step toward quarterback Shaun Hill, giving Gore the window to run right by him. It was only a couple of feet, maybe less.
“It shows you how little it takes to win a football game,” Kerney said. “Those are two plays they executed and we didn’t.”
Those two plays led to the 14 points that were the difference in the game.
Ouch.
Okay. There were eight guys in the box Sunday afternoon during both those plays. I didn’t notice the other seven opening the can of man and saying they might have been a little responsible for this, too, and they wish it had turned out a little differently. Don’t even get me started on members of the secondary who are piling on, too. Hey, guys, where’s the “I” in “team”?
Have I mentioned I LOVE people who don’t make excuses? There are so few of them in life, I think it should be celebrated, and especially in pro sports. Of course, I don’t play pro sports, but there are few things in life that make me crazier than people who just can’t admit it when they’re wrong or made a mistake, offer a sincere apology, and move on. Nobody likes confessing they’re less than perfect, but I’d like to think the mark of an adult is to say that sometimes, we all mess up.
I’ve been a Seahawks fan since 1977. (Obviously, I was still in utero at the time.) I own a Patrick Kerney jersey. It’s the only jersey I’ve bought in that thirty-two year period.
I’m not a big country music fan, but I really love this song. It fits today’s subject matter!
As most who read the blog know by now, I’m a romance author. We spend a lot of time thinking and writing about love. Of course, our characters are all fictional, but every author brings his or her own set of experiences and beliefs to the narrative, including what it’s like to fall in love.
For the next few weeks, Harlequin’s running a little contest at their website. Each week will focus on a different facet of love — first love, young love, love that lasts forever. This week, it’s first love. The best part? One does not need to be a professional writer to share your love story! (There’s one over there right now that should feature an ad for Kleenex. Sheesh. A rock would cry after reading it!) Of course, I’ve written about The Dauphin and I’s big love story before, but before I met him, there was Jon…
Once upon a time, I fell in love with a guy named Jon. We went to the same church. I thought he was the most handsome man I had ever seen, and in some ways, he still is. He was tall, dark-haired and broad shouldered, with eyes the color of the sky at midnight. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who noticed him. I was living in a house at that time with a friend and her brother; my roommate, Maria (names changed to — well, you know,) told anyone who’d listen Jon was her property. He evidently didn’t get the memo.
Maria did everything in her power to get his attention. She bought new clothes. She changed her hairdo. She flirted with him. The more attention she paid to him, the more attention he paid to me. I was a little shocked by this, and unsure how to handle it. I really, really liked him, but a combination of shyness and the fear of what my roommate would do if she found out kept me silent.
Jon did what every other guy in his twenties does when met with resistance from the female he wanted to get to know: He persisted. He became friends with my roommate’s brother. I can’t count how many times I came home from work in the evenings to find him at our house. When the church youth group went out for something to eat after Sunday night church, he either sat with me, or he was close by. Maria thought Jon was a pretty constant visitor at our house because he liked her. By now, it was pretty obvious to everyone else but Maria that it had nothing to do with her.
Jon stepped up his efforts. He sat with me in church, which created a lot of speculation among the other twentysomethings we knew. I still remember holding his hand. After all, even holding the hand of someone you think is everything is the most thrilling thing ever, isn’t it? Maybe it was a good thing that the pastor wasn’t testing me on what he talked about Sunday after Sunday. One of my guy friends said something to Jon about how much his mom liked me. His response? “Did you tell your mom about me?” This continued for several months. A lot happened. I was still so shy, though, it was one step forward, two steps back.
One day, though, Jon must have decided to make his big move. We were out for the day with a group of friends from church. Jon handed me a folded piece of notebook paper. When I opened it later that night, he’d written the following.
You loved me for a little,
Who could not love me long;
You gave me wings of gladness
And lent my spirit song.
You loved me for an hour
But only with your eyes;
Your lips I could not capture
By storm or by surprise.
Your mouth that I remember
With rush of sudden pain
As one remembers starlight
Or roses after rain…
Out of a world of laughter
Suddenly I am sad…
Day and night it haunts me,
The kiss I never had.
-Sydney King Russell
I’d love to say our story had a happy ending, but finally, he started dating a woman from another church he later married. I framed the piece of paper with the poem he’d given me. It hung in my room for many years.
I haven’t seen him or heard from him since. I wonder if he ever thinks of me. After all, sometimes, something that’s said or something I see reminds me of him. Does this detract from The Dauphin? I don’t think so. I know I loved Jon, but I didn’t understand what love really was until I met my husband.
