cleaning the kitchen, listening alternately to hole, live through this and my mom's copy of wingspan because i forgot to bring any other CDs downstairs this morning and i'm busy. it's an odd mix, but somehow it's working for me. thankfully this weird flu passed, and i'm just a little shaky and tired. of course, it passed to Oldest Niece and Youngest Nephew, so who knows where it'll go next?

it's a strange thing about the family home lately: it's more like a four-person bachelor pad than a nuclear family set-up. because mom's back and shoulder pain have rendered her less-than-able to clean the way she used to, and the rest of us are busy or just not thinking when we put our junk on the nearest available surface. so stuff piles up, surfaces become obscured, and orderly living is abandoned in favor of easier and more cluttered existence. grab food when you're hungry, do laundry when your clean socks run out, and so on. it's a fine way to live for four adults, it's just strange to remember that we used to congregate every evening around the dining room table for home-cooked casseroles (i think the casserole meal was some kind of strange 70s holdover).

we don't have a dining room table; we don't have a dining room. we converted it into a bedroom last year for my grandmother, and after her death we just couldn't bring ourselves to convert it back again. because we congregated there in the weeks after the funeral. because we thought we'd have a lot more time than that. she moved in here before they diagnosed the brain tumor, and she went so fast after that. and to take down all the furniture, move the photographs, and switch it all around again is just too hard right now. maybe soon. maybe we'll have next thanksgiving here, in a proper dining room like we used to. right now it's just too much, it's the last step of letting go, and i'm not ready.

this is our first thanksgiving without my grandmother. and granted, we didn't always see her on thanksgiving, but this time it's different, because i know, and the rest of us do too i'm sure, that she's not here. anywhere. and that's hard. it's harder because thanksgiving was the last holiday, last year, that gram really knew who i was. by christmas she couldn't really tell me from the other grandkids; she died two weeks later. it's hard, enjoying family and food and trying not to miss her too much at the same time.

but i am trying. cleaning the kitchen and all, because i have some serious preparations for the feasty-feast. vegetarian stuffing, vegetarian gravy (because i want to eat something more or less traditional), porter cake, giant biscuits, candied pecan halves, cranberry apple crisp, and probably something else by the time i'm finished. and that's not counting the 50 billion other things that Mom and Older Sister will end up cooking. if i was going to pathologize it, i'd have to name it Durnin Cooking Disease. i'm not sure of the origin, but i can trace it to my Grandfather Durnin, who built and ran the diner in my town (kind of explains my diaryring), and gave us the genetic disposition to cook massive amounts of food at the drop of a hat. luckily there's a large group of non-cooking family members too, or we'd be eating until christmas, and well, we have to cook for that holiday too you know.

everything but the turkey,-beatpoetgrrl

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