Today is J’s birthday, her 65th. We are supposed to meet her brother and his wife in Fredericksburg for brunch. Only problem is I don’t want to go.

More later on this developing story.

We drove up. Traffic on I-95 Northbound during a major holiday weekend was not bad. We departed early enough and drove only about 55 miles.

Brunch was pleasant at the hip restaurant in the converted bank. I had a black bean “burger”, declining the usual egg variants characteristic of an American “brunch”.

I wore my “red ball” cricket tie, as a conversation starter. Most people think the red ball is a Christmas tree ornament. D, J’s sister-in-law, has lived in Perth, near the WACA cricket stadium. So cricket ball was her second guess. When living in Australia, she never could get used to following the game. I said it takes a while, then one discovers how simple the game is.

The point is to keep the bowling side from taking a wicket. The batting side scores runs in the course of preventing wickets from being taken. That is pretty much it. Actually it is all I want to say about it now.

Driving home on Route 1 was uneventful, relatively fast and no where near as stressful as I-95. Those living overseas or in parts of the US of A not served by I-95, pick your nearest nightmarish Hell of a road to comprehend the East Coast experience.

I am now home, tired and glad it’s over

In AA, we like to say we can start our day over at any time. Nothing bad has happened. But I feel a nap and a re-boot are in order.

It is all I can do to refrain from multi-tasking. I am alone, at home, J is at work, prepping for the Black Friday onslaught. (Don’t get me started. This should be a No Rant day.)

Truth be told, I love the silent house, silent except for the refrigerator compressor.

Thanksgiving is at 2:00 PM at my sister’s. I plan to go to a meeting at noon. The Y is closed today.

To all my blogosphere companions, Happy Thanksgiving.

For some reason, I accidentally disabled comments on the earlier post Free(Frozen) Bird…

I have no idea what I did, but WP says comments are allowed for future posts. I hope this works

Frustrating,

Today I got my monthly Social Security check deposited into my checking account. I also needed to buy stuff. We were running low on paper towels and bath tissue. BJ’s had a deal where, upon purchase of three qualifying items, a frozen turkey could be yours. I did exactly that. Some Swiffer© dusting products completed the purchasing trifecta. That was roughly $70. I also spent about another $100 on other items in the course of acquiring The Bird.

At this point I wanted the turkey just because they were giving The Bird away. Departing the store, after spending roughly $170 to acquire the “free bird“, (apologies to Lynyrd Skynyrd), I was somewhat ambivalent about my shopping coup. J and I might not live long enough to eat an entire turkey between the two of us.

When I got back to Knollingwood Townhouses, the yard maintenance people were blowing leaves around. I approached one of the yard guys and offered the frozen turkey to him. He gladly accepted this little bit of frozen largesse from the American cornucopia.

It felt good just giving The Bird away. Really good.

Back folds are sexy.

Happiness matters.

Loving and being loved are important.

I am exhausted.

I looked at a post on a social media site where the poster, a young lesbian, stated she was “battling low self-esteem”.

And I thought to myself, “Who isn’t?”

Seriously. Persons from groups that have been subject to discrimination and stigmatization, like lesbians, may feel uniquely burdened by this emotional malady. But we all do, to some degree or another.

In our culture that differentiates between winners or losers, survivors or victims, eaters or eaten, low self-esteem must be the order of the day.

The only way out is to not “play the game”. By the way, that is easier said than done.

That’s all for now.