Tuesday

[susandennis]

Today is my day off from having to go do things. Works out fine because, turns out, it's not that great a breathing day. Not horrible. I mean I have enough breath to clean the bathrooms (Tuesday!) but let's not press it.

So weird these days when breathing is kind of a problem. No rhyme nor reason to them and they really aren't terrible. More a threat maybe of things to come. Whatever. Tomorrow will be better and today will be fine.

I might make some cookies. Costco had a big tin of ginger cookies but they had sugar on top. Plus, honestly, they didn't look as good as my next batch will be.

I discovered a new - to me - author who has a boatload of books already published. I don't know why I never found him before. Stuart MacBride. I'm reading the first in a series - Gold Granite. Scottish police procedural with some fun and delightful turns of phrase.

It's the time of year I most grateful for being alone. I do not have to think of an excuse to avoid or, worse yet, attend family or other gatherings that I don't want to. I'm not a big gathering person anyway but I especially object to those forced by 'special' days. I'm especially grateful for not having to travel. No airport issues, no gas issues. I get the full turkey dinner with all the trimmings and leftovers and I don't have to share it with anyone. Biggie does not like turkey.

On Thursday, I'll go pick up my turkey dinner but between now and then, I'm going to work on shrinking my freezer inventory. I want to make room and either eat the stuff before it dies of old age, or toss it.

Comments

[dadi.livejournal.com]

I hear you on the being alone. I have spent several xmas periods completely on my own when I lived in Italy and enjoyed every minute of it.

[susandennis]

:) it's a luxury

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

If I'm not being too personal or too intrusive: did you find it less frenetic, and less...pressuring (I know: that's not a verb)?

It seems to me that in this country we keep trying to make it more, and more, and more, and we create stress and we make guilt: if it isn't this way it's a fail, and if you didn't make it this way you've failed (feel guilty, now---you gotta!), and you shouldn't be alone because no one should be alone and if you are alone it's your own damn fault so feel guilty and don't feel miserable because you did this to yourself, after all---choosing to fail.
Or something.
But it seems frenetic and tension-inducing, rather than, well, warm and family- like and fun and loving. (I know: I make Christmas sound like a golden retriever puppy, don't I?)

[dadi.livejournal.com]

Well, I am autistic (didn’t know it at that time though) and really feel best in my own company alone :D.
I now am so lucky to have a husband who totally is on one wavelength with me and we'd be perfectly ok just notbdoing anything different from other days. But for various reasons here we have "family obligations" and those are stressful for me. But as long as my parents are alive, I'll go along...after that, no more!

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

Some years, I've felt like that: please, no pressure, no command appearances/performances, just let me be thankful on Thanksgiving without all the fuss and flap. (And as far as I know, I'm not autistic although that might explain some things if I were. )
What I've never liked, though, was having my lost-in-the-crowd-of-family or all-alone-because-you-mairi_dubh-don't-mind (says who!) thrust upon me.

My dad passed away first; after my mom died the in-town sis-in-law decided that as the favored son's wife she was now the family matriarch and calling the shots. I'd been looking forward to spending some holiday hours at my brother's home ---we don't get together all that often --- but she got a little to authoritarian for me, and I left their place and drove an hour to the home of a friend whose invitation to have Christmas and Christmas dinner with them I had declined, saying firmly I'd be with my brother's family.
When I arrived, no one said, "Gosh, what are you doing here" or "You said you weren't coming." My friend gave me a huge holiday hug and said, "I'm so glad you were able to be here!"
Quiet and "small" though that Christmas celebration was, it was one of the best I can remember.

But I am all in favor of doing what's good for oneself (relative to doing it without actual harm to anyone else, like not shouting 'Fire!" in a crowded theater.)

[dadi.livejournal.com]

A part of my family is of the "the bigger, the better" holiday persuasion. I totally am happy for them to have that. Just not with me having to be a part of it!

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

And that's fine, Heaven love you!

[susandennis]

My feelings have nothing to do with this country. I just don't like gatherings of people. I don't mind — in fact, enjoy — one on one or even groups of 3. More than that are just a jumble of stuff that I don't care about. Fortunately, my only 'family' is my brother and he's just like me. The fewer, the merrier.

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

In terms of hosting, I believe I've never pulled off groups larger than, say, ten, and I always wondered what it would be like to manage to have thirty people or so around improvised dining tables (saw horses, planks and table cloths or new, clean drop cloths, or saw horses and new, non-drilled hollow core doors and probably asking the guests to supply their own seating.)
In terms of being a guest, I'm used to all sorts of arrangements, and I'm never bothered by being one among a half dozen or one in a crowd of a couple hundred or more. I've found that usually I'm having a holiday or party experience much as a sibling who attended tOSU explained being on a home campus of 55K: it's like being in a city, holding a job or just living in a neighborhood: you have your boss (professors), your fellow students (co-workers) and your friends/family and you interact with those people no matter what the city's population is.

Certainly feeding fewer is easier in every way.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

Homemade cookies are nearly always better than the store bought kind. If I were actually having Thanksgiving with anybody I'd make homemade pie.

[kaishinmystik.livejournal.com]

I made a note of that author, sounds good!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Stuart MacBride is quite popular at work

[susandennis]

honestly, i thought about that the other day and considered recommending him to you for them!! turns out they are all ahead of me.

[desdemonaspace]

Hello, Susan. I surfed on in here from Teragramm's LJ and I really appreciate this: It's the time of year I most grateful for being alone. I do not have to think of an excuse to avoid or, worse yet, attend family or other gatherings that I don't want to. That is such a healthy attitude! I spend far too much time wishing my family were the Cleavers. They are not. I'm an introvert and should just appreciate my alone time. Covid is tailor-made for introverts.

Also enjoying your recipes — yum! I want to bake the gingerbread before long, and those cheese-bacon biscuits are calling to me.

The webcam slightly weirds me out (for me, I mean — what you do is of course your business). I love the way you've decorated your condo — colors, fire screen, paintings. It's really lovely.

[susandennis]

Welcome!! I hear you about the webcam. I don't understand it myself but others have expressed similar misgivings. The cool part is that if it weirds you out just don't look!