Holidaze

Stuffed with food like the turkey we devoured on Thanksgiving Day in Georgia, I fell into a deep and dreamful sleep, chasing cranberry relish visions and scampering slabs pumpkin pie, which sought to flee from my fork all to no avail.

The dream swirls with images, packed bumper to bumper like the traffic down I-40 and I-75, families and really-not-so-much families in cars and SUVs crammed to the ceiling with gifts and tupperwared remnants of sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and casseroles and hot-buttered-but-now-cold dinner rolls. A bounty of feasting and a parade of the leftovers traveling north and south and east and west across America as the holiday blurs into the shopping days where retailers dream of profits of Christmas future.

I make a stop in South Knox to decompress from families and the battle of the endless traffic, sipping wine and laughing with my new best friend until the wee hours of the morning. I have so much to be thankful for and I hope I say it enough. She makes me smile and we listen to Johnny Cash and Van Morrison and the sometimes wee barks of a tiny dog who finds the oddest things to gnaw upon in the early dawn hours.

Then back on the road to Home, stopping to get necessities at a nearby MegaWhopperRetailWarehouseStore where men and women wearing Christmas sweaters and Grinch T-shirts shove shopping carts thru a maze DVDs and trainsets and specially boxed-sets of shampoos and bath-oils and techno-gadgets, steering their carts through the aisles like Captains on a boundless sea, searching for the discounts which will soon find their way into boxes wrapped in shiny paper, the shoppers like neo-hunter/gatherers tracking the spoils of discount sales.

Home now, and in this dream of the Holi-daze, I look for a nap as the dream has been exhausting in itself. But I know it is only the beginning of a month of carving paths between the shopper/hunters who track elusive bargains armed with lists and pencils and I know again this year, I will be focusing instead on gifts I can make myself, collections of words and music and perhaps candles made to give flickering lights as December nights turns slowly moment-by-moment into the Year to Come.

The bloggers have hung their posts with care, wondering if the Technarati Saint Nick will lead a Google-Search-Sleigh down the chimneys and curl into their mailboxes and e-links.

But yes, Home now, both in the dream and awake - and I feel the stirrings of feasts and fellowship ahead, count my blessings and drift into another nap.

If home is where the heart is, I have found I have homes to numerous to count, and I try to express my gratitiude and send my best thoughts to all. Soon so many houses and neighborhoods will twinkle with lights and giant blow-up snow-globes gathered on lawns like totems to happiness and hope.

And I hope your first steps into the world of gifts and wishes will bring the Joys you seek for yourself and for others.

(oh and look for some posts next week about Faith Hill who hugged my brother-in-law Fred on her TV special )

A Trailer Is Worth 1,000 Words

It's the fall movie season -- which movie will rise to the top? A feel-good hit of the year? More Harry Potter Magic? Johnny Cash? Thanks to a heads-up from The Poor Man's Weekly, I found this teaser-trailer about a movie called "Dubya." (It's a QuickTime and funnier/scarier than you may want to admit.)

Check out the movie here.

Pay Raises Not A Part of Trimming Fed Budget

I'm sure you've seen this news already, but I have to offer some thoughts on it. Some years back Congress came up with a way to get yearly raises by NOT voting for them. They get these raises automatically unless they vote to not receive them. Wonder what the anti-worker crowd would say if union and non-union workers could get such a provision in their work agreements? And this year's non-vote increase occurs as Congress works to decided what U.S. programs to cut money away from.

And I was most happy to see Congress reconsidering the plan to make key elements to the so-called "Patriot Act" go on and on, with some calling for a seven year extension. But voters have been very loud about ending some of these provisions by year's end.

"I didn't come to Washington, D.C., to expand the police powers of the federal government," said Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California. "To make these temporary expansions of police power permanent as our way of life, changing our way of life in America, altering the balance of liberty and police powers, is outrageous."

Since most lawmakers are taking off for the holidays, this gives you a chance to make some of those hockey-puck shaped sweet potatoes with marshmellows on the top (Yuck!) and take them over to their homes (unless they are all at vacation hideaways) and say "Here's something for the holidays and by the way, I don't want that Act extended!")

Which also leads the burning question I ponder each Thanksgiving -- What is the difference between a "sweet potato" and a "yam?" Its these kind of things that keep me awake at night.

UPDATE: The wise and witty Julie helped ease my concerns about the debate over yams and sweet taters -- discover the facts for yourself here.