Turkey roasting. Check.

Salad prepared. Check.
Pies at the ready.  Check.
Table extended and set. Check.
Family members* en route** toting side dishes. Check.

Hallelujah! 





*All four of my celebrated small actors, with parents accompanying.
**Over the river (some call it that; it's really just a creek) and through the woods (a stand of trees; but close enough) they come.

Happy Thanksgiving Day, Reader Dear!***

***May your heart be filled with gratitude,
no matter your table configuration and
the food atop it!

Autumn Morning Sunshine

is good for the soul, even if it's falling on the dead and dying.

That would be my opinion, Reader Dear.

And I also have this to say: "Aw, nuts!"

Now, you may believe that I'm feeling disappointed  or disgusted about something.  However, obviously you're not hearing the intonation of my voice.











To shed light on the matter, Viewer Dear,take a look at what I harvested a few days ago!

Pecans!*
*In their beautiful, natural packaging!

In full disclosure, Dear Reader, I must tell you these nuts were harvested from a big box that showed up outside my front door.  The postman delivered).  And I've got to tell you, these pecans aren't just any old nuts, which is why I said, "Aw, nuts!" with excitement and eagerness in my voice.  These nuts are especially pleasing to me because we share a common heritage (please, no jokes regarding nuttiness!)  Grown, gathered, and shipped by the wife of a cousin of mine, the pecan trees are direct descendants of certain trees that were planted by one of my great-grandfathers in southern Virginia. 

I chortled as I opened the package of pecans, and immediately cracked one open and tried it!

I've got a hand-made wooden mallet fashioned for me by that twin brother of mine.   It worked well, and when I cracked open a pecan, carefully lifted out the meat, popped it into my mouth and ate it, I thought, "I'll have another."


"One more."

"Okay, just one more."

"Mmmm, these are good!  I'll have just one more." 

"Well, one more." 
"I might as well make it an even dozen."

"Okay, one more!"

Perhaps you will be relieved to know, Dear Reader,  that I eventually decided it would be prudent of me not to eat a whole ten pounds of nuts at one sitting! I exercised some will-power, and  am saving a lot of the nutty southern goodness for other days!
......................

And now, before I end this post, I have one more thing to say with feeling:

"Nuts to you, Reader Dear!!"**

.......................
** Tasty southern pecans, may you be so fortunate!***

***(And, yes, yes, of course...I wish you lots of Autumn sunshine, too!)

Birthday Bonanza!!

My past week was populated with not just one candle-topped birthday cake, but two (or three, if you count the candled pumpkin squash that was a joke).

In the first instance, the adoring crowd around my Itty-bitty Actor sang Happy Birthday to You! and his mama offered him a piece of cake.  But, this being his very first experience with the culinary requirement for parties of this sort, he only fingered it with curiosity. He didn't take a lot of interest, knowing nothing of that thing called Sugar Buzz!  My other three small actors, on the other hand, having learned what to expect out of life (er, well, birthday parties, at any rate) were jumping with excitement!  They gladly and gleefully helped with the unwrapping of presents, and campaigned for all the cake they could get!

.........................................................








Several days later, we celebrated the birthday of my Little Actor (who is getting pretty big, but will continue as my "Little Actor" until such a time as he turns down movie deals with me!)  Now, this young celebrity knew the birthday protocol!  Presents!  Cake!  We moved rapidly through the action, the Little Actor calling the shots!  Of course, he was not expecting  that first presentation of birthday "cake" (A birthday squash?!  What crestfallen faces! All the tiny actors were appalled; was there to be no sugar-laden treat?!)  Reader Dear, it was only a trick, of course!  There were speedy reassurances, and, while the adults were still laughing, the candles in the yummy ice-cream cake were being lit!

 I had many other events  (of the ho-hum sort) this past week, Reader Dear, but you can be sure these birthday celebrations really took the cake!

.....................................

An extra hour!

Now that we have reached the end of Daylight Savings Time here on the east coast of the USA, we all get to spend that hour we stuck into savings last March!  I was contemplating, Reader Dear, exactly how I'm going to use those sixty extra minutes.

So I asked myself, What activity did I give up during the hour last spring when we were instructed to set our clocks ahead?  With a start, I realized it would have been one of the most wretched hours of my life (that one I jumped over at 2:00 a.m. on March 12, 2017!)  I gave up an hour of lying miserably on a quasi-air-filled hospital mattress, too weak to move my body into any new position, coughing with a throat housing a too-large tracheostomy tube and already painful and raw from such activity,  unable to speak (to night nurses), unable to get out of bed, unable to entertain or distract myself in any way, and--worst of all--unable to sleep!  That nighttime hour that went into  the vault would have been just one more ghastly, seemingly endless hour! 


But, Hallelujah!  Thank merciful heavens, Reader Dear, that  I don't have to redeem that hour in kind!
When I wake during the night (perhaps to the sound of the Yard Man softly snoring) and sink into my warm and comfortable bed, stretch and roll over,  shift my body into a relaxed and satisfactory sleeping position, listen to the sounds of a gentle rain (or possibly view through the window a majestically full moon in the sky) I'm going to sing the praises* of the fabulously good deal I got on this extra hour!**

*I'm speaking figuratively here,
but only because I don't wish to wake
the Yard Man.
**I'm going to spend it peacefully sleeping! 
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Headline of the Day

CELEBRITY REACHES ONE YEAR MILESTONE!
(Reader Dear, this is my very own Itty-bitty Actor generating this eye-popping news du jour!)
I've got a publicity shot to share with you:

Plus a movie or two (or three):

Celebrations will continue into the weekend,
updates following!

Happy Birthday #One, Silvan Lark!
........................................................