Thanksgiving - Just Another Day Off
Every Thanksgiving is the same, whether we go somewhere or not. When I was little, Thanksgiving was a Grandparents' holiday. I was exchanged at Checkpoint Charlie (The then-lone Howard Jonsons restaurant on Route 80 right at the Delaware Water Gap on the Pennsylvania side) from my mother to my paternal grandparents, Grandma and Pop-pop (usually both grands have funny nicknames, but I wonder if my grandmother would have considered that beneath her dignity. I don't know, and it is unlikely I will ever know, but that sort of fits her.
That lasted into my 11th or 12th year, maybe into my midteens. Once my grandmother allowed herself to show anger that I was getting my menstrual cycle, Thanksgiving became the Platt Family sideshow.
Just a freaky little behaviour from my grandmother that no one could have predicted. All families have their idiosyncrasies and homegrown weirdnessess, but this was so pervasive that I elected to stay home for every holiday. They'd send gifts, but the real heart of the relationship had been broken because I had the temerity to grow up.
It's difficult for me to understand a lot of what motivated my grandmother. When I was little, I adored her. I had more realsitic feelings about Pop-pop - I loved him and a lot but he was not perfect and attempting to be that way. And it was easy to see at a young age, that he lived solely to be a Yes Man to my very controlling grandmother. But while those things were there and known I really did not see what a truly bizarre person she could be.
Frances Lydia Anderson - that is about as WASPy as any name could be. And she was very much that. I know plenty of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and could not care less, but she was one-of-a-kind, because her whole essence to be and the core of everything she did revolved around one unutterable mantra: what would the neighbours think?
This is not an issue I will ever have. I don't even know my neighbours for the most part and am perfectly happy that way.
(I'm sitting in Luis' office typing this. For the time being he has quit the room and I have it for one reason: this awesome back massaging thing he has gotten. $200 buys you a heating, vibrating, rolling or shiatsu (or both) thing that you drape over the chair of your choice and give a message that will turn you into a wet noodle. Sign me up!)
Anyway, I have a vague memory of the early Thanksgiving - not unsurprising, with my long-term mnemonic skills. After I stopped going to Pennsy I would go with my parents to the Long Island Platchek Thanksiving show. My maternal grandmother was still alive, Ida, for whom I had no nickname. You can see the closeness my mother fomented between us. This was your smells-funny grandmother, who looked and smelled kinda weird, or old, I guess, despite being potentially younger than Grandma. I can't remember who was what age. I do know Ida died when I was 17, and she was 77, and that had to be in 1985. (The advantage of being born in late January is that there is little math involved in figuring out what year something happened if I know my age. I only have 25 days into any new year before my birthday.) Ma told me a story that Ida had put down a false birthyear on her birth certificate - she made herself two years younger. I find that laughable - so what? Two years. Shit, make it twelve and be done with it.
My other grandmother was not into aging, but not enough to fudge her records. She would always refer to herself as "39 and holding". I remember thinking that I was onto that act. I never understand people and getting bent over something that is a natural part of life. I wouldn't want to be Dorian Gray, either. I'll just take my normal aging lumps, thank you!
Um, where was I? Oh, yes, Thanksgiving. Well, for years we did the Long Island trek to either Douglaston or Queens to do the familial Thaksgiving (everyone's so into turkey, except me). That lasted until the Great Schism, when it was discovered that my mother was siding with the enemy, my uncle John. He and my aunt had split, and it was an ugly, ugly scene, so there were very strong feelings about this. Anyway, my parents made the decision to stay in touch with John and his new (then) girlfriend so when my aunt and cousin found out, they really had conniptions over it.
So after that we went to the Christmas Eve celebrations only, where we were semi-pariahs (which really did not affect us much as a whole), and began having Thanksgivings in Wayne, with my parents, Luis and me and John and Safia. And then ten years ago, it was my parents, Luis and me and John, Safia and Julia, their daughter. After that, we made our Thanksgiving visits shorter (being related to the child hardly makes a difference to me - kids are kids and I don't like kids), but still went.
That lasted into my 11th or 12th year, maybe into my midteens. Once my grandmother allowed herself to show anger that I was getting my menstrual cycle, Thanksgiving became the Platt Family sideshow.
Just a freaky little behaviour from my grandmother that no one could have predicted. All families have their idiosyncrasies and homegrown weirdnessess, but this was so pervasive that I elected to stay home for every holiday. They'd send gifts, but the real heart of the relationship had been broken because I had the temerity to grow up.
It's difficult for me to understand a lot of what motivated my grandmother. When I was little, I adored her. I had more realsitic feelings about Pop-pop - I loved him and a lot but he was not perfect and attempting to be that way. And it was easy to see at a young age, that he lived solely to be a Yes Man to my very controlling grandmother. But while those things were there and known I really did not see what a truly bizarre person she could be.
Frances Lydia Anderson - that is about as WASPy as any name could be. And she was very much that. I know plenty of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and could not care less, but she was one-of-a-kind, because her whole essence to be and the core of everything she did revolved around one unutterable mantra: what would the neighbours think?
This is not an issue I will ever have. I don't even know my neighbours for the most part and am perfectly happy that way.
(I'm sitting in Luis' office typing this. For the time being he has quit the room and I have it for one reason: this awesome back massaging thing he has gotten. $200 buys you a heating, vibrating, rolling or shiatsu (or both) thing that you drape over the chair of your choice and give a message that will turn you into a wet noodle. Sign me up!)
Anyway, I have a vague memory of the early Thanksgiving - not unsurprising, with my long-term mnemonic skills. After I stopped going to Pennsy I would go with my parents to the Long Island Platchek Thanksiving show. My maternal grandmother was still alive, Ida, for whom I had no nickname. You can see the closeness my mother fomented between us. This was your smells-funny grandmother, who looked and smelled kinda weird, or old, I guess, despite being potentially younger than Grandma. I can't remember who was what age. I do know Ida died when I was 17, and she was 77, and that had to be in 1985. (The advantage of being born in late January is that there is little math involved in figuring out what year something happened if I know my age. I only have 25 days into any new year before my birthday.) Ma told me a story that Ida had put down a false birthyear on her birth certificate - she made herself two years younger. I find that laughable - so what? Two years. Shit, make it twelve and be done with it.
My other grandmother was not into aging, but not enough to fudge her records. She would always refer to herself as "39 and holding". I remember thinking that I was onto that act. I never understand people and getting bent over something that is a natural part of life. I wouldn't want to be Dorian Gray, either. I'll just take my normal aging lumps, thank you!
Um, where was I? Oh, yes, Thanksgiving. Well, for years we did the Long Island trek to either Douglaston or Queens to do the familial Thaksgiving (everyone's so into turkey, except me). That lasted until the Great Schism, when it was discovered that my mother was siding with the enemy, my uncle John. He and my aunt had split, and it was an ugly, ugly scene, so there were very strong feelings about this. Anyway, my parents made the decision to stay in touch with John and his new (then) girlfriend so when my aunt and cousin found out, they really had conniptions over it.
So after that we went to the Christmas Eve celebrations only, where we were semi-pariahs (which really did not affect us much as a whole), and began having Thanksgivings in Wayne, with my parents, Luis and me and John and Safia. And then ten years ago, it was my parents, Luis and me and John, Safia and Julia, their daughter. After that, we made our Thanksgiving visits shorter (being related to the child hardly makes a difference to me - kids are kids and I don't like kids), but still went.
After last year, however, there was no point in holding Thanksgiving any longer, so now it is just another day off with bad telly and no shopping. At least I don't have to eat turkey any more!
Tomorrow I will amuse myself by working on the Thanksgiving holiday hours for the time system so that this will be complete before I come in to work on Monday to run the payroll. That way it won't take me all bloody day to do it. Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas stuff - those are all the big ones. Christmas Day is the only easy one - EVERYONE gets it since it is the one day of the year - the whole year - that we are closed! All the others have to be calculated by hours worked.
So I have ALL day to blog, read, maybe do some online shopping for Christmas, install Windows 7 on first my office computer, then my laptop, do stuff around the house (cleaning off my desk would be an excellent start), bond with the kitties, hang with Luis... whatever. So many choices!
Blogging first!
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