those close to me know that i tend to go overboard from time to time, especially when it comes to decorating or entertaining guests. i don't really know where it comes from. when i was growing up, we rarely had large dinners to entertain many people. sure, my mom has always provided a multitude of food items (always her 'relish dish') at any family gathering, but it was always casual and simple. i, however, will make sure that every minuscule detail is in place, for any number of guests. even when others are expecting a casual, easy-going gathering, i will be tidying up, making sure things are in place, or finding that perfect plate to put the appetizers on.
so it should be not exception when i am entertaining guests for a post-thanksgiving dinner. i want it to be a nice, family-style dinner. but even before i can put the food on the table, i had to get other details ready!
i decided to use cloth napkins so i found directions to make a pouch for the silverware. (i may have even ironed all the creases!)
i created my own centerpieces by taking square, glass vases and a white pillar candles surrounding them by fresh cranberries.
and finally, i'm excited to use my pumpkin pie dish (from c&b). i've been waiting a year to use it since my mom purchased it for me after the fall season (i'd been talking about it incessantly since i first saw it). doesn't it look great?!
thanksgiving is a great holiday. it's a day to spend with your family and loved ones while completely gorging yourself on yummy food. but, the highlight each year of my thanksgiving is the macy's thanksgiving day parade! each year we would go to my grandma's house for thanksgiving. dinner would always start promptly at noon, but prior to that, i would settle in to watch the parade roll down broadway in new york city.
i love watching the giant balloons slowly make their way down the street, held down by a large group of people. i enjoy watching the newest broadway shows perform their hit number in front of the macy's flagship store. i can't wait to see which high school and college bands will march their way through the parade. i love seeing tom turkey start the parade while santa brings up the finale of the parade, officially kicking off the holiday season.
i don't know when my obsession with the parade started. perhaps it's when i was in marching band and paraded down streets myself or when my sister was invited to join the UCA cheerleaders for the 2000 parade (in all her yellow cheerleading uniform glory!). regardless of the reason, each year i find myself glued to the tv. this year will be no different!
i like nearly everything keith olbermann has to say. and, this is an extremely moving reaction to the passing of proposition 8 in california.
watch the clip, but then read the full transcript as i have included statements i strongly agree with in bold.
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives. And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?
I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay. And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.
How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work. And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."
i just had some delicious bar-b-q from jim & nick's tonight in birmingham, alabama! i kept it traditional with some pulled pork bar-b-q with some mashed taters and creamed spinach on the side. oh, and some cheesy biscuits to start off. my belly is full and happy!
and i was quite delighted to discover they are a chain. there's even a location in my old stompin' ground of charlotte, nc!
this past weekend i arrived at the airport in columbus, ohio, ready to start my day and get home. when my crew got to the gate, we saw a lot of people. then i noticed the matching white and blue tshirts. we would be working the honor flight from columbus to baltimore/washington. the operations agent told us that it would be a longer boarding time (up to 1 hour) and that there would be 32 wheelchairs. i was ready to get started so we could get out on time and get the veterans to their destination.
we begin boarding. standing in the middle of the plane, i watched a few of the wwII veterans coming on board in their wheelchairs. some had to be assisted to their seat while others had to be completely lifted from their wheelchair onto the seat on the plane. as more of the veterans came on, they would say some witty comments as they passed me or grab my shoulder a bit, but all of them had a large smile on their face. it was contagious. typically i attempt to have my "boarding smile" on when people are coming on the plane, but today it was a true, happy smile. i was glad to see these veterans come aboard. i started to think about how genuinely happy these men and women were to be going to our nation's capital to see THEIR memorial. everyone was seated and we left the gate, right on schedule!
on our short flight over to baltimore/washington i had the opportunity to speak with a few of the guys, briefly. roger, who was now only able to get around in his motorized wheelchair due to paralysis in his legs, was a member of the glenn miller orchestra. he was a drummer for the famed band! one of the honor flight guardians told me that this particular trip to washington d.c. was rescheduled from an early trip which was cancelled due to weather back in september. these veterans were eager to get there. they hadn't been waiting only 2 months, they had been waiting over 60 years for the tribute to their service.
upon arrival to baltimore/washington airport, a group with american and military flags were waiting on them in the gate area. after walking off the plane, each solider passed by the flags while hearing the passengers waiting to board the next flight clapping and cheering them on. each of these veterans felt special and felt appreciated for their heroic service to our country. when i started to think more about what i was just a part of, it became a bit emotional. while i was able to hold back the tears, it was truly an honor to help get this group of veterans to the memorial they so deserved.
while this is also a flight from cmh to bwi, this was not the honor flight that i worked.
