Today is World AIDS Day.

I started losing friends to that disease in 1988, and those first few years were terrible. Scotty. John. Richard. Shel. Alan. Ken. Nick. I started volunteering with an AIDS service organization, and later served for 7 years on their board of directors.

I am so lucky that so many of the men I love are living well with HIV. The years of research have helped to control the disease, but not to cure or prevent it. It’s been 25 years since Care Resource was started. We all hoped that it would have fulfilled its mission and been dissolved by now. Such is, unfortunately, not the case.

This is my Red Ribbon Quilt, and it is for sale in my etsy shop for the remainder of December (AIDS Awareness Month). Half of its sale price will be donated in your name to Care Resource, an AIDS service and research organization serving thousands of people in South Florida. You will receive documentation for the tax deduction. If you would prefer your donation go to a different AIDS organization (perhaps your local one) I can arrange for the money to go where ever you like. I will ship this for free.

There are nine hearts, each one different. There is a red ribbon winding around the border. The piece has been quilted in a feather pattern. Fits a queen or double bed. Reverses to a retro print of a sailor.

Size: 70 inches square

All Tante Leah quilts are made of 100% cotton and come from a non-smoking home, but they probably contain trace elements of pet hair.

Oh so long ago and far away, when MizShoes lived in Manhattan, there was a dj who did a Thanksgiving show where he opened by lighting a fire (aka: crinkling cellophane near the mic) and playing “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I thought of it yesterday, as the RLA and I took a break and sat in the fairy garden and watched the koi and the dogs frollicked in the yard.

This was the first Thanksgiving we’ve ever spent together, by ourselves, and at our own home. It had, as I mentioned earlier, gotten me very melancholy. But in the event, it was soooo pleasant, and soooo relaxed and sooooo easy to remember the things that I’m thankful for that are right here under my nose. I could get used to this. Of course, the GirlCousin called and told me not to, because all hands will be back on deck at her home next year.

I haven’t seen a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in decades. Really. I cannot remember the last one I watched. So I watched this one. In high-def on the giant screen. Boy, was I surprised to find myself in total tears, sobbing at the Rockettes. Who knew? When I told the GirlCousin about this startling turn of events, she told me that one of her earliest memories is of going to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall. She was maybe three or four, and turned to her mother and declared that when she grew up, she wanted to “be a croquette.” I told you people. Cooking is in our blood.

I loved seeing the new balloons. I loved the floats. I loved the marching band from Florida comprised of people who had marched in bands in high school or college and were now well beyond those years. They were great! Once a marching band wonk, always a marching band wonk. Most of the folks were decades beyond their marching band heyday, although there were a few faces that seemed considerably fresher than the rest. Mostly, these were folks my age or older, and they had baton twirlers and color guards and everything. I wonder if the GirlCousin still has her batons?

After that, there was something called the National Dog Show. Who knew? I only know from Westminster. There were lots of nice doggies, and the Cavalier won its group, which is nice to see. The setter who won best in show was stunning, and her markings were exceptional. I rolled around on the floor with the Dog of Very Little Brain to celebrate the dog show.

Eventually, I rousted myself from the beading I was doing to cook. We had a standing rib roast (with only one bone, it fell over, making it a laying down rib roast), sauteed brussel sprouts with fresh chestnuts (American, which is a digression I may get to later) and that epitome of 60’s glamor, twice-baked potatoes. There was a little green tea ice cream for desert. And coffee, of course. And cranberries in port wine as an accompaniment. The pumpkin pie I’d baked earlier in the week was long gone. It is my opinion that there is nothing in the world so fine as a breakfast of hot coffee and cold pie. I may go back in the kitchen today to make an apple pie, just to prove my hypothesis.

We watched a movie, and appreciated each other, and the animal companions, and the families and friends that we love and were not with. And it was good.

Now. About American chestnuts. As you may or may not know, the American Chestnut was almost wiped out by blight in the early years of the 20th century, with virtually no trees left by the 1940s. Genetic engineering to incorporate the blight-resistant properties of the Chinese Chestnut has proven effective, but the groves are still young, and so the chestnut industry in the US is still baby-sized. This was the first year that I was able to find American chestnuts at the grocery store, specifically at Whole Foods. I grabbed them. Unlike the Italian chestnuts which are readily available in the grocery store, not a single nut was revealed to contain mold when I cut the shells for roasting. NOT A SINGLE ONE!!!! They were sweet, and they were much easier to shell when roasted. I was very favorably impressed with the quality. Let’s hope the resurgence of the American Chestnut continues.

There is something funky going on. Is the work server denying me access to my blog, or my blog denying me access from work?

There is a difference, you know.

Thank you to RJ who shouldn’t feel guilty, because I did tag the entry with “Maudlin Crap”, and to CousinSteve who wrangled invitations to his sister’s house (yes, that makes her my cousin, but I have so very, very many cousins) which I graciously declined. Thank you, too, to the Number Three Surrogate Daughter, who also felt responsible. Even the GirlCousin and the Smithy are feeling vaguely unsettled. I’m feeling much better now, and thank you and I’m sorry to have whined so well as to trigger an epidemic of Jewish Guilt. Snap out of it! I did.

I made four sets of stitch markers to put in the TanteLeah etsy shop. There were actually five sets, but I wasn’t satisfied with one set, so until I figure out what kind of head pins to use, there may not be more sets. There’s this set: huge baroque pearls and vintage Austrian crystal on a copper pin. Fits up to a US size ten needle,

This set is vintage Austrian flower beads, a single modern glass bead and the copper head pins. Again, they fit over an American size ten needle.

And another set on copper, these have African trade beads, vintage Austrian flowers, turquoise blue white hearts. Fits up to a US size ten needle.

Finally, the set I’m keeping for myself: these have the tiniest little dark wooden skulls, coral, trade beads, the turquoise white hearts and wee chips of gaspeite. These only fit up to a size 9, and I think they’re going to be my favorite sock markers.

But wait! There’s more. I felted a piece of the yarn I spun and plied into a very fine cord. I added a carved/painted bone button to one end and made a loop in the other. Now, I’m embroidering it with beads and pearls. I want it to get heavy, but still show the felt in places. I’ve been working on this since last week.

Well. How did this happen? For the first time in my life, I find myself without a place at the Thanksgiving table, surrounded by friends and family and food. Thanksgiving in the early years was held at my grandparent’s home. My grandmother made kasha and lima beans. Not together, but those are the two foods that I remember that were not found on others’ tables. Kasha varnishkas with bowties, and with a splash of turkey gravy/juice are one of heaven’s treats. Grandma’s lima beans, on the other hand… well, except for my Grandpa, I think I was the only person who ate them. She made them from dried beans. They were not baby limas, either. These things were the size of baby shoes, and about as tasty and tender. I swear that you had to cut them with a knife and fork, too. They were grayish, and there was nothing in them resembling a flavor. Still, I loved them. I have no idea why.

Anyway, as my grandparents aged, the holiday moved to my mother’s home, and as the kids grew up and moved away, she and my father filled the empty spaces with their friends. The event expanded until it was a huge buffet, with multiple tables and all sorts of family and friends. My mother and father hosted the “widows and orphans” and it was a magnificent excess. The lima beans disappeared. The kasha varnishkas was supplied by my Auntie Em. My brother and I fought over the turkey skin, and my father brandished his razor-sharp knives to keep us at bay until he’d finished carving.

In time, that scene shifted to the GirlCousin’s home. The RLA and I would arrive with our ice-crusher and he would mix drinks until the elders were giggling like teenagers, and the teenagers were surreptitiously snagging cosmos. The GirlCousin’s husband discovered the glory of the turkey deep fryer, and since that side of the family avoids poultry skin like the plague, my brother and I were happily left to devour ALL the fried turkey skin with no competition and none of Daddy’s flashing cutlery to hamper us.

This year, the GirlCousin has had to take a pass, because sometimes life gets in the way of hilarity. Her sister-in-law has taken up the standard, and the family feast moved another 60 miles north. Which, unfortunately, puts it a tad beyond my reach. There are dogs. There are no dog sitters. There is the 4 hour drive. There is just no way.

So, I called my friends. Star is heading off to her family’s annual Turkeypalooza, taking with her the Surrogate Daughters. RJ and MJ are heading to Homestead to hang with other friends. MizPearl has plans with the Southern Ladies Auxiliary. My brother in law is off the to the northern end of the state to HIS in-law’s lake house. I called my recently orphaned boy cousins, thinking that they would need to be fed and comforted in the bosom of family…they had their own plans. The Renowned Local Artist and I are on our own.

It is, to be honest, freaking me the fuck out. I love him, and I love the dogs and the cat, but this is not the holiday I’m used to. I expect to be surrounded by family and friends and raucous laughter and tall tales and competitive cooking. Wish me luck, because I’m going to cook for two, and then we’ll go spend time with my mummy. Maybe I’ll take her some kasha varnishkas.

I changed my side bar. I decided that with the election over and Obama in transition mode, that the Bush countdown could go. I read the Newsweek post-election edition cover to cover. I know that the next four years are going to be rough because of what was done to us over the last eight, but I want to look ahead to our bright future.

I had an interesting conversation the other day. A woman I work with told me that she’d been at a time share pitch and the presenter asked “how many of you fought for your country?” And she knew (it being just before Veterans’ Day) that the intent was to find out how many veterans of the armed forces were in the audience. But my friend, she thought of what she does day in and day out, and what her political stance is, and she decided, hell… She fights for her country every day. So she raised her hand as her husband poked her in the ribs and said “you’ve never served in the military.” But, she said, I vote. And I write letters. And I talk about issues. And I make sure people at the end of life have the right sort of support and care. I think that means I’m fighting for this country.

I told her that I agreed. She does. I do. All of us who refused to stand by quietly during this last administration, as it teetered to fascism and stripped away our rights and tore up the constitution, all of us were members of the resistance. Freedom fighters. So yeah, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.