Early Morning Connecticut

Last night Dixie and I went to pick up Marty at the airport. He was returning from North Carolina and we took him for a slightly belated birthday dinner at Black Eyed Sally's in Hartford. They have the greatest barbecue and blues. Everything was fine until I had a beer at dinner, my first alcohol since the beginning of August or so. You'd think it would make me drunk, but it was such a shock to my system that I skipped right over "drunk" and went straight to "exhausted." When we got home at 9:30, I was in the bed before Marty even got his suitcase out of the car. Slept straight through to 6:00 this morning and woke up feeling like I'd been asleep for a year.

It's been a week of early mornings. Thanksgiving day I woke up at 4:30 and got Dixie up soon after. By 6:00 we were in the car, headed for Manhattan and the Macy's parade. We got there and parked on 70th and West End, then walked to the parade route on Central Park West. We were there by 7:50. Spent some time walking in Central Park until the crowd started to get thick on the sidewalks, then joined them to stake a claim for the parade. I made an exception to my rule and actually stood on a subway grate on the sidewalk. I have an irrational fear of those things falling through the concrete, but it was 27 degrees out there Thursday, and that warm air felt good. We were both glad to be wearing many layers of clothing. Dixie had on 2 shirts, 2 sweaters, tights, 2 pairs of socks, jeans, a coat, a hat, a scarf, and gloves with mittens over them. I was dressed just about the same.

Dixie and I both thought it was one of the best Thanksgivings ever. The parade is very, very cool. It was gorgeous day in New York despite the temperature. The sky was bright blue and cloudless. People were having a good time. The marching bands were kicking up their heels and being thankful for the layers and layers of long underwear under their uniforms. The balloons were flying at about half-mast because of the somewhat high winds, so it felt like they were just about right on top of us. The country music singers on the floats looked cold, very cold. The Sesame Street gang was dressed for the weather, as was Emeril Lagasse. The Baha Men seemed to be enjoying their 15 minutes of fame.

Dixie and I nibbled on ham sandwiches and oohed and ahhed over the balloons. Around us, kids sitting on their dads' shoulders yelled for their favorite characters. Across the street, the apartment building windows were full of kids and parents watching the parade from their own cozy living rooms.

After the parade we walked across Central Park, climbing on the rocks along the way. Then we walked down Fifth Avenue and looked in the shop windows, all decked out for the holidays. We made it to Rockefeller Plaza before we got too cold to keep on, then we headed back to the car in a cab. It was a great morning.

On our way back to Connecticut we stopped at a diner in Stamford for a great Thanksgiving lunch, complete with the requisite funky stuffing. (Anytime you have someone's stuffing besides your own or your mom's, it's funky. But this had pineapple and chestnuts in it, so it was truly funky.) We had a great day. I'm thinking this trip could become a thanksgiving tradition.

Today the sky is white and the trees in my backyard are bare. At this time of year, we can see all the houses behind ours that are obscured by the woods during the summer. Behind our house is a big gulch with a creek running along it, and across the divide on the other bank is a whole neighborhood that we forget about during the rest of the year. I am sitting in front of the computer wrapped in an old pink blanket, still shivering a little as the house warms up. Something else to be thankful for: our gas furnace. This time last year we were still waiting to have it installed, and we were miserable beyond belief with the electric baseboard heaters that were in the house when we bought it. I remember friends coming to visit for the weekend and all of us piling on the couch together under many blankets to watch movies in the evenings. Thank goodness this is a warmer house today.

As much as I love our historic home, sometimes I dream about our next house, all new and shiny and well-insulated. None of these cracks in the front door or single-glazed windows. None of these biting drafts blowing through the walls across the floors. But then I look out the window at the wood siding and think about all the years and lives that this house has seen, and I still feel lucky to live here. I hope we stay for a long time. No harm in dreaming of the future, though.

Speaking of dreaming, just before Ziggy woke me up today I was having a vivid dream that Dixie and I were in Detroit. Except Detroit looked a lot like Cincinnati. And we were staying at a hotel where the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile was based, so we were very excited and kept running out into the parking lot to check it out. We were about to call Maria to come down and stay with us when I woke up to a cat staring me in the face, wondering when the hell I was going to go downstairs to feed him.

And I guess I'd better go and do that right this minute.

Bonus picture: I took this picture of the Mirror of Erised in the window of the WB store on Fifth Avenue. This is the mirror that shows you your heart's true desire. Check out who Harry's seeing in the mirror this time:

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