Yet Still More to be Thankful For

I had a great Thanksgiving this year. I got a whole new set of outlaws and a new mom. My mother and father both passed away last year, so it was kind of up in the air what my brothers and I were going to do. We decided to get together over the weekend at my brother Rob’s in Hastings, NY.

For turkey day festivities, I went to Mark and Helene Leue’s house in Ashfield, parents of my daughter’s boyfriend Ian. Sarah calls them her outlaws, so now I do too. Outlaws are great. You can turn them into in-laws whenever you want, but that might be something you might want to do in your own good time, and in the meantime, why worry about formalities?

We had a wonderful dinner with all the fixins, met lots of kinfolks, and Mark showed us around the compound, including a greenhouse with a hot tub and the workshop where he makes and repairs stringed instruments of all kinds.

And on our way back from Hastings, Sarah and I stopped to visit my new mom, Kim Orlando of TravelingMom.com. We met up on the press trip to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma and became old friends right off the bat.

So I had a great time, but let me tell you, I’m getting too old to drive in urban areas, especially at night. It’s those guys who tear by you on the right. Here I just want to move over into the grandpa lane, and they would rather kill you than let you by. And they do! You can see the burned-out wrecks by the side of the road.

From now on it’s the choo-choo train for me!