The Angel on my Other Shoulder

This year, I'm especially thankful for...

• Finding that one last thing at my parents house that I would have been sad to loose. What was it? A statue I got in Malawi. I forgot I owned it. I saw it, grabbed it, and realized I was about to leave that house for the last time. That was emotional.


• The farm. I love going down to the farm in Kentucky. That's what we always used to do for Thanksgiving, and it really felt like Thanksgiving to be back. Minneapolis is my home but I do love Kentucky.


• The hot tub at the farm. It's Kentucky but they're not hillbillies.


• My job. I love what I do, and I enjoy my colleagues as well. I think I'm pretty lucky in that respect.


• My awesome friends and family. I can't name you all, but if you're reading this blog, you are included.


• So many more things...

And now, a special tribute to my friend Jenny. I'd tell you Jenny's last name but that's a subject of some debate at the moment. You may remember me going home for Jenny's wedding in June (and a certain attic cleaning incident at the same time). Apparently Jenny is rather attached to her current last name and would like to keep and use Doug's last name with a hyphen. I've only heard one side of the story but it sounds like Doug is hurt that his name alone isn't satisfactory to Jenny. In the mean time, nothing has been done and Jenny's maiden name continues on as it always has (or that's how I understand it). Kelly, I think you should tell Jenny how long it actually takes to get your name changed so that she can have it done before they retire.

Why do I want to thank Jenny? Because, someone finally has a small glimpse of what my life was like for, well, ever.

Today Mom, Jenny and I took a walk at California Woods (where I used to work) and then had lunch. Then we went back home because I wanted Jenny to see the awesome job I did on the attic earlier and the follow up job my parents had done in moving stuff. (They really did do a good job. It's almost totally empty now.) Jenny and I were just hanging out so I offered to box some stuff up for Mom. And the three of us got to work on the cookbooks. Apparently Dad had already gone through the cookbooks, and while he claimed to have ditched some, that clearly wasn't true. So Mom authorized the purge of several more. She did a really good job of throwing things out.

And then Dad walked in, and looked longingly at the bags we'd just labeled "Good Will" and "Library Sale", and continued to gaze longingly at the bags despite my reassurance that Mom had authorized all decisions about cookbooks. Now, I'm pretty clear on my feelings towards Mom's hoarding, but she does a really good job of throwing some things away, especially things that can legitimately be useful to others. So when I saw the look on Dad's face as he gazed at these bags, I called out his true identity to the entire room. Remember, he claimed to have gotten rid of the cookbooks they no longer used. When it comes to clutter crap hoarding Dad is really a lion in sheep's clothing. He's the reason they keep so much stuff that's useful but not in use.

Next, Mom asked us to clean off the top shelf of the kitchen pantry, which is when I proclaimed to Jenny that the tides were about to change, there would now be a complete role reversal. Mom would assume the role of Hoarder in Chief and Dad would be the one advocating some semblance of reason.

It was about then that I pulled the first of several half used packages of paper cups off the shelf. Jenny said, "I don't think they make this color any more". I don't think they ever made that color Jenny, but thanks for being nice about it. And then I started pulling the plastic forks, more cups, plates, more forks, plates, cups, napkins, more forks, and more plates off the shelf. Jenny would dutifully take these things out of my hands, lay them on the table to be packed and return to where I was standing on the chair, at which point she would give me a look that said, "you know this is crazy, right?" Followed by a look that possibly said, "no, seriously, this is crazy, why are you cooperating with them?"

Next I found a plastic bag full of what could charitably be called tuppeware. It's really old take out containers and yogurt cups Mom wanted to keep in case she needed to put something in a container for someone else to take home. For that need to arise, we'd actually have to have company in the house which is a whole separate blog post. I tried to persuade Mom that perhaps it wasn't worth the effort or space to move these things to the new house. Mom assured me that these pieces of crap wastes of space gently used, ever so fragile, good for five more seconds of use, food containers could be stored in the new garage. Want to know why you don't have house guests? You think it's ok to put their food in a container you store in the garage.

There are no words for the look on Jenny's face at that point but I'm so happy someone else got to experience a little bit of what my life was like as a kid. All these things were happening that I knew were crazy and Mom (and sometimes Dad) went to great lengths to assure me that this craziness was quite normal and I had a bad attitude for complaining about it. It's like I finally had the little angel on my other shoulder assuring me that these things were, in fact, crazy and I was the only sane person in the room.

So this Thanksgiving, I'm especially thankful for the angel on my other shoulder. It's such a relief to have you there.