I have a lot to be thankful for … I have amazing friends, and (generally) a great family. I live in Southern California and enjoy near-perfect weather all year, living in in one of the most prosperous places in the world. And, as much as I’ve had ups and downs, I’m happy, healthy, and thankful for each person in my life. Thank you…

Now, enough of the sappy stuff… how about a little of the bittersweet? (It’s probably a more interesting read.) The first bittersweet moment involves a temper-tantrum of a relative — who occasionally reads this. So we won’t discuss that. The second bittersweet moment of Thanksgiving 2006 involves my Grandma. I call her Boubie — and my other grandmother, who passed away about 3 months ago, was Grandma ‘Netta. (Well, it was really Annetta, but I just called her grandma ‘netta.)

My Aunt and Boubie — with a tiny bit of help from the rest of us — cook a fantastic dinner of turkey, stuffing, jello mold, green beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc … but still my grandmother is a little sad about the missing members of our family. She powers through dinner just fine until, right in the middle of dinner, she looks over at me and says, “So, Jason, how is Grandma ‘Netta doing?”

Yep … you know how you feel that pit in your stomach when you have to tell someone something bad? There was a few heartbeats of silence… that sickening feeling … and then my Aunt says “I’m sorry, Boubie, but Grandma ‘Netta passed away.” Boubie gets up in the middle of dinner and runs out of the room … mad that “none of us told her” and hurt, of course, that my Grandma ‘Netta is gone. And it doesn’t help all that much to tell her that we’d already told her this in the past, and she’d just forgotten. Kind of a no-win situation, no matter how you look at it, huh?

But maybe I’m just an optimist … because that moment was here, and then gone soon enough. And I still had a great meal with family, including a “new” 2nd cousin and her husband who are out, and who I’d never met before this week. My cousin Jake is great (of course, I have to say that, he’s a reader!), although it’s hard with all these other things to spend proper time with him. And I still have the best friends I could ever ask for. So, back to the optimist thing, I’m still happy and having fun, even with a little punctuation of the bittersweet…

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, and thanks for taking an interest, one way or another, in my life!

I guess it’s a good thing that my grandparents don’t surf the internet. Otherwise I wouldn’t feel 100% comfortable writing this… but they’re just getting old. My grandfather decided that he hated everyone today, and that he was going to walk the 10 miles to the VA Hospital. So I went out… told him I was just “keeping him company.” After 2 miles (probably an hour) of freezing cold walking in 20+ mph winds, we (my cousing Jake came along to help for much of it) … we finally convinced him to come home. Ugghh… it seems like forever when you’re doing it, not knowing if in the end we’ll have to force him into the car, or call the police. Or walk all night until I freeze to death (or he does)… So it wasn’t all that pleasant. This picture seemed to sum up how my grandfather must feel … it’s kind of sad, actually, he’s so unhappy (and unfortunately intent on making everyone else miserable, too.)

And on top of that, my grandmother is starting to get pretty forgetful … I think that since my dad went, they just don’t care as much anymore. (The same thing happened to my other grandma after my grandfather (mom’s dad) died.)

So, Reno is this odd little town … sometimes urban, sometimes rural. For instance, we went to a fairly big meat market today. You gotta love this …

Sunset was beautiful, though …. this is taken from my grandparents’ front yard…

One more thing… I’m having cell phone issues, and not answering/returning most phone calls so far … maybe I’ll do better tomorrow, but no promises…

Have a happy thanksgiving!!