Held tight

Sunday afternoon. A fir tree is in the stand relaxing its branches and filling the living room with so much fresh pine resin I’m almost comatose. We ran out to a tree lot after church and I chose the second one we banged on the ground. Walked around it and I said, that’s it. I usually take so long looking at so many and I get so tense and confused by this silly little decision that I give up and grab the next one and don’t even notice it is worm-eaten on one side, with a broken tip and crooked trunk. But this one is perfect. The Vikings are kicking Chicago. And so, ya, I complained loudly last August when He signed. Being a capricious, adulterous fan, I now consider Favre my own. I can’t even remember, did he play for the Packers? Anita and I have put candles in all the windows. Denis is unusually chatty. A good day.

In all, a good weekend. We drove those eight hours north to the Canadian border and spent Thanksgiving with our son and daughter-in-law. Love them and their little house bursting with color, canned goods, and the sounds of children. (True, the sounds could be a collapse of desperate howling as easily as laughing. Not unique, hey?) They have a new little one – Ava Lou. She’s only two months old but already knows the most important maxim of life – it is much nicer to be held close in someone’s arms for hours on end than to lie cold and unprotected in a crib. Much nicer.

On Wednesday night we arrived in time to watch Anson at hockey practice, which is serious business up there. Although he can’t manage an upright side-scrape stop, (falling down and hitting the boards works for now) he skates with such fierce enthusiasm

it’s scary.

We didn’t eat the turkey on the big day. The only turkeys were the decorated cupcakes Micah made for the kids. It was pig and fish for us. Jerem deep-fried fresh walleye – nothing like it - and grilled a porketta roast. It’s an odd thing that the few Italians who settled up there long ago and are almost extinct now left behind a tradition of deboning and rolling a pork roast in so much garlic and spice you could smell my breath from the far end of the Metrodome. Micah made the rest of the meal – all good, but her bread. Give her flour and yeast and she will turn it to gold. I guess I did do the apple cranberry pie. Oh. And Denis did the olive cheese plate. All good.

Got home last night and we plan to stay put forever. Not leaving home again. Ever.