Thanksgiving, Etc.

Bowman came over with a ladder on Wednesday morning. He helped me get the lights up.

During the lighting of the porch, who should arrive but Kevin Raney! For those of you who have not been following my life, Kevin was the guy who rented this house before me, and was my roommate here for about 20 months or so.

So that was a nice visit.

Then I started putting up the tree, took some junk to the curb, Sara arrived and helped me with my NEW AND IMPROVED TREE LIGHTS, I rushed to pack and get the dishes done (because coming home to a smelly kitchen and dishes waiting to be done is for the birds), got Christmas music loaded into my CD player, and found Christmas music to take home with me.

This way, I'm prepared with holiday music for the drive back to KC, and when I return to KC on Friday night, I can turn the porch lights on, turn my tree lights on (it's still not decorated yet, by the way), and turn on some holiday music.

But I get ahead of myself. There's all sorts of fun between the leaving and the returning.

Just before Sweet Springs we have a flat. Hooray!

While changing the flat, I lose one of the nuts. Hooray!

For the actual "Hooray!", I found the nut, eventually.

We slowly made our way to first Booneville, then Columbia (did you ever notice how few and far between good tire spots are on I-70 at 5:45 the evening before a holiday?), where we lucked out and caught the Wal-Mart folks still open.

New tire. Hooray!

Total time for a trip that usually takes 4 hours on a SLOW trip, and about 3 hours and 15 minutes otherwise: 5 hours and 10 minutes.

So I get home. Not long after I get home, Ruth and Leslie pull me into Mom's room to talk to me. (It's always a good sign when people want to pull you aside, right?)

Short version: My older sister had a cancerous lump in one of her breasts, and opted to have both breast removed, and the surgery was that very day.

Why am I just hearing about it on this day, you may ask?

Well, you need to know a little of my early history, and if you already know this, I apologize. When Mom was in the hospital giving birth to Dane (and probably some time before and after that, but I don't know exactly), my sister took care of me a lot. I was 18 months old when Dane was born. I probably bonded just as much with my older sister as I did with Mom.

So, everyone who knew wanted to put off telling me until they knew where things were. Things are in a fairly good spot now, so it seemed safe to tell me.

Leslie was worried I was going to lose it and start crying, which would mean she would do the same thing. Luckily this year has beaten me down so much and taken so much out of me, all I can do is stare at the horrible things with my mouth slightly slack, and maybe blink a couple of times.

On a less upsetting (but still very stressful) note: The oven decided at 6:30 on Thanksgiving morning that it wasn't going to work.

Luckily Wade knows the people out at the Junction, and they allowed us to use their ovens.

I go to see Les & Paulette, and I got to see Leslie and Jordan, and it was good being home, and I wish I would have spent more time there. Right now I'm debating a trip to Omaha to visit Say.

Anyway, the return trip home wasn't a big deal, as I didn't have a flat or lose a lugnut. And when I got to my house nobody had any horrible news.

I did hear that Ben & Tricia made a big meal on Thanksgiving because Maddie insisted on having a Thanksgiving feast like on Maya and Miguel, and when the turkey was finally done and on the table (there's a whole garbage-disposal-erupts-and-Ben-must-repair-it-as-Tricia-cooks subplot that makes this next bit even better), Madeline says she wants Bologna.

So Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! May your holiday season be a good one.