My earliest, fondest memories are these, sitting at my Granny Opal’s round kitchen table, she with a steno pad in her hands, as we solemnly brainstormed the menu for Thanksgiving dinner. 

I might have been four.  And while it may be that I can’t remember being four and at her tables, it is a memory firmly set regardless because it happened every year in my childhood, just this way. 

The menu rarely changed but it was the ritual of taking notes, of planning, of preparing for the family that we loved. I’ve taken it as my job ever since, even though my family isn’t the compact little unit it was when I was a child. Then, it consisted of two grandmothers, my parents, and whatever siblings I had at the time.  Even when it was just my older brother and me, it felt like a party.

Now, I sit with my notepad and try to plan for Thanksgiving and it is hard.  It isn’t even true planning, more like wishful thinking with paper, because we are on the generation four times removed from that 1950s kitchen on Triplett Street.  It is a true party now, when we are all together, although this happens so seldom, it is sad to think of it.  

There are challenges this year. My house is still upside-down, and clearly not ready for company, and my sister has a bum shoulder so she is benched for the duration.  The babies are likely to be no-shows because their dad has to work and their sleep schedules have finally taken hold and their mother isn’t ready to mess that up for a piece of turkey and a slice of pie.

Katie is exhausted, besides, and I suspect the idea of just chilling at home, Thanksgiving just another day, may be more a draw than a fifteen minute meal.  And you know it’s true, all that work, all that planning, and some slob polishes off two plates of food before the hostess has sat down for her first sip of tea. 

Other nieces and nephews are with their families, either the McDonoughs or their in-laws, and that is just fine, too.  We will get together soon enough, for birthdays and Christmas, but it leaves me with a notepad full of doodles instead of grocery lists.  Which is not to say I have been idle.

I cleaned out my freezer and found a turkey, one bought a while ago, and an off-brand at that, but I decided to do a test turkey, using Gordon Ramsay’s promise of the perfect holiday bird. 

As bombastic as he is, he is still a great chef, and he has a sweet Christmas video of preparing at home for the holidays.  I dug in last weekend and tried his bird.  

What a mess.  Let’s start with the bird, frozen too long to be very good, but still.  His process was involved and included draping the bird with bacon and cramming it full of butter and garlic, onion and lemon.  All I can say is, what a waste of good bacon.  It wasn’t bad, just not Thanksgiving.  In his video he makes an interesting cranberry chutney which I am happy to give a go, but I am back to brining my bird in a Gott cooler, and I will not be persuaded otherwise. 

Every year I sprawl, exhausted on my couch, avoiding the mound of dishes in my kitchen, wondering where my leftovers are–oh, yes, still at my sister’s, never to be seen by me again. This year it might not be such a bad thing, a quiet, small Thanksgiving. 

I am not writing Katie and the babies off just yet.  I can imagine she shows up mid-afternoon, knowing something is going on without her.  That would be fine.  No fuss, no expectation, babies in their everyday duds, pie and dressing and mashed potatoes all in a jumble for her partaking.  And if not, well, then, an excuse to see the babies, anyway, as we fight over who takes them food. 

I have had quiet Thanksgivings before.  I always pout about it.  But then, something magical happens.  The day arrives in serenity and quiet.  The afternoon unfolds with naps and pie, and naps again.  We can hear ourselves think.  We can hear each other talk. And the dishes practically wash themselves. This, too, a reason to give thanks.

My first big trip out of town as a child never happened.  I was seven and my parents, brother and I were going to St. Louis for the weekend to stay with friends and go to the zoo.  But then, on Monday, October 22, JFK spoke to the nation at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, and my parents pulled the plug on the trip. 

They were afraid we would get there and not get back, since the new interstate highway system was also part of our civil defense.  We were leaving my two younger siblings with my grandmother and that worried them, too, not being able to get back to them.  Frankly I didn’t see the big deal, but the decision was made.

My girls group traveled that very highway last week to visit St. Louis, where our pal, Linda has settled, and it was a great time all the way around. Linda is St. Louis’s biggest cheerleader and she her husband, Tim, know all the best things to see and do.  And eat. 

We stayed in the Central West End, at the Chase Park Sonesta, an fine old hotel with helpful staff, a pool, and movie theatre with multiple screens attached to it.  And real popcorn, you all, real popcorn.

It charmed the socks off us, as did the neighborhoods we visited. Linda and Tim are foodies, so we had reservations at some wonderful places.  My favorite was Frazer’s, which served a mean Manhattan and the best halibut I’ve ever had.  I’m not much of a fish eater, but I could have this dish five days week.  

We moseyed back to the hotel by way of an ice cream parlor and got back to our rooms around ten, where we commenced our “grandmother shower” for our friend, Margaret.  She is expecting her first grandchild in November and I had generously offered to host it later in the fall.  We thought we could load her up with all the stuff she will need when the baby comes to visit.  Someone suggested doing it in St, Louis since we would all be there. Julie and Nancy hit the Dollar Tree for decorations,  headwear, and party favors, and I got completely let off the hook for a shower down the road. 

Plus, we surprised Margaret and that is hard t do. 

The next morning we wandered down to the lobby to meet up for cooking school, out in Chesterfield, where Chef Laura walked us through a Mediterranean salad, herbed pork tenderloin, homemade pasta with a tomato and vodka sauce.  I was irritated by all the side conversations and inattention of my fellow students, because I am a serious home chef and I was trying to take notes.  

We had to hurry back because some of us wanted to sit by the pool.  I took a nap.  I also went exploring.  I needed some aspirin and Linda suggested I check out the pharmacy in Ladue–a very nice part of town–and I found it, in a little strip mall and crammed full of the most wonderful things.  It is a pharmacy, yes, but also the purveyor of great soaps and body lotions, interesting gifts and even toys, plus an excellent small, but well curated, book section.  I bought things for me, and a couple of Christmas gifts, besides the aspirin.

Linda and Tim had us back to their home for drinks before dinner. Their home might have been in Manhattan, it was that cool.  Soaring ceilings, the walls painted rich colors, interesting artwork, and Blanton, the biggest and sweetest and best-behaved something-doodle I have ever met. We talked over each other while Tim quietly served us drinks. 

My parents and brother and I eventually make it to St. Louis. I was going to be Jane Goodall, had watched her for years with her chimpanzees, not unlike my stuffed one, Zippy, and this was going to be my life.  I would work along side her, a chimp swinging from my neck.  I couldn’t wait to get to the monkey house to see them. 

Alas, my career goals were crushed that very day.  Never had I smelled anything so awful.  And I had two toddler siblings.  I opened the door and gagged, ran as fast as I could through the monkey house,  never to think of them again. It was a sad and clarifying moment, and I only admired the great apes in the  pages of college anthropology texts after that.

These surely are the dog days of August, making us sweat and enticing us into the streets to chant “Attica, Attica” along with a young Al Pacino.I am confident this will be the last worst week in terms of temperature for the summer. We may still have some hot days but with September comes a different underlayment for all that heat.  

Even if humidity is high, there is still that certain something that promises fall.  The heat may be awful, but it doesn’t penetrate in quite the same way it does in July. Weeks can be peppered with days that are downright autumnal, and they catch us by surprise, the way they just sort of waft around us. The heat then returns but so, too, do   the signs that signal the fading away of summer.  First in the flowerbed where the annuals are already checking out, then the trees and burning bushes give hints of the reds and golds to come. 

My house project has kept me from being the good aunt I want to be, tying me down when I should be helping my niece, Katie, with the twins and Cy.  I don’t worry too much, though, because she has good help, and none more wonderful than her next door neighbor, Bev.  We all should be so lucky as to have a Bev.  She has taken this little family next door to heart, and there are popsicles in her garage fridge to prove it. 

Cy makes a bee-line for her whenever she is out.  First, he loves Bev, and second, he loves popsicles.  She is that neighbor, who hears the babies screaming and comes over in her unassuming way and offers to hang out for a while, or to take Cy for a walk.  She is always uncovering toys and wonders her kids and grandkids no longer need:  a bouncy house, and the best thing ever, a play house with doors and windowsills.  Cy loves it and he “mows” the grass around his little castle almost every day.  

She comes in with little duds for Cy and the babies, “free, practically,” she always says, because she is a savvy shopper and hits the sales.  I’ve met her daughter, too, someone else Cy loves, because she gets him popsicles, as well,  but only after asking Dad if it is okay.  Those neighbors. A true blessing for a young family, and they love her. 

And Maui.  What an awful thing is the devastation and loss of life in Maui. Paradise is not supposed to burn, and from everyone I know who has been to Hawaii, it is pure paradise.

The banyan tree in Lahaina, grown huge and branching into sixteen trunks.  Early on this is one of the first things my friends who have seen it were sad about. That was before the horrifying news about the loss of life began to trickle in, and now the grief is for them, and the families still working to locate loved ones.  

The ones who died in the sea trying to escape the flames.  The ones who died running inland.  And so many of them children, it is feared, in the town of Lahaina, where the parents were at work and they were at home when the flames arrived. A terrible tragedy and we pray for our island neighbors. 

We said goodbye to Ann and Logan on Saturday, my sister-in-law’s mother and her second husband.  They were college sweethearts for a time, and reconnected  decades later at a class reunion at their old college.  By then, Ann was living in Owensboro and Logan joined her, and they would have been married twenty years this Thanksgiving. 

In truth, we lost both of them a while ago, Logan five years ago, and Ann in February.  But it was their wish to have their ashes buried together, and the blended families joining for a celebration of their lives together, and sharing a meal at the Moonlite, the place we first gathered to celebrate them as a couple that long-ago November. 

This was Ann and Logan.  Easy, fun, practical, and happy as teenagers, sweet and quirky. 

They were permanent fixtures for every family gathering, our bonus grandparents, easy to have around and easy to love.  I am grateful for the gift of both of them, grateful for the extra family members their union brought to our lives.  Grateful for the way my sister-in-law and brother took care of them.  It is no small thing, the simple love of family.