T-Day '24

 

Ah, perhaps my favorite holiday of the year! Thanksgiving, a time for not only giving thanks for what we’ve been blessed with, but also a time of relaxation, reflection, refreshment, and an overall pause from the hectic busyness of life.

 

Thanksgiving and Easter are, hands-down, my favorite holidays of the year. Christmas is a far distant third, as I often find it one of the more stressful stretches of the year (“Spendmas,” endless socializing). But this year, however, I was extremely proactive, and over these past couple of days off for the Thanksgiving holiday I was able to get my Christmas shopping done save for a stocking stuffer or two.

 

Anyway, we had an enjoyable, peaceful couple of days down here in Texas. The weather finally turned brisk, with most days hovering in the high 50s / low 60s with nights dropping down below 40. Little One was home from college since the Saturday before, and Patch was off from school all week too. I worked a full crunch day on Monday with two hours Tuesday morning to get all my November accounting done. After 10 am on Tuesday, I’ve been in holiday mode.

 

The girls spent time with their mom thrifting, holiday shopping, and at the grocery store(s) for our big meal on Thursday. They all caught up on their baking shows and their SVU criminal shows while I listened to my records and read. One afternoon we all watched a corny Hallmark flick and in the evenings put away a couple of episodes of our newest season of 24. Little One and I watched half of Donnie Darko. Patch and I watched some Regular Show episodes. And among all this laying around in front of the tube we all pitched in to clean the house, run last-minute errands, walk the dog, and all the other ephemera a household needs to run. I actually lifted weights and walked a few miles a couple of days.

 

The Mrs. baked a pumpkin pie Wednesday evening, while my girls alternated on dinner duty during the weekdays leading up to Thanksgiving. Me, I don’t cook. I’m the cleaner. I must’ve washed a hundred dishes, glasses and utensils and loaded/unloaded the dishwasher a half-dozen times. But the ladies outdid themselves cuisine-wise. They started early Thursday cooking the turkey (my wife), stuffing, cranberry and carrots (Little One), and sweet potato casserole (Patch). And it was all mouth-watering-ly perfect.

 

Around 2 in the afternoon I made up a charcuterie board – sliced cheddar cheese, soppressata, and crackers. The Mrs. heated up some brie to go along. We had our “appetizers” in the living room along with Margaritas (the ladies) and my favorite fake beer, Run Wild by Athletic Brewing Company. We chatted and relaxed for about an hour, then they all descended upon the kitchen for the last-minute push while I put on the Giants-Cowboys game.

 

Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment; but I haven’t seen the Giants play all year but I have followed them and am rooting for The Tanking. More so that the front office and coaching departments can get shown the door. But they fought valiantly against Dallas, and though they did not win, as expected, they weren’t blow out, which was unexpected. But I got to witness firsthand the sloppy, undisciplined, uninspired, unathletic play of the New York Giants.

 

We still had a few minutes of daylight left before dinner, so the girls and I went outside and tossed around a football. Both my girls can throw a wicked spiral with some mph on it, usually better than I can. It was a fun little callback to their youth when we’d do the same, only in snow. Then we went back in and had one of the best Thanksgiving meals the Mrs. put out ever.

 

 

 

Once the table was cleared we took Charlie the dog on a short car ride to the ponds by my house, where we could walk through brightly-lit life-size Christmas ornaments along the walkway. Upon returning we watched Christmas Vacation and had some pumpkin pie. After that, Little One had to get to bed early as she’d be working in the mall for Black Friday and whatever color Saturday is. The Mrs. was wiped out and she too went to bed early. Patch retired to the “apartment” upstairs to text friends. I let the dog out and crated him for the night, then reclined in my reading chair with my fourth Koontz book, Dragon Tears. Read 80 pages until I, too, could no longer fend off the turkey tryptophan, and hit the hay.

 

A great Thanksgiving. Simple, fun, and just the immediate family. True, we do miss our extended family and our friends throughout the US and feel a little guilty about being so far away, but Facetime is a wonderful thing.

 

Now to gather the strength for Christmas, less than four weeks away …

Prayer Request

 

All kidding aside, I’ve been hamster wheelin’ these past ten days, struggling with work to get November closed early so I can use my use-or-lose PTO time for the end of this month. I am now off for the next five days, including yesterday, and don’t restart the monthly merry-go-round until Monday, December 2. That being said, I now have glorious time to read my Koontz, start a Civil War historical atlas, watch some Hallmark, horror and SF movies with my girls, and write some blog posts.

The usual year-end ones are on the horizon: the 2024 Best-Ofs; some thoughts on what should be the Picture of the Year, as well as my own Picture of the Year; a review of all these Dean R. Koontz novels I’ve been re-reading; and a 2025 Reading Plan, for those keeping track at home. Also a recap of Thanksgiving, celebrated tomorrow, and anything else I find newsworthy in the remaining five weeks of the year.

Sigh

 

Seems like it’s open season on my wallet this month …

 

Synchronicity or Syzygy?

 

“God teaches the soul by pains and obstacles, not by ideas.” – Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence

 

“What stands in the way becomes the way.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

S = ∫ (t1 to t2) L dt

 

Measured in joules / second, or accomplishments per unit of life.

 

Guitar Strap Height Guide

 

A very true and illuminating peek for non-musicians into the mind of the guitarist:

 

I played seriously in hard rock bands from 1986 to 1996, and my guitar strap journey started at the far right of the diagram, moved quickly to the left, then slowly rose again returning rightward. (Though I always referred to it as guitar strap length.)

 

For reference, Jimmy Page hovers at the far left, Robert Fripp of King Crimson at the far right, and someone like Alex Lifeson occupies the middle of the diagram, with Angus near Jimmy and Steve Howe near Fripp.

 

Gave me a chuckle this morning.

 

Dean Koontz

 

So I decided to end my year re-reading some of the novels of Dean R. Koontz.

 

I had such a great time re-reading Tom Clancy’s books earlier this year, from March to August. I wrote a couple of posts here detailing the experience. The re-reading was filled with nostalgia and the books still packed a punch, be it through shock or can’t-put-it-down suspense. I graded them all A’s, and threw plusses or double-plusses on the ones I really enjoyed. Most importantly, re-reading these books became a little oasis from the daily grind, the never-ending duel with issues and problems and curve-balls that work- and family- and personal-life consistently throw at me.

 

When I finished, I started seeking a new oasis. And I found it.

 

Way way way back in the 20th century I was hooked on Dean R. Koontz. This was even before I heard of Tom Clancy. I wasn’t keeping any records back then, but I think it must have been from 1989 to 1993 that I read through about 15 of his books. I have a hard time remembering which ones I read because a) it was a lifetime ago and b) his books tend to have generic titles.

 

I do remember the first book of his I read, 1989’s Midnight.  I was 22 and still living at home with my parents. A buddy, a fellow-reader, the guy who got me addicted to Stephen King in high school, recommended it to me one summer day. And soon enough I read through something like 15 more Koontz novels, most in the span of a busy four years. Busy because I was working full time, attending night school, managing a girlfriend, renting a house with two other guys then getting my own apartment, all while trying to launch a successful rock band. Yeah, even with all the partying I did back then I had so much energy I still shake my head in wonder. How I found time to read anything at all amazes me, but I did. It was an oasis back then.

 

Fortunately, the local library here stocks about 20 of his novels, all in hardcover. On Halloween I borrowed Midnight and burned through it in a week. (I am still reading the massive One Thousand Days narrative of the JFK presidency and am about 2/3rds done with that.) Later tonight I’ll take Patch out for dinner and stop at the same library for the next Koontz on my list, The Bad Place (1991).

 

Most of the Koontz books yield few specific memories save for a character or two, one or two shocking scenes, and a bare bones outline of the plot. For my re-reading list I’m using how I recall my gut feeling about the book. Midnight and The Bad Place give good vibes. I plan on reading four more to the end of 2024, for similar recollection of good vibes: Cold Fire (1992), Dragon Tears (1993), Twilight Eyes (1985), and Lightning (1988).

 

Two other Koontz’s I read and enjoyed back then, Whispers (1980) and Phantoms (1983) I would put on my re-read list then had I not re-read them in the early 2000s. I’d recommend either one to a reader interested in Koontz for the first time. They even made a movie of Phantoms in 1998 starring Ben Affleck (!) and Peter O’Toole (!!!). It was terrible, please avoid.

 

The last book of his I originally read up until last week was Intensity (1995), and it was the only Koontz I hated. I remember it as standard serial-killer cat-and-mouse humdrum, with a stretch of 40 pages describing a woman trying to free herself while tied in a chair. After reading that I moved on from horror in general, though I’m aware he started writing several series of interconnected novels, including an updated version of the Frankenstein saga.

 

Koontz is a prodigious and prolific writer, publishing something like 145 novels, if my counting of his Wikipedia bibliography is accurate, dating back to the late 1960s, under a variety of pen names. At least two other novels were made into movies, Hideaway (1992) with Jeff Goldblum (I liked the story but the special effects were atrocious) and the very-well received Demon Seed (1973), about a computer which forcibly imprisons and later impregnates a woman. That movie, from 1977, gave me many unsettling nightmares from my youth sneak-watching it in the early days of cable TV.

 

I’ll do a re-evaluation at the end of the year, similar to what I did for Clancy, on how the books held up over 30 years. Or perhaps how my memory held up. Regardless, it will be seven weeks of fun reading, a cool oasis from the hustle-and-bustle of Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping, obligations, and work for the remainder of 2024.