Isn’t it funny how we schedule things we want to do and won’t let anything interrupt them? Funny might not be the right word but detail obsessive takes too long to write or say.
Thanksgiving qualifies for being on our schedule – being with those we prefer and eating too much. It’s been that way for years. Until this one.
Going to the garage on Sunday has become like going to Mass was back when we put on our best clothes and sat in the same order in the car and the pew, then went home to the same Sunday meal in the dining room instead of the six-night a week kitchen table. It’s just what we did. Scheduled.
It explains why it’s so comfortable to go to the same garage at the same time on the same day every week, and you should see the beer selection. My pal made a totally out-of-character decision to provide Miller in bottles instead of cans last week. He was so proud you’d have thought he’d invented birth.
Conversation was easy once we got over the bumps. Trumps. It’s amazing that a famous and powerful man who lives hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles from here can still crack a verbal whip so hard we feel the welt.
Why?
A lot of it has to do with sheer moxie. The man can declare that women let him do whatever he wants to them; that he’s a stable genius; that calling a U.S. Senator Pocahontas is an insult; that part of his beauty is that he’s very rich; and that it’s not fair to attack him with facts.
Oh, you know, none of that amounts to more than bragging. Many things DJT says are nonsense, but it’s nonsense reported on the news with the intention of being first to let the world know.
And Joe Biden? He gets mixed up. Who doesn’t? He isn’t mean-spirited. If we want competence, he’s got it. Lots of elected people are competent. Some are ideal – robust, objective, good listeners. But they have these traits the majority of voters don’t seem to get over – non-White, non-male, non-Christian, non-straight, and poor.
We moved on to Thanksgiving and how we each spent the day. The meal with those we’re closest to was not so much an option as a threat this year. He was planning on his kids and grandson traveling to be with him and that didn’t work out. Airplanes might have clean, filtered air, but airports, baggage claims, taxis, rental cars, and eating out don’t.
We decided it was time to let kind words take root, but continued to blither. “No borders, just horizons would be nice,” he said. “But this is an uncharted, unreliable, unanticipated, crazy, thought-provoking time in our lives, right?”
We needed to laugh. And right then a neighborhood EMT showed up for our garage powwow.
“I didn’t really miss Thanksgiving dinner,” he said. “Last year was worse. We fed my nephew we hadn’t seen in ages. He’d dropped his nuts and his voice went weird. Nothing’s ever the same. Did you know a man can gain weight fishing?”
And I wasted a perfectly good mouthful of Miller from a bottle.