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Happy Thanksgiving!

This is Thanksgiving Day.
Mari and I have just finished demolishing
a very small turkey and its appurtenances.

We decided to have thanksgiving together, alone.
As a consequence, we got up when we felt like it,
made coffee, read three newspapers,
and agreed on a very general plan
about when to eat. "Oh, maybe about two", we said.

That is not how larger dinners go.
Usually, we wonder who to invite,
fuss about a time,
find out from them who can come,
and then arrange our lives according to
the logic of the industrial revolution.

That is to say, we work our way
through the logistics of how to build a car
on an assembly line, making sure that each part
is ready, and in the right place, so that
everything fits together.

We had minor assembly questions--we two--
a half dozen ingredients (a minor festival, you know),
that should be done at about the same time.
Today, the turkey--a very small turkey--
finished early, but that didn't matter:
we let it rest until we were ready.

The wine actually set the pace.

Mari, having fought off the effects of food long enough,
said, "Where's my book?"  Finally she found her book,
and is napping on the couch, cuddling her book.

Maybe, a long time ago, life was more like that
than figuring out how to put a car together,
each part arriving on time, with a time table.
Maybe people came at about noon
and did what they wanted--greeting, laughing,
piddling about, until things came together.
Perhaps taking a nap.

Maybe they didn't do that, but they should have.

It has been nearly a perfect day,
except for cleaning up, which will happen
when I feel like it, or agree to the logic of it.  .

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