Donna, sorry to hear that. We are dealing with the 'oldies' too - both the fathers are doing poorly. Hope everyone had a good turkey day, regardless of your beliefs or desires to celebrate one way or another - the meaning of family togetherness is important and should be celebrated regardless of the origins of the event. Life is too short. 

I got my new lenses today, and this was staring back at me in the mirror, what happened?

However you take it is okay w/ me, here is a great interview with Sherman Alexie, one of my favorite American writers, the author of "Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven." It is on the meaning of Thanksgiving for a native American. He manages to put his literature in it. 

Sherman Alexie: Thanksgiving is a Story of Survival

For me.., Because I like to cook on the trenches, I still managed to roast a turkey for my wife and our dog mr. Rupert, all the while boxing the china for the move... Kind of cannibalistic for a Turk though.

My parents are long gone but my FIL is still hanging on. Barely, with around the clock care. I wouldn't want to endure that kind of deteriorating existence and hope to be able to make the decision to check myself out at the appropriate time.

Right to die is one of the most important and widely ignored issues of our time.

Happy post Turkey Day TC!

Speaking of death and dying, has anyone read Atul Gawande's 'Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End'?

Anyone else eating too much this holiday?

My mother has long discussed with me her desire for eventual assisted life closure, so to speak.  I keep saying I'm not sure I have enough courage to actually help, but I will definitely support her decision.  In any case hopefully it is many years before we actually need to think about it.  I think anyone who has watched a loved one struggle with dementia would not welcome the thought of going through that themselves.

Donna no turkey outfit, unfortunately.  A couple of our visiting family members got TERRIBLY sick so we have mainly been juggling how to keep them comfortable, keep them far far far away from the baby, and keep the non-sick family members entertained, all in wayyyy below-average temps.  So far we've had success!  

I did REALLY want to dress kid up as a garden gnome for Halloween… kid was a few weeks old and still had that perfect wizened, red-faced old man look.  But again we had record low temps and it was hard to put anything fun together!  Oh well.

Ha, orhan, you cannibalistic Turk.  I love it.  Where are you moving to???  I thought you lived in a home of your own design (renovation?), no?  I recall seeing pictures once upon a time… 

Also I am unabashedly pro wacky kid outfits.  Stylish designer-ness be damned.  I have so far paired pocka dots with stripes, bright orange with teal, and so on.  I'm lucky, though - I have a good canvas. Kid looks insanely adorable in anything!  

The only thing I draw the line at is those stupid headband things.  Ugh. 

We dressed my daughter from the local thrift shop. When she grew out of the clothes we took them back and they gave us half price and sold them again. Because of where we are she has always wore great stuff, real Salvation Armani.

hi mantaray, nice to see you around. came in as a young project architect, went out as a licensed professional and came back as a mother, all at a young age, congratulations! nice to have your objective and fearless voice around.

we are moving from glendale to glendale:). damn armenians... love them or leave them... we are loving them, they are loving us. once they know you are okay, they start to speak turkish with you.

Yes we had houses in the past and grew out of them. we are not home owner types but apartment dwelling city folks. found an old 20's apartment with high ceilings and an acre of floor space! though, i will miss my little cozy writing cove next to the kitchen where i could reach the refrigerator in the hours way past midnight.

Orhan,  I'm sure there is some great Pita Bread in your Hood, along with other delectable culinary delights.

Just watched World War Z for the second time.  Love the movie, and not just because of Brad Pitt.  Glad to be home.

Walmart employees picketing for more money last week – I complained recently to a Walmart manager as to there never being enough checkouts open – “plenty of stuff in the store, but you can’t get out of the store” and he explained that the problem is that they can’t get enough people to show up to work – seems the first step the strikers could take to solve their problem is to start showing up for work.

Carrera, objectively: would you show up to work at a job that pays you so little that you *still* have to apply for food stamps so your kids can eat? Or woudl you say fuck it and go on welfare so you can stay home with your kids and not have to worry about finding daycare for them while you're at a job that doesn't pay you enough to feed them?

Walmart intentionally pays their employees too little to live on then encourages them to use social welfare - our tax dollars - to make up the difference.  This is well-documented.

Donna, if wallmart paid their staff a living wage, I would then be forced to pay more for my Steven Seagal dvds. I am not sure hoe to feel about this...

Donna – I get it – Henry Ford got it with the $5/day wage, reasoning that if he paid his workers enough they then could afford to buy one of his cars – don’t think Walmart gets that.

It's a win-win for Walmart. Not only do their employees get subsidized with food stamps, they use them to buy food at Walmart. Genius! 

when i was in school there was a kmart superstore not to far from Detroit mercy, i went there a couple times but even in the dead of night there were lines all over to check out, the store wasn't in business long and I can only assume that a ton of people got tired of waiting and just walked out, merchandise in hand.

Do you guys think the GSD = $200K thread is going to turn into another "Yale blows" (a historic thread I can't link to because it was removed after becoming an absolutely epic shitstorm)?

donna, we can try. 

Not but seriously... I really have work to do today. Damn these mondays.

Hi Donna, My kitty is still m.i.a.

^ Except when it comes to Brad Pitt.

Thanks CD.Arch! I frequently feel angrier than I type, I guess, because I fear I'm very mean on here sometimes.

And yes Miles I've admitted than when I look at Brad Pitt I temporarily lose about 50 IQ points.  I mean who wouldn't?! Goodness.  Doogie's chest up there does nothing for me. Brad, on the other hand...

vado, I'm sorry. Poor kitten.

he explained that the problem is that they can’t get enough people to show up to work

I grew up in Detroit - where it's extremely difficult to get by without a car.  my family didn't have a lot of money, so we'd get junkers and drive them until the repairs cost more than getting another one.  The problem with this is that you often would miss work if the car broke down, or if you don't have enough money for repairs that week, you're going to have to find another way to get to work until the next paycheck comes - and we were slightly better off than some people in the neighborhood - not by much, though... anyway - I worked in a grocery store in HS - many of the older workers (non HS-kids) would rely on buses or family members for rides to work.  the bus riders would often be late (because buses in Detroit suck) and the people who got rides would call in a lot because there was usually some issue getting to work.

now - this store was just outside city limits, so most workers lived within a few miles of this grocery store - so absenteeism wasn't as huge an issue... but If this is a walmart out in the suburbs without any nearby lower-income housing and poor transit, the problem is likely that people simply can't get to work - or, they're facing a 2-1/2 hour commute with 3 bus transfers and 2 mile walk in freezing rain to get to their shitty minimum wage job.  Just curious - have you ever stopped to think just how someone earning minimum wage is able to get to their jobs out in the suburbs?

sprawlmart is busy building "neighborhood stores" we will have seven walmarts within a ten mile radius. Donna I miss Pearl but this is a cat paradise here. we had an outside kitty who was named baby cinco as he was the sixth cat to show up anyway he stayed but was driven off by Rusty Shackleford a very charismatic doglike tomcat who showed up. well, after a year we had to put Rusty to sleep because he contracted the feline A.I.D.s . one week later baby cinco was back. beautiful as ever fully grown hanging out. so, in the year he was gone he did okay. I hope Pearl is at one of the many crazy cat lady houses in the neighborhood.

toast, did you read Charlie LeDuff's book? if so, what did you think?

This is a carpet company with whom I frequently do business.  They re-carpeted Neil Young's tour bus!

I can only imagine pulling up old carpet in a Tour Bus....Yikes!  have to wear a double layer of gloves and a respirator with filters.

Donna, regarding your North Carolina ancestry... any relation to the Sinks in the Uhwarrie River Valley in North Carolina circa 1760? If so, then our ancestors were neighbors! There was a group of Sinks that left to homestead in Ohio around 1800. My ancestors were part of the group too, they all left North Carolina for Ohio together, it is a well documented history. They were Quakers.

tint, I'm a Lexington Sink on my father's side, descended from Jacob Zinck (spelling changed to Zink then Sink down the line...) who arrived in Philly sometime before 1785 but had settled on land in Lexington NC by 1785. My mom's side of the family was in Lexington prior to the Revolutionary War on a land grant from King George, but a different last name. If your Sinks left to Ohio post-1785 then we are likely related - my dad has the big blue book of Sink descendants, I'll check it for anyone leaving to Ohio next time I'm in Phoenix.

In case anyone misses it, Deborah Berke's first renderings for the Cummins headquarters.  I like it!

My ancestors arrived in Philadelphia too, but earlier. There was a big group that left North Carolina all at the same time and settled in Montgomery County Ohio, with surnames Sink, Mast, Hoover, Waymire, Yount. They all intermarried a few times for a few generations. :)

From a genealogy page I found when researching my ancestry, my great grandmother was a Yount: "In 1801 a colony of sixty-four people, composed of Younts, Hoovers, Masts and Sinks, moved from Randolph County, N.C., to Kentucky. This same year George Yount went on to Ohio, when this was yet a territory, and located near Lebanon, the county seat of Warren County, Ohio. In 1802 he moved to a section of land partly in Miami and partly in Montgomery County, Ohio, where he resided until the time of his death, April 22, 1810. The remainder of the colony becoming dissatisfied with the conditions in Kentucky, migrated north and spent the winter of 1801-1802 in Cincinnati, Ohio. They left their winter quarters there in the Spring of 1802 and passed through Dayton, Ohio, in 1802. Jacob Yount cleared up a farm in German Township, Montgomery County, Ohio, where he died in 1805 or 1806, a highly respected citizen.

The Younts, Hoovers and Masts, who all came to Ohio at the same time, are thought to have been the first white people to have located to the west of Dayton, Ohio. They had to cut roads through dense forest. Indians were numerous and the hardships and toil were unremitting."

There are still Sinks in Kentucky, too! And yes, my family tree is a little stunted - my parents are third cousins, and one set of my first cousins are also my 3rd and 4th cousins. I am 1/32 Saponi Native American, as my parents are both 1/32 Saponi, and it's the same Saponi woman in both family trees!

Oh, and I'm also related to the Hanes family, as in the underwear conglomerate, but my forebear Hanes was a drunk and thus was cut out of his father's will.  YOLO!

Wow! A long lost cousin of mine was the first park ranger in the U.S! Also one of my cousins was the first permanent settler in Napa Valley and is thought to have established the first vineyards there. He had to become a Mexican citizen to settle there. He was born in North Carolina, of French descent. He corresponded with his relatives back in Alsace, France by letter and they mentored him to help establish the vineyards. 

There is a saying that all people of European descent are descended from Charlemagne, which I can believe when I visualize how interwoven all of our family trees are. Try walking down the street and seeing everyone as your cousins, just some are closer than others. 

All street-sweepers are royalty, all nobles are peasants, and we are all Kings and Queens.

My great great(?) uncle owned Jafco, a catlog store that was later bought out by BEST.

I would totally wear that shirt.

Agree awesome shirt, I would wear it.

Hi TC!

Took part in Hospitality and Service training for a new enterprise-wide, initiative at work.

While most was common sense, politeness/customer service it is always good to be reminded that tone and body language matter, not just actions/performance.

Or perhaps, a better way to think of it, since that point has been a constant in my relationships (personal, professional or romantic) is that tone and body language are an integral part of actions/performances. Not just "do unto others" but "be unto others"...?

kitty has returned from her week of walk about. no worse for wear and apparently did not miss many meals.

yay for kitty!  glad to hear he'll be home for christmas

Donna that comment was TC's #53335.  The number just looked so pretty on the front page I had to tell you, even if I am thereby eradicating the beauty… there must be a german or japanese word for this act: the act that in itself both illuminates and destroys something beautiful...

good luck, CD.Arch

donna - have not read that book - I'll have to check it out... IMO - best book on Detroit is Sugrue's "origins of the urban crisis."  he doesn't talk about Detroit after the riots, though - but good for understanding the causes of the long decline.