Amazing. From no food to an embarrassment of worldly riches-at least to me.

I get my first paycheck tomorrow. Naturally a good bit of it is already spoken for, but that spoken for part includes a grocery list that will carry me through two weeks. I plan to make a nice roast, and carve it for sandwhich meat. I am also going to buy fruit-fresh and tinned. Interesting what foods one dreams of whilst temporarily deprived of choices...Any road, I will have a nice lunch to carry with me every day starting Friday morning! I feel a veritable queen!

And cable will be turned on tomorrow while I am at work. Thank-you God, thank-you so very much! I know it seems shallow that I am so very grateful to be able to feed my 'Aaron Brown' jones, but hey, I firmly believe there are worse jones...

Thanksgiving will be interesting. Entrare and Fiancee are going to invite his mother and grandparents here. Oh yes, this should be agonizingly interesting. The last time I did a full blown family for the holidays, it was not pretty. Well, it was my family, so perhaps it will different with Entrare's.

Um, maybe not.

Last year Entrare, Fiancee, Mom, and Grandparents went to Mom's cousin's in North Alabama. For those of my gentle readers who saw any of the National Lampoon Vacation movies (Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, and Randy Quaid) should think of Entrare's Mom's cousin as the Randy Quaid character, minus the charm. Fiancee tried to adjust the cousin's attitude with a phillips head screwdriver-through his heart. Fortunately she was not entirely serious, and 'missed' his head by at least six inches, embedding the screwdriver in the trailer wall instead. Honest. Trailer. I think it was a double wide though.

Yes indeed, an embarrassment of riches...

Naturally my Thanksgiving story trumps even that.

Thanksgiving 1998. Crusty, Fox, and I have been living through an absolute nightmare time. Fox sleeps during the day so that he can be awake at night while Crusty is in town. I spend the days trying to keep Crusty from going into Fox's room, and trying to get Crusty to leave the house period. He refuses to leave, although he consents to move into the living room so that I don't have to sleep with him. Fox sits on a chair in my locked room with a gun in his lap while I try to sleep...

A day or so before T-Day, Crusty calls from his job site in Columbia, South America, and tells me he expects a full spread for Thanksgiving dinner. By this time I am numb, exhausted, frightened completely, and so I go to the store, buy everything, and get started cooking. Crusty's flight gets in the night before, I pick him up, and we go to the house. He falls asleep on the couch, Fox and I go into survival mode, and the next morning, Fox has already stuffed and put the bird in the oven, so I go about getting the table set, etc.

Crusty sits down to the table, drops his face into his plate, and seems to be inhaling everything on it. I swear he did not leave so much as a drop of cranberry sauce. Fox and I are so revolted by the carnage we cannot eat, and can only watch dumbfounded as Crusty eats EVERYTHING on the table, goes into the kitchen for the rest, and proceeds to eat everything in there as well.

Then he leaves. Fox and I make ourselves some toast. We don't speak, we just load the toaster, and Fox brings out some of the food he has stashed. Smart kid. (His first complete sentence was "Daddy is an a--h--e." And no, I didn't teach him that!)

We hear a truck pulling into the yard, and look out to see a large U-Haul van backing up to the garage.

Crusty packed the rest of the day, and into the next. Finally, after he took everything that was paid for including the rest of the food from the pantry, most of Fox's and my clothing, he passes out again on the sofa, then wakes with the dawn, demands that Fox and I give him a good-by hug, and leaves.

Once Fox is sure that Crusty is really gone, and not coming back, he brings out some more of the food he's stashed, including a small and complete Thanksgiving Dinner.

So, how bad can it be to have Entrare's family up for the holidays? Maybe I should hide the tool boxes though...

But oh Lord, how I wish that Fox and his son wanted to be here too. I call my grandson 'Boogar Face." I miss them both so much!