Black Friday in Kansas City

Marlena was up early, hiding from me when I got up at 7:00.  She immediately went to get her journal and finished it before anyone was up.  He turkey ended up returning home, falling asleep, and that's how the story ended.  When everyone else got up, we started watching Ramona, the movie, on TV, a different way to spend a morning.  It looks like a spectacular morning out, with the sun so bright we need to close the shades.  I am not sure what is on the agenda for today, other than getting ready for the Burlingame's coming for dinner.  Tommy bought a great looking tenderloin from Costco, and he actually covered it with kosher salt last night.  Today, we make the port wine sauce and Evie is going to make a cauliflower and onion quiche. I sometimes wonder what we would do if we didn't have great dinners to get ready.  Clearly, we all enjoy good food and the prepping is fun, especially with the grandchildren around to help.

It's 11:30 and Nick has just gotten up...that boy can sleep, catching up from during the week when he has to get up and leave by 6:45.  The kitchen has been busy, getting ready for tonight's dinner, putting together the various sides, appetizers, and main course.  Tom and I have already been to the store picking up some groceries we needed, and both he and Mary have worked out on the tread mill.  Once we get done with prepping, I hope Evie and I can go for a long walk, since it's such a nice day, sunny and brisk, perfect for a walk.

Watching TV this morning, with all the news shows covering the early shopping mania, I have to admit I am disgusted by it all, as if the only thing we are good at anymore as Americans is shopping.  It's like a national past time, a kind of therapy, to go out and spend, spend, spend, and accumulate things that you don't really need.  When bored, instead of reading a book, going for a walk, or finding something useful, we jump in our car and shop.  I don't exclude myself from this disease, though I hope to cure it sometime soon.  I know talk like this is not good for the economy or so we are told, but if our welfare depends on people shopping for most of the junk they don't really need, then we are in trouble, and need a new paradigm, what that takes into account 'living simply but well,' with out the need to accumulate stuff.  I have to admit part of me doesn't want to spend the money, the other part is buying things for people that they don't really want or need, and the final part is just tiredness of shopping, of looking for the present that you rarely find that's perfect and thus, you settle on anything. Bah Humbug describes my present mood,