Sophie's Story

   Thanksgiving week is here again. In an effort to more fully celebrate this holiday, I did something that I did last year. Everyday for one week I'm going to post on Facebook something for which I am thankful.   I have set some rules for this. I must be truly grateful for what I post. I cannot recycle posts from last year. I also have to explain why I am grateful for the item or person. Preferably I would post about things that we would take for granted.   For instance, this year I posted a picture of my furnace and how I am grateful for it. The first house I bought was built around 1910. Obviously it had been updated. There were still some signs that the house was built in another age. The basement was stone. There was also a strange shape on the concrete floor. This was because the original furnace was a spider furnace. It's called a spider furnace for all the ductwork that is connected to it. It also burned coal. There was a corner of the basement where the walls were

   One of the things I like about the CBS Sunday Morning show is that sometimes they do segments on books that sound interesting. A few weeks ago they did a segment on a book about Herbert Hoover, a former president of the United States. The segment said that Hoover has a reputation for being one of the worst presidents in American history. One of the things he is blamed for is the Great Depression that occurred during the 1930s. A historian that was interviewed during the segment felt it was unfair to judge all that Hoover based on the four years he was president. After all most of the Great Depression happened when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, so why is Hoover getting all the blame?   Hoover actually did quite a bit of good, according to the segment.   It looked intriguing so I checked it out of the library. I like reading anyway and biographies are some of my favourite books to read. I also think it's a good practice to look at all of what someone has done in their

   I think we may have skipped a holiday. Either that or it was celebrated and I missed it. I don't know which. All I know is that Thanksgiving is missing.    I haven't seen a trace of the beloved November holiday anywhere. I haven't seen any pictures of cornucopias, turkeys with rear feathers fanned,  or families gathered around a table filled with all kinds of food. I haven't seen any pictures of pilgrims although I'm guessing those are not politically correct anymore. There are no signs saying "Happy Thanksgiving" no fall type decorations.    All I see are snowflakes,glistening trees, red and green garland and Christmas carols played on Muzak. I see pre Black Friday sale signs and advertisements for the perfect gift and inexpensive stocking stuffers.   Am I the only one who is noticing this? Am I the only one who cares? Does anyone beside me miss it?   Can someone,anyone tell me where Thanksgiving has gone?    Why has it become extinct? It can

   Tomorrow there is a Relief Society (woman's group) meeting at church. We will be learning how to work with a genealogy computer program to record family history. I asked Elisabeth, who is one of the leaders of the RS if there was anything I could do to help.    As a matter of fact, there was. Elisabeth ask if I had a good recipe for a vegetarian chili. Without even thinking, I said that I did. She then asked if I had a crock pot. Of course. Doesn't everyone living in this part of the country?    "Good," she said. "Please make a batch. What ingredients do you need?"    Realization came over me. I had just volunteered to cook for others to eat. Not just friends of mine. I got nervous. I'm a pretty good cook, but I'm not Martha Stewart or Rachael Ray. I like what I make but then I have pretty strange taste in food. What if no one likes the chili I brought?    It was too late to back out. Elisabeth had already turned and left to go home.    On

   Last week I spent the day with my friend, Dana, who was teaching me how to scrapbook.  It was lunchtime and we were hungry. She offered to order something from a nearby restaurant and have it delivered. I thought that was a good idea. I looked at the online menu and saw a sandwich that I've always wanted to try. I mentioned that to Dana. There was only one thing stopping me. It was the name.    I told Dana that my grandmother had told me never to use that word. I joked about how my grandmother would probably rise up out her grave and slap me if she heard me using it. I'm sure Dana thought I was a little weird. Possibly afraid of ghosts.   That's not the real reason though. The real reason I never ordered that sandwich is because the name of the sandwich,dago, is an offensive term meaning Italian or someone of Italian descent. As a person who is of Italian descent, it is deeply offensive. It is as bad as the "N word",spic,chink,frog,redskin, retard, and yid.

   The phone rang on Sunday morning. I rushed to get it. No one calls us on Sunday morning. It had to be some kind of emergency.    It was Evie, my adopted grandmother. She was sorry to call me on a Sunday and disturb us as we were getting ready for church. She had a question.    She gets her medications delivered to her from her pharmacy. On Saturday something was delivered to her. It was a new medication. She didn't know what it was.    She was puzzled about why she got it. Her doctor's appointment wasn't for a few weeks. The name of the doctor on the prescription was one she did not know. She had heard that there were a couple of female doctors in the clinic that she goes to, but she had never seen any of them.    She told me the name of the medicine.  Fortunately is was a common one, so I told her what it was. I also recommended to her that she call her doctor on Monday and find out why she got this prescription. I also told her not to take it until she found out

   C and I took our desktop computer to a repair shop. It's been a good computer, but it had run out of memory and needed a system upgrade. I'm not looking forward to the upgrade as I've worked with the new system on an office computer. To say that I hate the new system vastly understates my negative feelings about it. The thing I dislike most about it is the menu which is located on blocks that keep shifting round. What was wrong with the stable list of programs on my computer? All I had to do is look at the list and find what I wanted and click on it. With the new system I'll have to click on those manic little blocks and hope that I've clicked on the correct thing.    Since I usually use the desktop to write and job hunt, I now have to use an old laptop. I'm using the one that was my former work computer. (Yes, I had to use my personal laptop for work.) Nothing wrong with that, I like it. There's just one problem. Most of what I need is password protec