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Just like a prayer

There are several good things about Thanksgiving.

The food. Pile it high, pile it wide, pile it deep, and then go back for more. No one's going to look at you funny.

The company. Even if it isn't good, it's almost never bad.

The prayer. It's a delicate thing, prayer.

In my husband's family, prayer is remains the same, no matter if it's a Wednesday night in January or Easter morning.

"Lord, bless this food to our use and us to thy service. Bless those of us who aren't here. (short pause). Amen." If they're feeling particularly windy, "amen" is embellished with "in Christ's name we pray, Amen."

They're no dwellers, Episcopalians. Plus, they pray in the morning, they pray at night, they pray at church and they pray when they say something bad about someone. When it comes supper time, there just isn't much more to say.

The only time dinner prayer really gets interesting at my husband's home is when my Jewish stepfather-in-law says the blessing.

My family is Episcopresbian. We went to Presbyterian churches until (1) they asked for money too many times (2) the preacher made more than three house visits in a year or (3) they stopped serving wine at the Church Men's gatherings.

If any of above things happened, we'd find ourselves in at an Episcopalian service. Just about when we had the hang of kneeling to pray and sipping, not gulping, the wine from the Communion cup, we'd be back at our Presbyterian church, drinking grape juice.

The result is a blend of new and old, equal parts King James and Revised Standard, reserved God-fearing and emotional Jesus-loving.

Season that with some whiskey and wine, a few strangers my mother's met at the grocery store or gas station and invited over, and a table full of food just waiting to get cold, and you've got yourself a Thanksgiving prayer.

"Heavenly father," it starts, and that's when you know there's no way in hell you're going to get a warm biscuit. If the verb doesn't come in the first sentence, it'll be a short novel before you eat.

"Lord, let me first start by saying how glad we are you're here with us." Yes, Lord, we gave you the good seat. Be sure to try the gravy.

"Father you've blessed us in so many ways throughout our lives. Where do we even start, Lord, with all of the ways you've blessed us." Hope you had a snack earlier, big guy, cause this is gonna take a while.

"First, with these wonderful children and friends, who've travelled here to be with us. And you watched over them Lord, and cared for them, and guided them and persuaded them and helped them and kept them." Err, God, about that keeping thing...

"We all love so much, Lord, yet there is so much trouble in the world. So many people who go without. So many people who are hungry today. So many people hurting, in hospitals, asleep in gutters, alone on deserted islands, with sexual diseases, bad handbags and fake furs ." Pay attention, now. We're about to go over a cliff.

"Oh there are so many things we're thankful for, Lord, like Edna and James Marie who had the foresight 40 years ago on the occasion of our wedding to give us the silver-plated pickle knives that adorn our table today. And blessed Aunt Bets, who on her death bed willed us her collection of crusifixes and this lovely hand-made table cloth, even though Martha Lee kissed her ass trying to get it."

"Finally, Lord, thank you for pulling brother Tom through his hernia surgery and allowing our dear friend Bill to pass that gall stone so quickly and easily. And me, Lord, I had a bowel problem earlier this week, but I prayed to you and it cleared right up." Yowza. Are you there, God, it's me, Kitty?

"Well, I guess that's about it. You're good, God. Darn good. And we love you for it. We'll never forget you God -- not ever. Not any day. Never, ever, ever, will we forget. Every single day from this day on will be just like Thanksgiving. Without all the food and beforementioned gas, of course."

"In Christ's name we pray..."

Amen.

Kissy face

One more quick note on Condi Rice and I'll leave it, I promise.

Um, did you see the sloppy one the goofy Texan planted on her cheek the other day? Gag me with a spoon.

The Washington Post noticed and published an interesting column in today's paper, asking just what a professional man should do when he wants to congratulate his female couterparts with whom he is close. Good question, really. Discuss amongst yourselves...

Oh, who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
SpongeBob SquarePants!
Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!
SpongeBob.

Raise your hands if you're happy the Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie is finally out!

What?? No hands?? Come on -- how bad can it be if just a few kids learn what "porous" means. Plus, he goes to work at a place called the Krusty Krab and Sponge Bob and his purple starfish friend get rescued by Baywatch hunk (and German rockstar) David Hasselhoff. Admit it, that's funny.

Whoa, man, Thanksgiving is fast approaching isn't it? Ahhh, I love this time of year, and I'm certain that's because I don't have to worry about not being ready. We're still packing around to various family Thanksgiving holidays, thus releaving me of any cooking/cleaning duties. I'd love to be able to offer some housewifey tips on staying sane, cooking and setting tables, but apparently I haven't grown up that much...

That's not to say I'm not anxious. I cannot wait for the new U2 album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, to be released on Tuesday. If I was cooking and cleaning and entertaining this holiday, I'd certainly be doing it to the sounds of Bono and his band.

Errrr, rats. I can't resist. OK, here are some Turkey day tips --
Set the table a day ahead
Do any remaining baking, including that apple pie, the day before.
Pick up turkey dummy!
If you're not into over-stuffing yourself, try filling up on veggies first. Eat healthy throughout the day!
Buy the new U2 album and rock out while cleaning dishes.

And, drum roll please, my number one tip: Be thankful for everyone around you, and most certainly make time to be thankful for yourself.

Moving on

Begone slump.

Well, Condi Rice is movin' on up. The goofy Texan has officially named her his new Secretary of State, replacing Colin Powell, who resigned yesterday. Ahhh, Condi. Head of the WNBA, Sec. of State .... same diffy, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, hope has left the building.

Powell was known for his disagreements on foreign policy with Veep Cheney and Defense Sec. Rumsfeld. He's a super star for a lot of reasons (he wrote a whole book, for heavens sakes), but we love him most for pushing the administration to increase its commitment to the international fight against AIDS and for promoting the administration's Millennium Fund.

Oh and disarming Libya. That deserves a check in the good column, too.

And with all that work, he must be tired. That's what the Bushies want us to think, anyway.

Aw, heck. He said he was only good for four years anyway, and we're inclined to cut good 'ol Powell loose so that he can retire to Florida and live out his days by the pool. Whew, it's tough bein' president.

Condi's a puppet. She agrees, it seems, with just about everything the Prez. says and does, it seems, just about everything the Prez. says to do. Chant it with me now, "Four more years!"

But there now. Let's not be so negative. It's unbecoming.

Instead, let's search desperately on the bright side and pray our efforts aren't transparent.

Maybe she'll do something about the crisis in Sudan, where tensions between Arabs and Africans has displaced more than a million people and somewhere in the ballpark of 50,000 people have died.

If Sudan were Iraq, we'd SO be there.

The skinny on Sudan: The ruling Arab elite and three African ethnic groups are fighting for scarce natural resources. The elitist folks are doing what their kind does best -- you know, axis of evil kind of stuff -- women raped, villages destroyed, help blocked, food supplies ransacked so that pretty much anyone they don't want to live starves. Keep in mind that things weren't going terribly well for Sudan to begin with. There's been a civil war there for something like 20 years.

In September, Powell called it genocide, a word that should ring a bell when combined with Rwanda and maybe Bill Clinton. Under U.N. law We the People are required to prevent and punish genocide. We've tried to figure out what to do, but up to now have pretty much only threatened to consider sanctions which I imagine is pretty laughable to the likes of rapers and pillagers .

What else? Oh, Condi is the only black woman to ever be Sec. of State. Go Condi, Go Condi, it's your birthday...

She's Marilyn Monroe compared to Madeline Albright. That's bound to work in our favor.

She's single. Smart, somewhat sexy AND available...

She's graduated college at 19, speaks Russian and plays classical piano. Driven!

Will that help her set American foreign policy priorities for a president who has virtually no foreign policy experience and who has rarely traveled outside the United States?

Ah, shux. Who cares really.

Four more years!

Long time, no write

It's been a while. I blame myself.

I've been in one of those slumps that we work ourselves into when not much else is going on.

Pick one: The pre-winter slump, the self-pity slump, the lonely slump, the I-quit-smoking-and-feel-like-being-a-hag slump.

My slump was a combo. Three for one. Equal parts self-pity, pre-winter and non-smoking hag. I was a real pleasure to be around.

It starts the way these things usually do -- for no apparent reason.

The days are sunny and bright! You've slept for seven hours two nights in a row! Gone are the urges to murder the slow grocery store check-out woman! More work, less pay? $2.10 for a gallon of gas? A goofy Texan in the White House? Zippiedty-do-dah!

Any sane woman knows that a little alone time is a good thing. A little more than a little is a pretty good thing, although dangerous. Some alone time is not a good thing. A great deal of alone time should at all costs be avoided or you can kiss your good mood goodbye. (For the record, alone means truly alone. Either you're alone on a mountaintop in Tibet or your neighbors are out of town, your housemate's gone, your cell phone's been cut off and your friend at work is on vacation... you get it)

I consider four days alone a great deal of alone time. My slump was coming on fast.

Day one: I feel good.
Day two: I still feel good. Strange...
Day three: Why do I feel so damned good?
Day four: Something bad must be about to happen. Joy without pain? It's virtually unheard of.

The details are so boring they aren't even funny. So I won't bother.

When I was tired of hearing myself think, when the sound of my own voice in my own head irritated me, I knew slump had just about run its course. There's a fine line between slump and self-loathing, and it isn't one I'm willing to cross.

Hello, inspiration? Yeah, doll, it's me Kitty. Look, I've been on a major self-pity bender, and I'm over it, ya know? Special delivery me a large dose of reality with a side of get overits. And a large glass of be gratefuls why you're at it.

Sheesh, me.

Heart of steel

I follow football the way most women do. There's a direct corolation between my allegience to a team and the man in my life.

Start with my dad and, having grown up in Charlottesville, the Redskins and UVa. Then college, a boy from Virginia who's family moved to Chapel Hill -- the then-new Panthers and, again, UVa.

Then college later, a boy from New York who went to Virginia -- the Bills (I actually braved a game in December in upstate New York for that guy...or did I do that for the hot dogs?) and still, UVa.

Then an artsy fartsy guy who hated football, so I chose my own team -- the Packers -- because Brett Favre was and is hot hot hot. Of course, good ol dad still loved UVa so I did, too.

Then I think there was a bit of a drought. That must have been an introspective time.

Next a guy who didn't much like football, but all of his friends did and for some reason they were Raiders fans. So... so was I (I always thought their uniforms morbid). And, most certainly, UVa.

Don't think me shallow. I had a real pro football loyality battle going on inside.

But sticking with one pro team would have meant that I would at some point have to explain to boyfriend number 15 that boyfriend number 12 was a Panthers, Bills, Raiders fan. And that would have been relationship suicide and a definate end to some very nice, very free dinners. So I flip flopped. No one seemed to mind.

Until I met my husband, who is a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. He's devoted to me. He's devoted to the Steelers. His mind, I believe, draws no distinction.

My football infidelity is a thing of the past. I love him, I watch the Steelers and I most certainly make no mention of how cute Tom Brady is. Especially not this season.

I first suspected my Steeler-liking might not be a passing fancy when I caught myself waving a yellow terrycloth towel over my head and obeying my husband and brother-in-law's silly, superstitious rules about what I could and couldn't do during Steeler game time. (No leaving the room when they're on a good streak. Don't let the towel touch the floor. Only one cookie per quarter).

I also suspected it when I could name the team's last three quarterbacks.

But on Sunday, I knew I'd fallen in love. On Sunday, I forewent my usual Sunday routine of cleaning and yogaing and grocery shopping to sit useless on the couch and watch the Steelers play. Alone. Just me and the dog and my at times very amplified voice. I didn't even have to give myself a manicure for distraction.

This was my own doing. A choice I made. My husband was on another continent in another time zone -- probably asleep.

On the way to the airport Sunday morning, he divided his time between telling me how lonesome he'd be without me and telling me how much he hated to miss the Steelers-Pats game. I understood. It was a big game.

I waved goodbye and almost immediately forgot about football.

But then, the Redskins lost. I knew that the Redskins lost because I briefly turned on the television to get election news. I cared that the Redskins lost because when the Redskins lose on the Sunday before the election day, it means the incumbent in the national election is going to lose. And that was good news.

On that brief high, I remembered the Steelers. I manipulated the remote and found it. Steelers-Patriots. Maybe I'd watch a little. I had time. Yoga didn't start for.... 30 minutes.

Two hours later, I was drinking beer and whooping at the television. I didn't have the towel, but I didn't know that. Hands in the air, the wave, yelling dooooo-ssssssssss, obeying all the stupid rules.

The Steelers were winning. They were winning big. They had run backs and touchdowns and sacks and steals and challenges and fieldgoals -- all the good stuff. I settled down when they had a 21-3 lead, and I realized I'd turned a corner.

There alone in my living room, I became a fan. For better or for worse, I would stick with this team. Things wouldn't always be this good, I knew. We wouldn't always break the Patriots lots-of-games winning streak. There were going to be rough roads. Fumbles. Bad choices. Losing seasons.

But I'd be there, waving my towel and shouting. Even if I was completely alone.

Go Steelers.