Thursday, November 15, 2007

Thanks (and Thanksgiving!)

Thanks everyone.

Cullen, the headphones are a good idea, but I think I'd find them hard to try to sleep in. I had several friends here tell me "Call the police nuisance line on them!" but my gut feeling on THAT is that it's solely to generate fodder for the "a cross section of calls to the police center" section for people to chuckle over in the newspaper - I've never known ANYONE here who filed a noise complaint that the cops actually checked into.

The good news? Dang dog started barking last night, but then it either quit, or its owners caught a clue and took it inside.

When it first started barking around 10 pm, I was lying in bed imagining whether I could track down someone I used to know who did work on large game animals and if he'd loan me a tranq gun and some kind of dog-safe tranquilizer darts. (Although that would probably cause more problems in the long run than it would solve in the short run.

Ultimately, someday, when I have the money and know someone who does decent work, I want to get the drafty old windows in my drafty old house replaced, and I think that might help cut noise, too. (The biggest hurdle is finding someone who won't punch out my old windows and then wander off to do another job for the next 3 weeks...I live in the land of ADHD contractors; their union motto is "We need to finish this.....let's ride bikes!")

At any rate, the dog can bark its brains out tonight for all I care; I will not be here. If all goes well, at 5:15 this afternoon I will be getting on a train, and midmorning tomorrow I will be in the town where my parents live (which is also the town where I went to grad school, so it's pretty familiar to me). I'm really, really looking forward to seeing them, and really, really looking forward to a few days off.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

America wants to know (Well, I'M kind of curious, anyway):

Where is "home" in your mind, Ricki? The place where you grew up with your family or the community where you have now lived as a solo for several years?

Is the pre-Thanksgiving train trip one of going home, or merely revisiting the site of your formative years? Is "home" a geographic location or a state of mind?

Perhaps it depends on the degree to which a person is nostalgic about his or her childhood.

My parents were very fond of their hometowns, but had no desire to move back to them. I was the opposite, and finally moved back to my hometown when I was in my mid-30s. That took some persuading because my wife, with the same hometown as mine, liked it just fine where we were, 2500 miles away.

Something to ponder if the train trip gets dull. Happy Thanksgiving.

Maggie May said...

Happy Thanksgiving, Ricki! Have a safe and wonderful trip!

Great question, Dave.

For what it's worth...I used to think of home as Colorado, where I spent my childhood years (infancy through 15).

Then later, when I moved out of my parents house and went to college, I thought of home as where they lived.

But now, since my parents live in a house, in fact a state, I have never occupied, their house no longer seems like home to me, and "home" is where I live currently, with my husband.

Those old Colorado ties have faded since none of my close family still lives there. I would probably feel different if the family ties still existed.

Happy Thanksgiving, Dave.

Anonymous said...

Sorry I missed the whole dog discussion. (I called the police about my neighbor's dog after the yelping had me thinking something was seriously wrong.) And sorry I missed sending you off, Ricki! I hope your Thanksgiving is fantastic.

Anonymous said...

You, too, Mag, and thank you.

nightfly said...

Happy Thanksgiving, Ricki, and enjoy your vacation! You deserve a great, relaxing trip.

To answer Dave's question (though he didn't ask me!), I think of NJ as my home (I've been here over 20 years), but when I visit the town where I grew up, I get very nostalgic. I'm a nostalgia junkie, really. I suppose I could picture living back there, but I'm happy where I am now, even if it IS New Jersey. (There's a lot of nice places in New Jersey, they're just governed by raving crazies.)

(word verification: "hstsh". mmmmm.... palindromic

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving, ricki! Enjoy your time off!

(Hey, do you have an email where I can reach you? I don't notice one here on the site and the one I have for you doesn't seem to work.)