No Thanksgiving plans

 Our plans are no plans. For years I helped my mother with Thanksgiving.  

Then i became THAT mom and was up at 6:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving day to prepare everything - having already baked 4 pies the day before. 

Then I retired from work, moved to California to be near my children. (Could they have moved any further away from Maryland? geezzzz.) Then I retired from doing Thanksgiving and turned it over to my oldest daughter. 

This year I retired from Thanksgiving completely. Oldest daughter is going skiing. (broke both her legs skiing last year but hey, she loves skiing. She says she'll be careful) Second child is married to a Native American and therefore does NOT celebrate Thanksgiving. (Whatever happened to the historical fact of pilgrims and native Americans having a harvest celebration together?) My third child doesn't want to have Thanksgiving with her friends this year, so she has promised to bake pumpkin pies for me. 

yum.

Not fond memories of worklife

Friday the 13th.
Teen is on the road.  (not to worry, she arrived safely)
I'm about to get on the road, but since my car is a grandma car (according to my children), I'm not too worried.
But a post on Facebook reminded me of a workplace supervisor whom I would gladly forget.

Every 5 years the place where I worked gives a pin and a gift to that person. Usually they give the person choices.  
I was totally surprised (and embarrassed and appalled) when my boss gave me, in the staff meeting in front of everyone, an alarm clock (suitably engraved with the number of years worked) with a little speech emphasizing that with this I'd have no excuse for not being on time.

(news note - most of my lateness was in her imagination, often caused by her terrible scheduling - schedules she admitted that she created while drinking several six-packs of beer. Or her not observing that I had already arrived, but had run across the street to the deli to get something a half hour before we opened and then lecturing me about lateness when I returned. Plus, her hugely over-scheduling our workplace hours so that we had tons of plus time and then getting angry when we - mostly me -  insisted on using up that plus time While The Library WAs Closed. What was her problem? That is when we are supposed to use it.  She eventually was fired, but not until some staff members had quit and the rest of us were out looking for other jobs.)