Thanksgiving and Thanks Giving

WE HAVE INTERNET! Not only do we have Internet, but also—after several hours of repeat phone calls to Comcast and Netgear—we have a connection that works. So John and I can stop pilfering whatever signal happens to be floating around in the air, which invariably dies out before a post is complete. So, that being said, I'm sorry it's taken so long to get this thing going, but now that we're up and running, we couldn't be more excited about it. Here's the post that I've been dying to publish since November.
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I have a new theory on Thanksgiving.

Studies consistently show that grateful people are substantially happier and that practicing gratitude is one of the few things a person can do to increase their overall levels of happiness in a sustainable way. One study showed that people engaging in gratitude exorcises are 25 percent happier than those who do not. (Twenty-five percent!) Another study concluded that "daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals." That's a lot of really great output for a surprisingly easy input.

So here's my theory: What if one of the main reasons the holidays are traditionally thought of as a happy time is that they are traditionally initiated with a whole day devoted to gratitude? What if we're doing ourselves more of an injustice than we realize by inching Black Friday sales into Thanksgiving Day, distracting us from one of our main sources of happiness with toys of momentary satisfaction? Just a thought.

Regardless, we had a great Thanksgiving. John got the table done just in time. And it's marvelous. (He designed it like a giant table puzzle; no screws necessary, so it can be disassembled easily to be moved or stored.)


So Thursday morning, before we started simmering a single thing, the decorating began.

A short expedition to Sligo Creek Trail had produced a birch branch that John trimmed up and got looking presentable. And with a few eye hooks drilled into the ceiling and some thin wire, it was up in no time.

Then we moved on to the birds. John found an amazing light-weight clay that doesn't get hard until you bake it (test: I left a half finished bird out on top of a heat-blowing radiator and ignored it for a week and a half until finally getting around to it Thursday morning—still soft.) It's fantastic stuff. So with that and a nature book on bird watching he picked up at the library, we made these:

We threw in a few candles left over from wedding decorations.

Fortunately, John had just pruned the lime tree in our living room, so after digging the cut branches out of the discard pile, we had some color.

I'm still no good at photography (as you see), so I apologize for the lousy pictures.

But now that we finally have (hopefully) reliable Internet, we'll be able to post more regularly.

Coming soon: Christmas.

Wood Canvas

I owe this blog an apology, but I have an explanation.

I'm really sorry about the lack of dinner productions thus far. Here's the thing: We don't have a dinner table. Yet. Fortunately, John is building one for us.

In the mean time, I've been collecting materials and trying my hand at a little sculpture in preparation for Thanksgiving, which is looking like it will be dinner party No. 1. So please don't think this blog has been abandoned. We're just getting warmed up.

L'art de la Conversation

A few years ago U.S. News and World Report ran an article on what America can learn from other countries. (I'm definitely moving to Taiwan.) And of course the ever-fabulous French were spotlighted as masters in the art of conversation. Their superiority is attributed to several factors, some of which are easily adopted (avoiding discussing one's vacation/paycheck/recent big purchase, and leaving the weather out of it) and others that are not (a 300-year-old tradition of courtly banter and a public education system that lauds the study of philosophy, for starters). However, despite our lack of vous form, there are apparently some ground rules we can follow:

Rule 1: "A conversation is an end in itself, with no purpose."
Rule 2: "Rhapsodies of brilliance are to be avoided at all costs for fear of disengaging one of the participants, who may feel excluded or humiliated." (Can we please extend this to one-uping?)
Rule 3: "[Good-natured] disagreement is permitted and even encouraged."

In a New York Times op-ed, Dan Ariely of Freakenomics applied behavioral economics to awkward first-date conversation. He suggests that just as some restricted marketplaces can yield more desirable outcomes than completely open ones, conversations get better when the options of discussion are limited to items of actual interest; whereas, when left alone, people will naturally gravitate to a safe—albeit boring—exchange.

So the hostess's challenge becomes finding interesting topics of conversation she can corral her guests into; topics that can be disagreed upon and yet are not so lofty that no one will have a background in it or anything informed to contribute. (And no matter what the French say, I refuse to allow politics at the table: otherwise-rational people get too angry, too quickly.) Maybe a refresher course in philosophy would do us all some good. I'll see what I can find.

Old Friends, Newly Weds

One month ago—after a few years of friendship, which climaxed in a proposal, followed by a stint at dating and then a second proposal, which led to an engagement—John and I got married.

This was a great idea for lots of reasons, not the least of which being dinner.

John loves to cook, and, happily for me, he's quite good at it. I hate to cook but love dinner parties and everything about them: invitations, decorations, and conversation.

So, we're going to start having people over for dinner. Get excited.