for us, not that hard to resist large family gatherings. on my side, they are in kansas, oregon, pittsburgh, england, and albuquerque anyway; on my wife's side, illinois and california mostly. for us the big deal was getting my phone working so i could call people. my sister called in on facebook video.

the countryside is beautiful, with reddish hues on everything, cold and fresh air, wary wildlife everywhere. i say "wary" because it's hunting season and they know it, but for us, all the food came from walmart, and we're nervous about the supply chain, yes, but so far everything is holding up pretty well. we're low on half-and-half and that's a kind of emergency. but we had a "cadillac" turkey - sixteen pounds, organic, free-range, etc., and it was pretty good eating.

a friend of mine says "i'm into the giving thanks but not so much of the pilgrim story." i myself have been riveted to those pilgrim stories, because there are more than usual, it being the 400-year-anniversary of the mayflower, but also because i'm writing a book on the issue. the book is mostly about ancestors who occupied massachusetts in the 17th and 18th century, but i'm just laying the groundwork, noth having done the research yet, and i have been enlightened considerably by articles about the original wampanoag. i have a lot of nerve, actually, as a white guy talking about the wampanoag, but they played a big role in how things played out and i want to document that story.

but an unfortunate result of all this publicity as thanksgiving has come and gone is burn-out. in other words, there is only so much a person can take of studying the ancient pilgrim/puritan world and i've about reached my limit. the good news is that i can deal with that - i can turn away from it a while, do other things, refresh. i've also stalled out on the prairie book, and i could conceivably work on any of about fifteen unfinished products. but this one i'll have to list as less than half done - i really barely got started.

i'm thinking of making print versions of some of these projects, just so i'll always have something with me that i can proofread and work on. one of my issues is that there is a logjam at the proofreading stage, and i'm not always up to or able to do the necessary proofreading. it's another case where i have to roll with the punches so to speak and just work 'til i have a system that works.

and i'm mulling over doing biographies, most notably frank. frank would be my great grandfather's cousin, so cousin three times removed. frank was a geologist who walked from ames to madison, allegedly, and who two glaciers are named after. he's a character; not sure i have enough to fill a whole book, without becoming a geologist. but one thing he did, in the course of walking - he grew up in denmark, iowa by the way - is he charted the changes in the mississippi over time. this i think would be interesting by itself. and he was a prolific writer of geology things - not to mention family letters, which i have, but have a hard time reading.

now, the turkey has had its way, and i've become tired. i can't figure out what my new phone is doing, so i might as well give up. more later!