Reflections in the Dragon's Eye: A Journal

22 November 2000

Bah. After anticipating a fantastic day yesterday, I spent it getting more and more congested, until finally it felt like there was a brick lodged in my sinuses, my teeth hurt from clenching them when I blew my nose, my head hurt from the pressure, my eyes ached and were watering... In short, a full-blown allergy attack, and I felt miserable.

I went home around 3:30, took some drugs and a cup of hot tea, and napped on the couch until Matt got home at five. He fixed me some dinner - rice and beans - and we watched a television special on magic while we ate. At seven, when the show was over, I went to bed. I woke up briefly when he came to bed at eleven, and then slept sortof restlessly until about two. I kept having this dream that I was crocheting... Either a snowflake or one of the ornament-wrappers I've been working on, it varied. Anyway, it kept getting bigger and bigger, because I couldn't figure out how to stop it, and eventually I came to understand that it was my blanket, and if I wanted to be warmer, I would have to make it bigger.

Every time I reached that realization, I woke up, tucked the blankets more tightly around myself, and went back to sleep to start it over again. You'd think that eventually I would have taken the hint and got myself another blanket, but the thought never occurred to me.

I'm about back to normal this morning, though, thank goodness. I'd been worried that I was coming down with an actual cold, two days before Thanksgiving... Wouldn't that have been fun? Trying to cook while I could barely see?

Tonight will begin the cooking. I'll be making the potato-apple gratin tonight to be reheated tomorrow just before I serve it. I still haven't decided whether to make the whole thing or to cut the recipe in half. I'll probably come to a decision about five minutes before I make it. Part of the reason I'm making it tonight is that I'm not entirely sure of the recipe, and I want there to be time if necessary to substitute good old-fashioned mashed potatoes. (The cheese might be my waterloo. The recipe calls for a sort of cheese I wasn't able to find, so I'm sustituting cheddar, which is my favorite cheese anyway... But if the original cheese - I don't remember the name - was much drier, then I'm going to be adding way too much liquid to this casserole... Ah, well, we'll see. Hopefully it will taste good, even if it isn't presentable.)

And while I'm at it, I'll probably do all the preparation short of cooking for the vegetables - wash, peel, cut... That's the time-consuming part, anyway.

Is it time to be Thankful?

Every day should be a day to be thankful for the good things in your life. I am thankful for a lot of things on a very regular basis: my husband, my cat, my house, my family, my friends. I'm not always thankful for my work, but I'm grateful that I have work, because it means I can do my part to pay the bills, and even have some left over for luxuries. I'm thankful that my health and the health of those I love is relatively good. I am thankful that I live in an age when we can take miracles for granted: that tomorrow evening, I will talk to people I love who are hundreds and thousands of miles away.

Thanksgiving isn't the single day of the year to finally recognize the things for which I am grateful, any more than Valentine's Day is the single day of the year I can tell my husband how much I love him. Rather, it's a day to focus on my gratitude - to consider what my life would be without them, to recognize that many people are forced to do without, and to appreciate them all the more.

Thank you for reading.

Word of the Day: waterloo - a decisive or final defeat or setback

Previous Reflection

Current Reflections

Reflect Back

Next Reflection