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Today is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States and I’m going to begin my own personal observation of that day by devoting another Throwback Thursday post to some art I did as a child.
Here are two drawings that I did as a child that my late mother kept for many years. I did these drawings in my school art class when I was in the sixth grade. I was apparently instructed to do some drawings that incorporated words. So I created two drawings incorporating the words “alligator” and “giraffe.”
I did the outline of the drawings with a pencil then colored them in with crayons. Those two drawings show that I was capable of coming up with creative solutions at an early age.
And, on that note, I’d like to mention that for the past few months I’ve been putting up weekly Throwback Thursday blog posts showing artwork I did before I graduated from high school that I found among a file folder that my late mother had kept. I’m starting to come to the end of this batch of early art. There are a few other old art pieces that I want to share but they are holiday-themed so I’m going to wait until the actual holiday arrives before I post them online. For now my Throwback Thursday series of early artwork by me is done. If I find anymore early art that my mother had kept, I’ll definitely digitize it and share here. But for now, it’s the end of this series of Throwback Thursdays.
Yes, it’s another Thanksgiving Day post. This year I’m just celebrating it alone. I purchased one of those frozen Marie Callender’s turkey dinners along with a jar full of sauerkraut, a small pumpkin pie, and a tube of Reddi Whip whipped cream from the local grocery store. That’s what it’s like to be a divorced woman with no living parents, no children, no grandchildren, no biological nieces or nephews.
But you know what? I’m not too upset. At least I don’t have the hassle of cooking a huge turkey for several hours or doing extensive cleaning in order to impress the guests. Nor do I have the hassle of taking a long car trip or train ride or plane trip to go to a relative’s home for Thanksgiving, which is what I used to do when I was married because all of my in-laws lived out of town. I can just sit back and relax.
And I need to relax because for the last two days I’ve volunteered to work on this project that was being organized through my church congregation. Over the past few months I’ve been writing postcards to BIPOC voters using postcards, stamps, lists of registered voters, and a template that were provided through a joint project of UU the Vote and Reclaim Our Vote. I thought that it would all end on Election Day but then the votes for Georgia senator are so close that there’s now a runoff that will be held on December 6. So UU the Vote, Reclaim Our Vote, decided to team up with the Georgia chapter of the NAACP to do one final postcard push. The main organizer of my church congregation sent emails to previous volunteers asking to work on this new project and we all volunteered to work on this one last push. As for me I didn’t get the materials until a few days ago because I kept on missing the previous times when we could pick up our stuff. (It was mostly my fault because I’ve been disorganized lately because I stupidly keep on looking on the nonstop crazy drama that has been going on since Elon Musk bought the company. I’m now putting my phone on Focus Mode so my Twitter app is greyed out in order to reduce temptation to look at it.)
By that point I only had two days to write up 30 postcards and get them in the mail by yesterday’s deadline. (The national organizers wanted the postcards to be mailed out early because of the usual mail slowdown due to theThanksgiving holiday weekend.) Handwriting postcards is incredibly time-consuming but I kept at it. As a motivator I kept on remembering that video of the bizarre speech that ex-football star-turned-Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker made soon after the polls closed on Election Day where he talked about vampires and werewolves.
That guy has also has a history of domestic violence and mental illness yet he’s almost tied for the Senate seat. Personally I think he has too many issues to become an elected official and I hope enough Georgians feel the same way.
Yesterday I managed to make it to the post office just 15 minutes before the last mail pickup before the holiday.
I had been already burned out by writing a total of 90 previous postcards over a three-month period. (Two of the sets went to Florida while the third went to Northern Virginia.) Now I am so completely tired of writing postcards that I just don’t want to see another one at the moment. If the Senate race in Georgia goes to a second runoff, I’m definitely not going to volunteer for anymore postcard writing because I have had enough.
At least I’m thankful that I’m living in a relatively calm area free from crazy political fanatics (such as certain red states like Texas, which has recently decided to reelect Greg Abbott as governor even though he was instrumental in turning that state’s power grid into a total disaster and his atrocious stand on abortion and gun control) or warmongers (like what Vladimir Putin is currently doing to Ukraine).
I’m also thankful that I’ve managed to avoid catching COVID-19 so far and I’ve been vaccinated. I still wear my face mask whenever I go to a public indoor location (such as a store or library) but ever since the rules were loosened I’m seeing fewer people wear a face mask. I don’t feel comfortable with stopping the face mask wearing because the COVID-19 pandemic is still there even if the rates of new infections are getting lower. Looking on the bright side, at least I can start to wear my Christmas face masks for the third season in a row starting today.
So I’m just going to sign off and relax today. I’ll end this post with a video I found on YouTube that’s a 30-minute playlist of vintage Thanksgiving music that’s pretty cheerful to listen to.
UPDATE (January 4, 2023): I’ve been meaning to write this for a few weeks but I got diverted. Basically, Herschel Walker lost in the runoff election last month so Ralph Warnock gets to keep his seat in the Senate. I’m glad that happened because I think Walker had too many mental health issues to take on a demanding career like United States Senator.
Every year between Halloween and Thanksgiving the stores always have bags of candy corn on the shelves for sale. I remember my late father was a fan of candy corn so we used to have it in our home especially for him. I remember his parents (my grandparents) used to have candy corn in bowls whenever we visited them for their annual Thanksgiving dinner in their home. As for me as an adult, I’ll occasionally eat candy corn if I’m in someone else’s home and someone had left a bowl of the stuff on a living room/dining room table or if I’m at some event and someone is giving away free tiny individually-wrapped candy corn bags that are exactly sized for one serving per person.
But I really can’t remember when I had last purchased a bag of candy corn for myself mainly because I’m not that big of a fan of it. The taste of it is just okay but I don’t think it’s really that earth-shattering. To be honest, there are other candy that I simply prefer to candy corn. For me candy corn is one of those sweets that I’m okay with eating at first but, after a while, I get tired of eating it. What’s worse is that these days it’s impossible to find a bag that’s less than a pound, which is a bit much for me (especially since I live alone) so I don’t even bother with buying it for myself.
But then this year I found a meme on Instagram that said “Why didn’t anyone tell me this? It’s called candy corn because when you stack it, it makes a corn cob!” and it’s accompanied by a photo of a pile of candy corn that’s stacked together in such a way that it looks like a corn cob. I’ve been occasionally eating candy corn since I was a child and I had never heard of that one. I immediately became curious so I purchased my first one-pound bag of candy corn for myself in years. While I was shooting video with my phone I tried stacking candy corn in such a way that it would resemble a corncob, just like in that meme I saw.
After I finished with my experiment I edited my video where I included a screenshot of the original meme that inspired my experiment along with the experiment itself. I posted that video on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. I’ll just let you watch the video so you can find out the result of my own experiment and compare it with the original meme.
As to what I did with my bag of candy corn after I finished with my video, I began to eat it a little bit at a time for about the next week or so. But I eventually began to get so tired of eating candy corn that I ended up bringing the remaining candy to a Samhain celebration (which was an observance of the original Celtic holiday that was the forerunner of Halloween) that was held at a friend’s home a couple of days before Halloween and I left it there when I decided to return home.
I was making a Target run last week when I walked past the toy section and saw this doll that caught my eye. Her name is Mirabel Madrigal and she’s based on the latest Disney movie Encanto. This doll looks incredibly gorgeous for a children’s play doll, especially her dress with its detailed patterns. Even though I hadn’t seen Encanto at the time, I ended up buying this doll the day before Thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving Day itself I shot this video showing the details of this doll, including her dress. She can also talk and she comes with a butterfly with a light that flashes when you put it in Mirabel’s hand before pressing the button on her chest. You can see for yourself in this video that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
I saw the Encanto movie just a few days after I purchased this doll. In fact, I decided to see this movie after I got my COVID-19 booster shot at this event that was held at the local library because it gave me a chance to chill out after getting vaccinated for the third time this year. I have to say that I loved it. The animation was very colorful and it provided great messages on how it’s okay to not always strive for perfection and it’s okay to have your own individual traits and personality within a family. I don’t want to go into any more detail than that since the movie was recently released and I don’t want to put any spoilers in this post. I’m glad I ended up enjoying the movie after I purchased the doll tie-in because I don’t know how I would’ve reacted if the movie had been awful but I had already purchased the doll before seeing the movie. I think in the future I’ll probably hold off on buying any tie-ins to a heavily hyped movie until after I see the movie because there’s a chance that I’ll end up not liking the film and I’ll probably lose interest in buying tie-ins as a result.
But in any case Mirabel Madrigal is a cool doll to add to my collection because I don’t have any other Latino/Latina/Latinx dolls so she’ll add even more diversity to my doll collection.
I’m spending my second Thanksgiving Day under the specter of COVID-19 and there are no signs that it is going away soon. In Europe there has been such a resurgence that some countries are undergoing lockdowns again while people there are protesting the latest restrictions.
Lately I’ve been reconsidering this whole Thanksgiving thing. Ever since I was a child I was taught that we celebrate Thanksgiving because the kind Native American tribe have saved the Pilgrims from starvation and death by sharing their feast. This year is the 400th anniversary of this first Thanksgiving, which is such a lovely heartwarming story.
Unfortunately most of that narrative is a total myth. Earlier this month I attended a virtual statewide meeting of the Maryland Poor People’s Campaign on Zoom where someone gave a presentation on the real origins of Thanksgiving and it’s far uglier than that Thanksgiving fairy tale that’s usually told to school children. For the past couple of years I’ve heard the occasional snark on social media that calls that holiday “Thankstaking” and now I understand why. For Native Americans it’s a day of mourning because it marks the beginning of the relocation and genocide of the First Nations peoples.
Thanks to learning about the real origins of Thanksgiving, I don’t feel bad celebrating the holiday alone this year. Once again I purchased a pre-made Marie Callender’s frozen turkey meal along with some sauerkraut, pumpkin pie, and whipped cream. It’s similar to what I showed off in this video that I made last year where I featured the interactive version of Baby Yoda/The Child/Grogu.
The only way that Thanksgiving can even be redeemed is maybe get away from that whole “Native Americans fed the Pilgrims” fairy tale and just focus on the things that we are grateful for. For me, I’m grateful that I still haven’t caught the Coronavirus, I have a roof over my head, I’m moving along quite nicely in getting that IT certificate through the joint Google/Coursera program in the hopes that I can find a job to support myself, and I still have friends.
Thanksgiving Day would’ve been bittersweet for me this year without the Coronavirus because it’s the first Thanksgiving since my mother’s death back in February. (She died of multiple sclerosis.) But the ongoing pandemic (which has now killed 262,000 Americans) and Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election to Joe Biden (which has led to his most devoted supporters actually demonstrating in the streets, such as that one protest that took place near where I live) has exacerbated everything for me.
I’m spending Thanksgiving Day alone but—unlike so many of my fellow Americans who are literally howling in protest over the Centers for Disease Control urging Americans to not travel this year and just stay home—it really doesn’t bother me. Ever since my husband left three days after Christmas in 2011 I’ve experienced celebrating Thanksgiving Day alone and it hasn’t bothered me at all. There were some years when I went to the home of one of my cousins for Thanksgiving because my late mother was there. (This was back when she was relatively healthy before MS had totally robbed her of her energy to the point where even talking on the phone for longer than two minutes would physically exhaust her.)
The last time I went to someone else’s home for Thanksgiving was two years ago when one of my friends from church decided to hold a celebration in her home and invite people who weren’t going to other family Thanksgiving celebrations. She lives in my neighborhood so commuting was no problem. I had a good time talking to her and to the other guests (most of them were also fellow church members) who were present. She decided not to hold another Thanksgiving celebration in her home last year so I resumed celebrating it by myself.
There are plenty of Americans who are ignoring the CDC advice and still traveling out of town for their Thanksgiving celebrations so I’m glad that I’m staying home. I’m getting so sick and tired of Americans not doing their part to stop the spread of this disease (and Trump’s idiotic response to this whole pandemic haven’t helped—there’s a reason why more people voted for Joe Biden instead of reelecting Trump to a second term in the White House). I’m especially tired of reading stories like this one about people who are openly COVID-19 deniers only to have either them or their loved ones get sick with this virus.
I’m taking this pandemic seriously because I have had past experiences with asthma, bronchitis, and even borderline pneumonia and I definitely don’t want to risk getting a virus that literally trashes a person’s lungs. I’d rather deal with the hassle of wearing a face mask than have first-hand experience with going on a ventilator in a hospital because, given my past lung issues, that would be my most likely fate if I were to catch it.
I’m pretty much prepared for a Thanksgiving dinner for one. I even made this short video where I showed off the food that I had purchased along with my interactive Baby Yoda that I purchased recently. I posted it on TikTok but I also uploaded it YouTube as well.
There are advantages of celebrating Thanksgiving Day alone. I don’t have to deal with baking a whole turkey because it really doesn’t make sense to buy a turkey just for one person. Instead I went to Giant where I picked up a Marie Callender’s frozen turkey meal that has a few slices of turkey meat, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy. What’s more, the portion size is large enough for two people so I’ll have leftovers that I can eat for dinner another night. The jar of sauerkraut came from Aldi. The small chocolate turkey and pumpkin pie in the video both came from the local Pennsylvania Dutch Farmer’s Market in Laurel and, yes, they are both made by the Amish. I purchased the Reddi-Whip to squirt on the pie from Giant.
Despite spending Thanksgiving Day alone, I still have plenty to be thankful for. I’m financially solvent for the time being due to my mother’s life insurance policy. The money won’t last forever but I can at least have the peace of mind knowing that I won’t be evicted from my home or have my utilities cut off. I’m thankful that I was accepted into this job program that’s supposed to prevent long term unemployment and underemployment among older people. I learned a few tips that I’m going to implement soon but I don’t really want to go into any detail here. The entire program was held virtually (due to the pandemic) but I still met some lovely people in that program, all of whom were having their own struggles with finding employment. I’m thankful that I still have friends and family around even if I can’t see them in person too often due to the pandemic.
Most of all, I’m thankful that I haven’t caught the Coronavirus as of this writing. I’ve followed the guidelines by wearing a mask whenever I go out anywhere (the county where I live have just passed a new ordnance requiring face masks when going out in public for any reason) and remaining socially distant from other people. In fact, I haven’t even caught the common cold and I usually catch one or two colds this time of the year. I think what is working for avoiding the Coronavirus is also working for other communicable diseases that are far less devastating like the cold.
The last time I was really sick was back in February when my then-housemate (who has since moved out) came home with the stomach flu and I caught it from him just a couple of days after my mother’s funeral. I still remember when I went to a job fair while I was still recovering from the stomach flu, which turned out to be a huge mistake because I became tired very easily and I ended up just taking pictures instead of talking to people and submitting resumes because I was too drained to talk to anyone else. When I now look at those pictures I took, it seems like another lifetime ago—an era when people didn’t wear masks and they had no problems with gathering close together in an indoor space. I could have never guessed that a major pandemic would sweep the U.S. just weeks after I took those pictures. I wouldn’t go to any event like that now with COVID-19 going through yet another surge.
So despite being alone for Thanksgiving Day, I’m really thankful that I’m still relatively healthy and I haven’t gotten COVID-19 yet.
I know I’m far behind with some of these posts. It’s mainly because I’m trying to do other things in my life (such as finding a steady day job and working on new creative projects) and I need to balance those with working on this blog. So here are some photos I took at The Space (a makerspace located inside of Beltway Plaza in Greenbelt, Maryland) last November.
On November 15, 2019, three young men happened to arrive at The Space dressed alike. It was all coincidental but it was still pretty funny that it happened. I took a picture of the three of them, which I posted below.
From left to right: Ob, Sadabu, and The Space founder Shaymar Higgs.
The Space is a non-profit art studio and makerspace located inside of Beltway Plaza Mall in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Space routinely gets donations. Among the more recent interesting donations is some vintage pamphlets from the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair.
My parents actually went to the New York World’s Fair while I was left behind with my grandmother. (I was very young so my parents correctly thought that I wouldn’t even appreciate it at all. They also didn’t want to deal with a restless toddler so they went without me. My grandmother had long struggled with arthritis that affected her walking so she stayed behind as well to take care of me.) Years later my then-husband would frequently point out the globe that was originally part of the World’s Fair while driving on the New Jersey Turnpike whenever we were visiting his father and step-mother.
The vintage artwork is pretty nice looking. The whole design has such a retro throwback feel to it.
I now regret never suggesting to my then-husband that we stop at the World’s Fair former location, even if it was just to see that giant globe. (It looked impressive from the highway.) In fact, I wish I had actually been old enough that my parents would’ve taken me. It looked like it was such a fun event.
Seeing Guy Lombardo among the performers is quite a throwback. I’m old enough to remember when he used to have his annual New Year’s Eve special on television.
Today no major event would hype giant smoke rings since there has been a general push away from promoting smoking cigars and cigarettes in public.
Shortly before Thanksgiving Day I was at The Space where I made this hand drawing of a turkey. I haven’t attempted anything like this since elementary school.
On that same day I noticed that The Space had put up a few token Christmas decorations to make the place look more festive, starting with these stars that were broadcasted on the ceiling.
One of the dress forms was converted into a makeshift Christmas tree, complete with green fabric, a string of lights, and a star on top.
Last, but not least, is Santa Claus.
Last November I decided to attend the Baltimore chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School for the first time since December, 2017. I know it’s been a long time but tight finances got in the way. Thanks to my recent job at the Census Bureau I was able to afford to go to Baltimore.
Since my last appearance at that event Dr. Sketchy’s longtime venue The Wind-Up Space closed for good last year. The good news was that Dr. Sketchy’s found a new venue in a brand new neighborhood—Highlandtown.
My family used to go to Highlandtown about once or twice a year when I was growing up because there used to be this restaurant in that area known as Hausner’s. The family that owned that place had two big passions—food and art. Not only was the food excellent (I still have fond memories of when I used to eat hasenpfeffer) but every square inch of wall space was filled with a sculpture or painting of some kind. It was literally like dining in the middle of an art museum. I used to look everywhere while we were waiting for our meal to arrive because there was so much to look at.
I went to Hausner’s only twice as an adult. Once was when my then-husband and I went on a date early in our marriage (after I kept on telling him so much about Hausner’s that he was curious enough to see what it was like). The other time was when my husband and I went with a group of friends from our church congregation and they were all impressed with both the art and the food.
About a year or two after I went with my husband and friends to that restaurant, Hausner’s went out of business for good. It was a case of the current generation who was running the restaurant had gotten older and they were ready to retire but they couldn’t find anyone among the younger generation who were willing to take the business over so they closed it. If you want to get an idea of what you’ve missed, I suggest looking at the Wikipedia.
Getting back to the present, I decided to arrive in the area a few hours early since it has been so long since the last time I had even set foot in that area. I also took a bunch of photos of the area.
The next photo shows the new location of the Baltimore chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School—the Creative Alliance, which makes it home in the historic Patterson Theater.
Since Dr. Sketchy’s wasn’t going to begin for the next few hours, I decided to just walk around the area while taking pictures. The one thing I noticed is that there is a number of murals, sculptures, and other types of art all around the area. I don’t remember Highlandtown being this artsy when my family used to go to Hausner’s.
There is even a portion of Eastern Avenue (which is one of the main thoroughfares through Highlandtown) named after the late Frank Zappa.
One of the murals is a giant map of the Highlandtown area.
I found this chicken-shaped mailbox outside of a Royal Farms store, which is appropriate since it serves up some really excellent fried chicken and western fries for prices starting at $6. In fact I purchased a chicken dinner box for myself at this store.
After I purchased my chicken dinner I walked around the area some more. I found the Southwest Anchor Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. I decided to take a break from braving the cold outside (it was a typical cold November day in Baltimore) and check out the library.
I found it to be a pretty nice library. It had books (of course) but it also had a computer lab and STEM activities available for people of all ages.
There was an all-ages activity where people could draw special turkey hands. (I visited just a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving Day.)
The top level of the library had this really cool glass art suspended from the ceiling that also faced the windows.
The library also had an atrium on the lower level where people could eat and drink. I ate my Royal Farms chicken meal while I was there.
By the time I left the library the sun had set. I took a couple of photos of some Christmas lights that were strung across Eastern Avenue near the Patterson Theater.
I’m going to write my next blog post about Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School since I’ve already posted so many pictures here.
I went to two separate events in Greenbelt, Maryland on the first Sunday in November. First I went to the annual Christmas Bazaar that is held at St. Hugh’s of Grenoble Catholic Church. I took a few photos of some dolls that were on sale. (The bazaar had other things on sale as well but I basically focused on dolls that day.)
Afterwards I headed over to the nearby Greenbelt Farmers Market. I walked over to the vendor that had some turkeys on display while taking orders for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
But then, all of a sudden, one of the turkeys flew up to the top of the fence where it literally had a bird’s eye view of the rest of the Farmers Market. I took a few photos of that would-be turkey fence jumper.
A day later I decided to submit a few of my photos of that would-be turkey fence jumper to The Greenbelt News Review and it was published in the very next issue. (You can see it by clicking on this link then scrolling down to page nine and looking for it on the left-hand side of the page.)
I was inspired to draw Bruni the ultra-cute salamander from the hit Disney film Frozen 2 soon after I was visiting The Space, the makerspace that is located in Beltway Plaza in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Space is located across from the AMC Theaters and one of my visits had coincided with the day after Frozen 2 was released. I saw huge lines form outside of the movie theater and it consisted of families with young children who were waiting to get inside. While I hung around The Space I heard the theater employees frequently announce that a certain Frozen 2 showing was sold out or there were only two seats left but they were not together.
When the most recent showing ended there were plenty of families who stopped by The Space and the volunteers did what they could to cater to them. In fact I was told that on the movie’s opening night The Space ended up staying open later than normal because there were so many families stopping by wanting to make art (especially based on what they had just seen on the screen).
While I was looking at my phone at The Space I saw news stories about how Frozen 2 became this huge hit all over the United States. I also found a picture of Bruni and I was smitten by his very cute looks. I began to feel tempted to go see Frozen 2 myself just so I could see Bruni.
I wasn’t willing to stand in a long line at the time so I did the next best thing: I decided to draw a picture of Bruni while writing some text that described why I was feeling so drawn to see the movie after seeing Bruni’s picture.
I ended up seeing Frozen 2 myself on the morning of Thanksgiving Day, when the ticket price was only $6 (which is the usual discount of any movie that had a start time prior to noon). There was no line at all when I went and I had my choice of seats. There were some people but I saw more people in line once I left the theater after the movie ended after 1 p.m. You can read my review of that movie right here.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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