My take on Thanksgiving in the U.S.

This year, I was in California for Thanksgiving, and found everyone saying "Happy Thanksgiving" all of the time. 

It was rather disconcerting.

I have to say, 

I'm very uncomfortable with Thanksgiving. 

My brother told me about how he heard Native Americans occupied the Mayflower one Thanksgiving~ this below was from a site about Russell Means who recently passed away:

1970 – Led the Thanksgiving Day demonstration at Plymouth Rock in which over 200 Indians seized the Mayflower, painted Plymouth Rock red and observed a national day of mourning.

http://www.russellmeansfreedom.com/about/

In the past, when my firstborn Ischin was a little baby. His daddy and I slept in a van in San Francisco at fisherman's wharf, the night before Thanksgiving morning. It was cause we were going to Alcatraz Island to "celebrate" an UNTHANKSGIVING morning.

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/alcatrazisnotanisland/activism.html

Today I wrote to a friend, instead of saying "Happy Thanksgiving" I wrote:

"In the Spirit of the Native Americans generosity- May they be better taken care of for offering so much..."

Native Americans, many, can be forgiving.

And continue to share their understanding, wisdom, and knowledge about living, in spite of European Americans having tried to commit genocide against them to get control of these "Untied States".

There happens to be this statue on the property we rent our house at. People do a double take when they drive up and see this man standing up behind our landlord's office:

At the base it reads:

(I did look up this "Chef" and this is what I found: "Despite having the label, "Chief Tawonka", this Cigar Store Indian was just an advertisement...not a depiction of a real person. Copies of this sculpture appear in other places confusing the matter more by attributing the [above] quote to this fictional Chief.

So when people say "Happy Thanksgiving" to me... I want to be positive but... well I thought yesterday... "Happy feasting...and Happy Giving Thanks."

Give Thanks to Native Americans who helped the Pilgrims- which is what they say happened.

One friend wrote on Facebook: 

"blessing and prayers to the memory of Massasoit and his descendants."

I didn't know and asked who Massasoit was... he said:

" He was the Wampanoag sachem that welcomed and cared for the Pilgrims."

It was very surprising to me the day before Thanksgiving. I spoke with a spanish speaking young man working on the rental where we live. 

He asked me: "Are you cooking a turkey?"

I laughed telling him, "OH no, I've never cooked a turkey"...and explained I lived in Japan for more than twenty years~ no turkeys in Japan.

I was so surprised, he said: "Oh, Japanese don't celebrate Thanksgiving??".

I should have talked with the young man a bit more, but I was in a rush to leave... I'm not sure he realized what he said.  Japanese? Japanese had something to do with Columbus??

HE'S one of the REAL Americans. He could have been from Central America or South America. These are HIS Americas.  This is HIS America. Before Europeans stole it away. Does he really feel like his "people" should be celebrating the Europeans colonizing these Americas? Perhaps his parents have "moved on" and aren't talking about those truths... 

Well, I do admit caring for the feast that we get to share with family that we don't usually get together with.

From our  gardens I'm still growing a little bit of veggies in, in spite of no sun shining on the property... pumpkins grew. I made some pumpkins soup a few times now! I also just started some more daikon to grow too.

I still try not to use our dryer. Hanging clothes outside- between rains- on this clothes hanger from Japan...I move it around to try to catch some sun! (Can you see the Indian Guardian up above?)

Then, this afternoon we got to go to Uncle Lynn's for "Thanksgiving" dinner. 

Zen came from Monterey, and Sheon, Taka and I joined their feast.

Lynn did the carving of the bird... and outside the window are these BEAUTIFUL PERSIMMONS

 Ohhhh Japan I miss you and autumn persimmons!!

Grandmom, at 93, ate up a full dinner plate of an amazing meal!!!

 Lorraine with her dear brother Stephan, and the rest of us- Taka taking the photo!

In the neighborhood

 I finished a four week writing group session, it was held at this meditation center.
So lovely it was!  AND cute!!!

 I got to meet a number of good women I hope to stay in touch with. These days I've also gotten to do a lot more writing. By hand, and "building up", getting ready, to work harder on a book of my memoirs.
That's where I've been being!


Also been spending as much time as usual with Grandmom. She's got a new, old little chiuhaua~

Her beloved daschund, Patty, died. What they are known to ail from, with those long backs. Patty's back gave out on her. But now Grandmom has "PattyII"...or is it she calls chiuaua-chan "Patty TOO?"

Across the road from Grandmom's I found a young man at HIS grandparent's home with HIS pet!

"Slick" which he informed me happens to be his last name as well. Yes, a boa constrictor. 

I asked him about what the boa eats, and of course, animals which he began naming. His Grandmom's dog was there hanging out. He showed me how interested Slink was in the dog...to eat of course! I'm surprised the pooch hung out as he did. I guess he hasn't watched Slink eat an animal yet.

Rains have begun to fall, and the gardens here at our house get very little sun. But I keep trying to grow things, and picking little leaves of arugula and cilnatro, kale, and russian chard for our salads. They totally make any restaurant salad taste like ...waste!

Autumn News

November 2012 marks the start of Monterey Peninsula College's season. I didn't miss seeing a game last year, and don't plan to miss a game this year! This year Zen is one of the Captains. This year only seven of the players are returning. Zen sounds good and positive! Sounds good!!!

Naomi is doing belly dancing, for three years now?  (You can recognize my daughter Naomi? To me she looks the most natural!!!)

In Japan it's become SO popular- belly dancing! Along with hula dancing and... more?
Naomi sent these photos for us

Yes, on stage too!

Other family~ at Grandmom's... she's got this great bird feeder. It always makes me think of an apartment style feeder! It's outside her front door. And the birds and squirrels eat up the seeds so fast the feeder has to be refilled every three days perhaps.

I've seen as many as eight birds, no...ten or eleven birds sitting on or around this feeder. In Japan they call apartment buildings "Mansions" (Japanese friends, "Mansions" are really almost Castle like houses)

We don't get to have Zen home much this time of year. Between studies and basketball training he's so busy, though he's only 45 minutes away.

Yes...Sheon's hanging out with him...and his "look" is probably cause I'm taking a photo.













Halloween, (ALWAYS Halloween is October 31st- Japanese friends!![Somehow they can't remember that!] )  wasn't hardly over when I saw CHRISTMAS trees. I mean... I just still wish, we didn't have to think SO much about Christmas before Thanksgiving which is November 22nd this year.

But I took this photo cause Grandmom doesn't want a big, live tree this year. 

Three sizes here...and they SMELL so good. 

In Japan I looked so hard for trees that smelled like Christmas and could never find them. I actually had one terrible experience, because I didn't want to kill a tree for Christmas. 

I bought a tree that was POTTED. 

We had it for Christmas and it started to die. 

It died by New Years and I felt terrible. 

I thought I killed it by having it inside the house with some heaters on. 

But by Spring I realized...maybe someone had chopped off the roots of the tree?!! 

The tree was still in my back yard and I went and pulled the dead tree out of the pot and sure enough- there were no roots. It had just been stuck in the pot and sold to us for 7,000 yen (about $80.00) . 

I was infuriated and took that poor dead tree back to where I'd bought it (HOME EXPO) and tried to tell them that they were SO terrible to sell a "tree" that had no roots. 

Japanese aren't used to admitting guilt, or giving refunds. 

I made a scene, and just hoped that someone "got it". 

For me, I've hated killing trees in the "spirit of Christmas". 

This Christmas, at our home, we'll get to have a living, 

potted Christmas tree to celebrate loving one another.