Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Death: Stan Wisniewski

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Stan Wisniewski, 51, of Dallas, died just prior to Thanksgiving 2010. A native of Pennsylvania and Ohio, he had lived in Dallas since 1985 and worked as a courier, clerked at Honda Mechanics and Sales, and warehoused at MJ Designs, finally settling into a seven-year career at Walgreen’s. Wisniewski was a generous giver who volunteered at Resource Center Dallas and at the center’s food pantry. He had a friendly and happy-go-lucky demeanor that brought him many friends who will miss him sorely.

This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition Feb. 18, 2011.

—  John Wright

Happy Thanksgiving and a health update post-alien fibroid uterine removal

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UPDATE: Just got labs back from blood work done just before surgery, and in fact my blood count was lower than the norm (as in I bleed way too much during my period). Duh, I could have told them that without a test. I don’t know whether the doctor will put me on iron on or not, but it’s likely to bounce back on its own over time.

Happy Turkey Day! It’s time to give thanks for what good we have in our lives. I am thankful for my family, my friends old and new – online and offline — and for readers who have been kind and generous. A special shout out to others in the hysterhood, who gave me good pre- and post- surgery advice.

Our Thanksgiving was relatively quiet, we were home and I was unconscious most of the day, getting up at regular intervals (about 4 hours or so), to take pain meds. The doggies loved having us home. My follow up appointment with the surgeon is on 12/7.

The surgeon has me alternating doses of ibuprofen (anti-inflammatory) and hydrocodone (hard core opiates). Both work ok, though pain relief is never as good as you receive in the hospital. I am usually able to ditch the pain meds after a couple of days, but post-hysterectomy pain is way worse than when I had my gall bladder removed.

Details below the fold.
If you missed following my Facebook and Twitter updates, I was released from the hospital yesterday, only after I was able to do #1 on my own. Otherwise I was either going to be sent home with a catheter or stay another day and be re-cathetered. Both were bad options, but around 2PM yesterday I was finally able to go. It’s kind of a surrealistic experience – you feel the urge to go, your brain is sending the signals to go, and then nothing happens. At all. This went on every few hours as I would attempt it. I thought I was losing my mind. Anyway, once I did, I got dressed and was outta there.

Whack-a-mole holes in the gut

I was left with five holes in my abdomen from the laproscopy, including one entry point in my navel, which will probably be one of the last to heal. As I mentioned yesterday, one of the complications of my surgery was some tearing of vaginal tissue as the uterus was removed in one piece after it was severed from the fallopian tubes/ovaries. Since the largest fibroid was the size of the uterus itself, it’s not surprising it wasn’t going out easily.

The area with the stitching to close that up is somewhat swollen, which inhibited my ability to void. So it’s a small miracle I didn’t have to do another day in the hospital.

Needless to say, even on the percocet I was on in the hospital, I was still in some pain, just not excruciating. The nurses were wonderfully attentive in giving meds to me upon request and kept checking my pain levels.

So once home, what I can report is that I’ve done little else except sleep, get on and FB and tweet when I’ve had to test my blood glucose and take my needles/pain meds. Kate has the alarm set to every four hours to wake me to take the pain meds and to test. So I’m getting more sleep than at the hospital, but it’s still interrupted sleep. Good thing I am testing regularly, since my lows have been around 72. So I’d pop a few prunes and go back to sleep.

There is a L&O marathon on TNT today, so I watch some random episodes that I fall asleep on. I am too weak to be bored, so that’s a good thing. As you might imagine, the worst part is standing up and lying down. Your abs simply don’t want to work after this kind of surgery. The only comfortable position is flat on my back, which is crappy since I’m a side/tummy sleeper, but I’m so drug-addled I don’t even care. I just want to sleep.

Today’s adventure — my first shower since arriving home. Kate took all of my dressings off — three abdominal incisions required stitches, two were glued shut — and I feebly got in the shower and, well, it was a painful experience washing that area. But it was good to get clean. I will have to do this for a while, so Kate can help with the dressings. My abdomen is very swollen due to the surgery and the 4 IV bags of fluids I took in. That added another 10 lbs over night. Argh.

The only clothing that fits comfortably at this point are my sundresses with a shirt under them or my night gowns. The elastic waist pants that I thought would be a good choice post-surgery hurt like hell.

I’ve taken to shooting up my insulin in my arms since my abdomen is so sore. All of this sucks but at least I wasn’t blindsided — I was told to expect this. My appetite is not very good. I can eat solid food, but clear broth soup is better digested.

I expect to feel about this bad for a week, with each day getting a little better. I did try stairs today. That was a mistake. Oh god that hurt. Going down is worse that going up. Guess I just like testing my (in)abilities. Bad blogmistress.
Pam’s House Blend – Front Page

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Happy Thanksgiving From Louise, Snooky- and Keori!

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For the first time ever, our daughter Keori is able to be “Home For The Holidays”- and Snooky, Mary, Jean and I could not be more thrilled.

Last night we had a quick “Breakfast for Dinner”, as she was pretty tired when she got here- later this morning, we will have a yummy breakfast of Eggs Benedict with choice of lobster or Canadian bacon and mimosas. Then all of we women shoo out of the kitchen as Snooky roasts the bird, makes the dressing with chestnuts, sausage, cranberries, apples, onion and celery, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and the traditional sweet potatoes with marshmallows the size of the cat’s head.

Seriously- I have NEVER seen marshmallows this big before and have no idea where he found the darned things!

2 days ago he made the turkey/veggie stock and yesterday was “Pie Day”- pumpkin and mince. As well as homemade cranberry/orange relish.

Keori is making something she calls “Mulled Cider”- it involves apple cider, pineapple, oranges, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves and ginger. I can’t wait; sounds DELICIOUS.

And what do I do, while all of this is going on? Easy- my long standing tradition is to go out to the barn, dig out all of my bird feeders (if I haven’t put them out already), feed my lil winged pals, then commence on setting up the Christmas lights on every single fence and branch that will support weight. It will take me about 3 weeks to accomplish, many cold hours of muttering and troubleshooting problems, and will be able to cause air traffic diversions when I am done! :D

So, a very H-a-p-p-y T-h-a-n-k-s-g-i-v-i-n-g to the Blenders from all of us the in the TRUE frozen tundra (as opposed to Seattle! ;)

Open Thread Time: What are your plans and favorite menu items? What traditions, what menu items- whatcha up to?
Pam’s House Blend – Front Page

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Cardinal says gays persecute and silence; we might shush our Catholic Aunt Bethany at the Thanksgiving table, but that’s about it (*and that’s b/c she’s annoying, not b/c she’s Christian)

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Cardinal-BiffiCardinal Giacomo Biffi has updated and republished his memoirs, with new portions focused exclusively on homosexuality. This snippet from the openly anti-gay LifeSite News:

In these “shattered” times, the cardinal said, the new ideologies have resulted in an “intellectual blindness” and in the silencing of Christians who are intimidated by persecution by homosexuals and their ideological accomplices.

But in the end, the cardinal wrote, the Church will not be defeated: “We are with the Lord of History.”

…

The ideology of homosexuality, he said, as often happens to ideologies when they become aggressive and are politically successful, “becomes a threat to our legitimate autonomy of thought: those who do not share it risk condemnation to a kind of cultural and social marginalization.”

“The attacks on freedom of thought start with language,” he wrote. “Those who do not resign themselves to accept ‘homophilia’ … are charged with ‘homophobia’.”

“Is it still permitted … to be faithful and consistent disciples of the teaching of Christ … or must we prepare ourselves for a new form of persecution, promoted by homosexual activists, by their ideological accomplices, and even by those whose task it should be to defend the intellectual freedom of all, including Christians?”

Aggressive homosexual ideology silencing Christians: senior Cardinal [LifeSite News]

Pretty harsh and dangerous claims, no? Here we have an influential leader of the Roman Catholic Church putting forth messaging that pretty much tells believers that gays who are ‘radical” enough to see themselves as equal citizens of the world (how dare we?) are out to get people of faith, and therefore the church must fight back against the supposed persecution. In this day and age of bullying and other highlighted torments, this is the meme the Cardinal is choosing to drum up. As we said: Dangerous.

And then there’s the element of pure nonsense. The Cardinal paints a portrait of militant gays intimidating and silencing and persecuting and attacking. Then he talks about how the church will ultimately win. All the while, we’re sitting here on the sidelines, wondering why people keep trying to drag us into a fight we never asked for, fostered, or raise a fist within. It’s like junior high all over again, where we just wanna get through the day so we can go home and play Super Mario World, but our friend Mason keeps insisting on running his mouth, getting into arguments, and dragging us into it. Next thing we know, Mason’s coming to blows behind the football field, and we’re forced to sit there feigning interest and wasting crucial Yoshi time, having been drug into the silly melee by unsubstantiated claims, demanded sympathies, and the unfortunate fact that our seventh grade locker proximity led Mason to determine that our geographical closeness should translate to friendship. Yea, it’s kind of like that. Except, you know: With the Cardinal’s reach extending well beyond Mason’s influence at the most popular lunch room table, and the stakes being marked in actual human lives rather than Mario’s digital 1ups.

But who here in America has signed on to this unfortunate, nonsensical, perilous rhetoric as a fan? None other than the Catholic-focused National Organization For Marriage, natch:

Screen Shot 2010-11-24 At 6.59.53 AmCardinal Biffi’s new essay in a book “The Inconvenient Memoirs” points out the ways in which an “aggressive ideology” is shattering the once-Christian west and increasingly silencing the voice of Christians. But to those who argue for the inevitability of the victory of this new ideology, he says, fear not, “We are with the Lord of History.”

“We are With the Lord of History” [NOM Blog]

Makes sense (in nonsensical “culture war” terms) that NOM would get behind this kind of thing. We’ve always said that while “marriage protection” is NOM’s stated goal, their underlying, perhaps more pervasive strategy is script-flipping. They want to change the stakes of this conversation, position this current civil rights conversation as being their own struggle over supposed gay persecution, so that for the first time in history, it will be the rights-strippers who history shines favorably upon. In that sense, Cardinal Biffi’s “with the Lord of History” rhetoric fits like a gay love.

But despite it being non-shocking, we should not neglect the concerns attached to this mindset. It is an outlook that, by design, will more fully enrage like-minded people of faith every time an LGBT person gains a fortuitous new labor-fruit. As that can is more fully cracked open, none of NOM’s carefully parsed language or measured sympathies will be able to control the way the masses receive and act on what pretty much sounds like a Christian call to arms.




Good As You

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The Unexpected Homoerotics At The Thanksgiving Day Parade

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The Regulars Comic, from Karl Hampe, is published every Friday on Queerty.

CONTINUED »

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Queerty

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BREAKING: Supreme Court allows DADT to remain in effect pending government’s appeal

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As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday refused to prevent the military from enforcing “don’t ask don’t tell” during the government’s appeal of a ruling that declared the policy unconstitutional.

Here’s a statement in response to the high court’s ruling from Servicemembers United:

“It is unfortunate that an unconstitutional law that is causing substantial harm to military readiness and to tens of thousands of troops is allowed to remain in effect for even one more day,” said Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United and the only named veteran plaintiff in the case. “This just underscores the need to continue to put pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to allow the defense authorization bill to come back up and take its first procedural step before the Senate’s Thanksgiving recess. Servicemembers United, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, Stonewall Democrats and the Log Cabin Republicans have all strongly and consistently called on Senator Reid to do just that. It is now time for other organizations, as well as the White House, to publicly do the same.”

Read more at Politico.

—  John Wright

My most embarrassing Thanksgiving

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This is a turkey baster used to baste turkeys
This is a turkey baster used to baste turkeys.

I have always had Thanksgiving at either my aunt’s house on Long Island and more recently Florida or at my friend Diane’s house in Richardson. My aunt is now well into her 80s and decided not to cook. Instead, she went to my cousin’s house in California. Diane is having her kitchen redone. She’s going elsewhere.

So this year, I’m making the turkey.

I got the turkey, the ingredients to make stuffing (yes, Tammye, we STUFFED the turkey. No dressing in my New York/Bolivian household). Yams. A variety of fresh vegetables. And that traditional Thanksgiving dessert, cheesecake.

And to cook the bird properly, I realized this morning that I needed one of those things that you soak up the juice from the pan and pour it over the turkey.

So I was at my neighborhood Oak Cliff Fiesta and an assistant manager was in the kitchen utensil aisle. I didn’t see one of those squeegie things so I asked him:

“Do you have one of those things that you get the juice off the bottom of the pan and pour over the turkey?”

He showed me the wrong item.

“No, I can’t think of what it’s called,” I said and did some pantomime about how you squeeze it and shpritz.

“You know, one of those things that lesbians use to get pregnant,” I finally explained in desperation.

“Oh! A turkey baster!” he said.

It was in the next aisle. $1. Marked turkey baster. Not labeled lesbian fertility kit.

Happy Thanksgiving.

—  David Taffet

One more reason to love Maple & Motor Burgers and Beer

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You might recall our lovefest for the new(ish) Maple and Motor Burgers joint. In fact, it’s making my mouth water right now and I’m totally regretting the 7-11 tuna sandwich I opted for instead. Today, they give us a reason to be thankful for the place. They posted this to help out peeps with their Thanksgiving dinner.

Bring a cooler in tomorrow between 1:30 and 3:00 and I’ll fill it with ice for your Thanksgiving feast. You can also pick up beer for Turkey Day and take it with you.

Free ice? Very nice. Maybe it’s just me but I think that’s a pretty awesome gesture. Or maybe my family uses too much ice on Thanksgiving that I appreciate it differently. But it gave me one more reason to dig the spot as did this.

The beer, however, not free.

—  Rich Lopez

COH hosts Thanksgiving Day feast

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If you’re going to be in town without family on Thanksgiving, the Cathedral of Hope wants you to know you do have a family here — one of choice. The church is hosting its annual worship-and-feast Thanksgiving Day celebration. It begins with services at 11 a.m., immediately followed by a potluck dinner.

But this being a queer church, the menu is a little, umm, queer. Entrees and sides include turkey chili, creamed butternut squash soup, mixed-greens salad, homemade cornbread and hot apple cider, among other items. All you need to bring is your appetite. (They are requesting a dessert, but it is not required.) Then it’s on to the more traditional celebrations, including football on the big screen.

—  Arnold Wayne Jones