One couple married with children, 3 married without children or spouse, and 1 w/o spouse or children

. . . Though the stats above are somewhat non-traditional, we had a GREAT Thanksgiving. We spent around $2,000 to relax in Palm Springs with sad Sean and our boys, 1 who is divorcing and 1 who is trying to reconcile. Just so you know there is never any relaxing for me (although I've finally decided to talk to someone about that, which is another whole post). Although Sean doesn't think he's any better than he was 4 months ago when Bill and I left him following Michael's death, in reality, he is. I only mention the $2K so that a future generation can know how much it cost to fly the cheapest airline in the U.S. (with one free ticket and 3 paid, traveling on the Sat. before and Fri. after in order to get the best fares for the holiday) . . . . . . . . . . For one thing, he has a new friend who he left us Wed. to go see, saying he'd return at 9 p.m. (He returned about 10:30, so he must have been having a good time. Good for him.) For another thing, I asked him what percent of the time he is a mess and tried to pin him down when he couldn't answer - like 100% of the day, 50%, 75%. He then answered 50%. I said that was good ; I thought that was an improvement from Aug. and if he just improved another 10% every couple of months, he'd be doing really well. So, I just tried to get him something to think about in a quantifiable way. . . . . . . . . . . When we left, all this uncontrollable crying on both our parts (mine in a more empathetic way) came from Sean having given the boys some black leather boots that had belonged to Mike when he was Auxilliary Mounted Police in Central Park, NY. That made it real to Sean: Mike was gone and he doesn't need those boots ever again. Also, we were leaving and he would be alone again. Yet, life goes on, and he would call his friend and hopefully see him or at least talk to him that day. . . . . . . . . . . As he said to me when I asked him (we are both candid) who would be better to have been left alone, he said definitely him because he was always more of an extrovert and would make new friends whereas Mike never would have. He would have just come to live with me, which would have been OK, but Mike in Nashville, away from his pool and beautiful view? Anyway, didn't happen. Whew . . . and so, when Grant saw all the tears as we were leaving, he asked me in the car if Sean would be OK and I said I didn't know yet. He then asked if I was going to be OK and I said sure. I'm thinking Sean will be too, but I tend to look at the glass as just a glass, thankful to have a drink of water no matter what the amount. . . . . . . . . . . T'giving day was spent at: you guessed it, the Spa Casino champagne buffet at $26.99 a head. Winnie, Sean's 25 yr. old step niece, drove over from L.A. because she didn't want to spend the day with her in-laws who had come to the area for T'giving (and 9 additional days) without consulting Winnie. Winnie decided she would cook turkey on Sat. but had to be with Sean and us on Thursday. She really liked us, Sean later reported, and said I reminded her of Michael. How nice. She stayed till way after dark (that's about 3:30 when the sun goes behind the mountain) and we had a lot of nice talk with the 6 of us. My boys are very smart and she was, as Sean said, a brainiac, getting her PhD at U. of Cal. in organic chemistry which is what you do if you are going to make developing drugs your life's work. I told her about doing nerve pain, but I knew she would say that first she had to do Parkinson's Disease for Mary Lou, her step mom, Sean's step sister. She's married to a Marine helicopter pilot, so she and Bill could talk military (who knew Bill would ever talk military???). I could squeeze politics in occasionally. David did his polite share and then went inside to be the token football fan (another surprise - only 1 male Vandy at the football table?). Perhaps Grant was with him. . . . . . . . . . . At any rate, I think this post is long enough, so I'll break it into 2 and maybe type a little more tomw. :) My turkey is in the oven, but I think I still have plenty of time to take a nap. You know how you never sleep as well in a "foreign" bed. Our king-sized one sure felt good last night when we turned off the light around 1:30 a.m. Zzzzzzzz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .