Alice's Restaurant

A long-standing Thanksgiving tradition in my family is listening to Arlo Guthrie sing "Alice's Restaurant." Growing up in the New York City area, my brothers and I used to listen to it every Thanksgiving morning on the now-defunct (format-wise) radio station WNEW. My husband and I didn't think we'd hear it on the radio when we lived in Costa Rica, but a check of the English-language station proved us wrong. We were able to continue the tradition, exposing our children to a little bit of ancient musical history: a protest song from the Vietnam War era.

Now we live in Rhode Island, and it seems every Thanksgiving we have to scramble to find the song on the airwaves. We never remember which station plays it; I suspect more than one does. So this morning, my husband was on-line trying to see if it he could find it on the playlists of various stations when I decided to turn on the radio to see if any of the likely stations might announce plans to play it. I pushed the button, and there it was, about 3-4 minutes into the song. Arlo and Company had been arrested for littering and were making a court appearance before a blind judge. After the song was over, the DJ announced that it could be heard again at noon. This time, the whole family listened: we were a movement!

Today is +76 post-transplant. I went to clinic yesterday in Boston and discussed real estate taxes with my doctor. I have no symptoms, I am doing better than anyone (including myself) expected and my blood counts are all great, so we have to find something to talk about for 5 minutes. For this, among other things, I give thanks.

The turkey's in the oven, the apple pie's baked and we just came back from a walk in unusually mild weather. I'm thinking about egg nog, booze-free of course.

It's good to be here.