Tonight, Nov. 30, on Larry King Live, Jerry Lewis ...

At 9 PM Eastern Time, Larry King will interview Jerry Lewis. From the page on CNN: "Jerry Lewis shares memories about his friendship with Dean Martin. The real story about their triumphs and tragedies."

Some visitors here may be too young to remember much if anything about Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Results of Google Search for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin

Eight more links to posts with keywords estranged & Thanksgiving ...

If you only read one of these, make it the first one.

By far my favorite: Thanksgiving tough questions

if i get my way, turkeys will be safe forever

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Surviving the holiday?

Thanksgiving Part II

Sweat pants

T-Day, Plus 1

Why I slam religion…

Suffering from a compliment shortage?

The Surrealist Compliment Generator Then click on the link to reload the page.

A generated gem: "Ever would one thank the very ground upon which you walk that your blossoming feet be never engaged."

OT - On the subject of Thanksgiving Day family murders ...

One of my favorite online writers is Steve Huff. He usually writes about crime stories that interest him and chooses stories to write about that I'd never hear of otherwise. This will sound strange but he has superb taste in crime and good instincts for what motivates people.

This last week the question crossed my mind of how many people would murder a relative on Thanksgiving Day. Does anyone keep track of these things? No one probably but with all the stresses that occur when some families get together, undoubtedly there have to be a fair number of murders that happen during the holidays and even more that only happen in the minds of the would be perpetrators.

Then I read Steve Huff's crime du jour which was not only about a crime but also about love, family, relationships and the stupid tragic things that people do. Coincidentally, the subject was about a Thanksgiving Day family murder.  

Snicks

Note: Steve Huff's Darkside blog where I read the story above no longer exists and the link that I originally had provided to the post mentioned above is no longer good so I deleted the link. But, if you want to visit Steve Huff's current writings, he has a blog now at Crimeblog.us

Do objects become estranged? What about socks?

I have four single socks that have no matching sock. Four of my favorite patterns of socks and their mates are all where? In hiding?

My husband suggests that they are not estranged. Just merely separated and that the other will turn up. But what if it turns up and then disappears again? Could it be that it didn't want to be found and they really are estranged?

Hmm. The things that one who is obsessed with estrangement thinks about!

Snicks

Results of the Internet Search of the Day using Keywords Estranged and Thanksgiving

Got a little time on your hands and want to do some reading? Some of the blogs I found are very cool. These are the most interesting of the results I found on doing a Technorati search of blogs that include the words Estranged and Thanksgiving. Results are from the last eight days worth of blogs.

1. Friday, November 25, 2005: Ministry of  Happy Smallpox-Infected-Blankets Weekend.

2. Thursday, November 24, 2005: Let the Games begin: finding your place in an ever-growing family...creating controversy for the hell of it...running like hell.

3. No Regrets. Posted on  Thursday 24 November 2005

4. New Kid on the Blog, Nov. 24, 2005

5. Man gets year in prison for scattering nude picsThursday, November 24, 2005 By RUSS FLANAGANThe Express-Times (Scroll down for article.)

6. 24.11.05 First Post

7. The Thanksgiving Day Column

8. Thanksgiving

9. Thanks a lot

10. Thanksgiving Message

11. And Fuck the Turkey You Rode in On Other profane posts on the topic of our American Thanksgiving exist if you want to look around for them on his blog.

12. TURKEY TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

13. THANKSGIVING...do I need a holiday to remember?

14. Me and My Crazy Dreams

15. Pieces of April

16. I Want My Mommy

17. TV One Thanksgiving Showcase; Mid-Season Sitcom 'Crumbs' Promos Begin on Sunday

18. Feeling the Grinches Coming On...

19. Search on Technorati search for blogs with the keywords estranged and Thanksgiving This one is if you want to do your own search on Technorati for recent blogs with the words estranged and Thanksgiving. The results should change as the date gets further from Nov. 24.

Two Movies: "The History of Violence" and "Proof".

"THE HISTORY OF VIOLENCE"

After seeing the movie, The History of Violence, and, of course, relating it to the issue of estrangements, I thought, "Some estrangements are better left alone. Why would anyone in their right mind want to get back together with that guy unless he wanted to get back together with you? You'd just leave him the heck alone!"

I can't tell you any more or I'll spoil the movie for you if you haven't seen it.

"PROOF": THE ISSUES OF PROOFS

Then there is the movie Proof with Gwyneth Paltrow playing the daughter to the genius mathematician father played by Anthony Hopkins. A central issue is the fear of insanity having been passed down from father to daughter, a fear that is reinforced by the suspicions of the controlling straitlaced buttondowned sister.

Greeting from Snicks

Sentences you won't ever hear said by a Prince(ss)

While some people may not know the meaning of specific words in the English language, the Prince(ss)es of the world do not know the meaning of and are unable to speak certain entire sentences. Hoping to hear a Prince(ss) say these sentences is futile. A Prince(ss) cannot understand the sentences below and it is impossible for a Prince(ss) to be able to say them to the person whom they have estranged themselves from and whom they talk about in a contemptuous and scornful manner:

Princess & The Pea's 15 Rules of Conduct

OR Why We Can Be Thankful For An Estrangement

This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. This will be the first Thanksgiving since 1995 that I can say that I am thankful for the estrangements in my life as well as for so many other things of a more traditional nature like health, friends, a loving husband and a roof over my head.

Reading the list below of the

Princess and the Pea's Fifteen Rules of Conduct makes me realize once again how foolish I have been to be missing the Princess for all of these years when I might have felt thankfulness instead. Lately I have been angry at myself for missing the Princess after learning that she does not love me or care about me and hasn't for many years.

Addendum to the Princess and the Pea.

Three things I want to add...

Who qualifies as a Prince or Princess?
Not only sons and daughters are candidates for the title of Prince and Princess. Mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends ... anyone can act like a Prince or a Princess.

There are different degrees of the affliction:

The Princess (or Prince) and the Pea

OR Don't Let the Prince(ss)'s Get You Down!

Do you remember the children's story about the Princess and the Pea? The Princess was the girl who was made so uncomfortable by the presence of a Pea under her mattress that she needed many many mattresses laid one on top of the other before she was able to sleep. This was the test of a True Princess. It was only a True Princess who could discern the presence of the Pea through multiple mattresses. Commoners would be able to sleep without feeling the Pea.

One more good link for information on Mental Health Disorders

This is a good page for descriptions of mental health disorders including Personality Disorders. Psych Central (Scroll down in this linked page for an explanation of what Personality Disorders are and a list of links to information about the various personality disorders.)

While many normal people may relate to some of the characteristics described in a Personality Disorder, note that in the description of what constitutes a Personality Disorder that the difference between a person with a Personality Disorder and a normal person is that the normal person's personality "does not affect most people's daily functioning to the same degree it might someone diagnosed with one of these disorders."

Keeping that in mind might help readers not to suffer so much from "medical student's disease", where you read a list of symptoms and conclude that you and most of the people that you know are suffering from the ailment described.

Snicks

Memory: Undoubtedly neither of us are right?

About 17 years ago my husband and I visited with an elderly couple who lived an hour's drive north of here. They were a genteel and charming couple who had been married for a long time. The wife served us tea. The husband told us stories. Then he told us a story from which his wife's memory differed. She corrected him. He disagreed with her. She disagreed with him. They went back and forth. My husband and I sat with our teacups, observing this dispute between two people we had just met. Then the wife turned to us, smiled, and said, "Undoubtedly we are both right."

Bookmark this! A place to visit when you need to lighten up.

dooce.com

A List of Links on Mental Illnesses that can be involved in an estrangement.

A mental health professional is generally the best person to diagnose a mental illness but sometimes the person who needs help the most refuses to see a professional. Then relatives do the best that they can to try to sort out what is happening. It might be helpful for relatives to consult with a mental health professional to see what the best course of action

might be. In some cases the person with a problem may refuse treatment.

Some links that come up when searching on keywords: "estranged from my mother":

Estranged from my mother: Ask Amy Anything Advice Column August 6, 2004

Severed, Like a Tree from Its Roots by  Lillian Boraks-Nemetz A quote from the article: " Then there is a different sort of separation -- a rending of children from parents, a bizarre example of what was done during the era of Nazi persecution when parents gave their children to strangers so that they might survive."

The links below are all from a blog called Real Joe. To navigate to the next post from the one linked to, you just click on the next subject in the blog which will be the one to the right of the word "Main".

I haven't seen many blogs written so sensitively by a man who wasn't by profession a writer. Oops! I checked out his "About Us" info and he is very much a writer! I bumped into Real Joe today in my search for some interesting links on estrangements.

My mother's coming down for a family therapy session today

Lunch with Mom ... from the Real Joe blog

He is still my dad ... from the Real Joe blog

Robbie read the first draft of my eulogy to Pappy ... from the Real Joe blog

An essay on the ability to appreciate and the ability to grow.

In 1988 I attended a one week workshop for Adult Children of Alcoholics. During that workshop I learned something about myself. I learned much more than this one thing but there was this one something that I am remembering today. I learned that I had some preconceived notions about older women, meaning women who were 15 or 20 years older than myself. I tended not to trust them or to consider them as possibilities for friendships. There was a woman there who was interested in being friends with me and I paid no attention to her. When it came up that she was interested in being friends, I said something about not being interested in being friends with her. My prime reason for my lack of interest made little sense. It was because she was somewhat older than me.

Two Father/Son Estrangement Links

1. Talent, determination and Hamburger Helper: He has big year despite estrangement from his father by Ron Kroichick, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, September 18, 2005
From online article: "Farmington, Pa. -- Sean O'Hair spent the past two years as a thrifty golfing nomad, bouncing among obscure mini-tour events. He and his wife, Jackie, kept hot plates in the back of their Ford F-150 truck..."

2. Review of C.R.A.Z.Y., a film released in Canada in October 2005 on a father/son estrangement.
From the review: "C.R.A.Z.Y.  is a highly likeable and richly nuanced comedy-drama about growing up gay in an ordinary suburban Quebec family in the 60s and 70s. Though the story places the painful estrangement of father and son at the centre, writer/director  Jean-Marc Vallée  takes time and care to make all the characters well-rounded individuals with lives going on outside the main plotline."

Link to a Sermon on How to Reconcile a Family Estrangement

This being a Sunday and my not knowing what else to say this Sunday morning, I offer a link to a sermon online given on July 28, 2002 by the Rev. Kenneth G. Page. I include this link not because of my own beliefs regarding religion or reconciliation. I offer it as one viewpoint on reconciliation. Offering this link does not mean that I agree or disagree with the Rev. Page. I offer it as one viewpoint.:

Family Estrangement:  Healing Divisions. A Sermon by the Rev. Kenneth G. Page

The Rev. Page says in the last paragraph: "Know this, though:  Trying to reconcile with someone who won’t have you, can be a spiritual experience."

I understand this concept, even though as an experience it is painful, frustrating, infuriating, and exhausting and very difficult to be grateful for.

Snicks

About sending presents when you are estranged ...

In the recent communications from my daughter I learned that all gifts, flowers, and cards sent to her in the last 10 years by myself or my mother had been put in the trash. I don't know what my mother sent to her. I hadn't sent much as I thought there was a good chance that the trash would be the place she'd put it. Unfortunately, there was one thing that is really a shame that it went into the trash.

Other Estrangements in more distantly related family ...

My father-in-law is 81. He worked in computers from the early fifties from when computers were the size of buildings and required lots of cooling equipment to remove all the heat. He was a math genius. He could fly a plane. He had an Indian motorcycle before he married my mother-in-law. He sold the motorcycle to get the money to buy her an engagement ring. His family lived in California. I was told that the family was a family of professional gamblers. He was one of eight kids.

Logic: When it doesn't work ...

I remember what a friend said to me back in 1997. She said that you can't "logic it". We had been talking about the behavior of people who had decided to estrange themselves from us and would not reconcile. The behavior made no sense to either of us, neither the decision to estrange nor the refusal to reconcile.

Graves' Disease Update

 

- Tricking the Thyroid into Committing Suicide

Some of you may be wondering how things went at the med center where they make you glow or light up or emit radioactivity while you drive home.

I asked my husband to come along so in case I was feeling weird or whatever, I'd be sure to get back and not have to drive. And then later it was good that he was there so that he could hear the doctors give the precautions which are mainly for HIS and other people's protection. If I had been receiving as much radioactive iodine as someone who had cancer. I'd have had to stay in a hospital room for a few days but I just have to follow some rules.

Greeting Cards for People Who Are Estranged

When I stopped in a drugstore the other day to look at greeting cards, I saw some new categories of cards I hadn't seen before. There was a category of cards that was titled something like: Cards for Troubled Relationships. And then there was a category similarly titled but a separate category called something like When Times are Difficult.

The cards in these categories were geared towards

those who were having problems in romantic relationships. They sounded like the kinds of cards that people would send each other when a breakup is imminent. Or when one person had been an insensitive jerk and was able to admit it. Or when someone had been under a lot of stress and hadn't been able to be much fun for quite a while.

I didn't see cards for other relationships that could be included in these categories. Like for estranged parents and grown kids or siblings or friends. I thought if they were going to have a category of cards for Difficult Relationships that there needed to be cards that were suitable for these other kinds of relationships too.

It might look like this:

Works for me! :-)

Snicks