Celebrating this Day in November

Donna, Hazel, and Alice don't mind the rain too much.

Today, Grace (my thirty-one year old daughter who has William’s syndrome) and I both marked the day as special, though each of us considered today special in our own ways. 

Grace announced that the boyfriend she had in middle school broke up with her on November 8,  in her 7th grade year, and she still hasn’t forgiven him. She said today was her day to “drink wine and eat chocolate and hate boys.”

I suggested sassafras tea with brown sugar instead of wine, and sat out a plate that had a pile of chocolate chips, some mini marshmallows and some graham crackers. A charcuterie board for the broken hearted, if you will. 

She is listening to 90’s break up songs and singing loudly. I was going to go to her room and check on her, but “You Don’t Own Me” was playing and I thought better of it. 

Instead, I decided to observe this most holy of autumnal homestead days in my own way. 

While the rain pounded on the roof, I took the thermal underwear out of the back of the closet and put a set of them on under my t shirt and jeans. Then I washed my rainbow crocs and put them in the place where the thermal underwear had been.

I looked out the window at my mostly frostbitten garden, then I went to the closet again and  I took out my DeerFoam slippers and put them on.  In the living room, I rummaged for the leather chore boots from the back of the closet by the front door and put them on the mud mat. Where the big leather boots had been I put the cheerful plastic spring boots with little mushrooms on them to take their place at the back of the closet.

Then I warmed up some green tomato cake, and made raspberry leaf tea. Because this is how you celebrate the day, for it is a cold and raining and miserable day in November, which means it is Saint Long Johns day here on the farm.