Dear Kids,
         I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving, even though it won’t be at the cabin.  We can easily accommodate everybody here at our house.  And for those of you who are going somewhere else, I hope you have a great time, too.  If I haven’t told everybody, we’ll be eating about 1 pm.  Then we’ll have pie and other desserts about 5. That leaves time for us to let our dinner settle, and also a nice window of opportunity for Vanessa and the other hardy souls to hike the big loop.  I wish I could hike it myself.  Can’t you just see me with my cane, hobbling along, trying to keep up?  Well, there will be other years for me, hopefully better years.
         Speaking of the cabin, all the furniture is out, and everything is off the walls.  Dad brought home some of the nick-knacks, and also the sheets, towels, mattress covers, blankets, and pillow cases for me to wash.  He said he was afraid they would use some perfumy detergent, and I would just have to wash them all over again.  Good thinking!  So I’ve been doing massive amounts of laundry.  Some of the bedding has such a strong smoke smell that I have to wash it twice.  I’ve already used up a gallon of bleach!  Our furniture has supposedly been taken to a facility where they fumigate it with ozone to get the smoke smell out.  I hope it works.  This week they’re supposed to start tearing sheet rock off the walls, but nothing happens on schedule with this crew.  Dad goes over there practically every day to supervise, and I suspect he’s been helping them, too.
         I’m still having quite a struggle with my “post-herpetic neuralgia.” (after-shingles nerve pain.)  I can’t take the hard drugs, just Tramadol, which is better than nothing, but not by much.  Last spring, after my cancer surgery, my colon doctor let me take 2 tablets every four hours, and that went on for several weeks.  But I tried to get our family doctor to prescribe the same amount, and he said it was over the legal limit.  He said lots of doctors don’t even know the limits, or care.  I wish he didn’t know or care.  So then I asked him about medical marijuana.  He said Utah hasn’t worked out the details yet, and there aren’t any standards for how much “hemp” is in it.  He said it might be a good option for down the road.  For me, “down the road” means the 3-hour drive through Vernal to the Colorado border, where there’s a dispensary in the tiny town of Dinosaur.  It’s a great temptation, and one of these days Dad and I might make the trip.
         Have a great Thanksgiving week, everybody!  Lots of love, Mom