Thanksgiving 2021: Back Together Again

Thanksgiving Day is upon us once more. Thank God that the 2021 version is going to be much better than its 2020 counterpart. That’s not to say 2021 as a whole has been better than 2020, because it really hasn’t. At least not in my world. Another death in the family, a horrendous basement flood, a car accident for my mom, and lots of smaller, irritating things made 2021 pretty crappy, too. But that’s life, right? Shit happens. And the best way to get through it is to deal with the shit as best you can and be grateful for the good things in your life. 

Last year, COVID kept me from seeing any of my immediate family on what I consider to be the biggest family holiday of the year. This year, though, will be different. My wife and I will be hosting dinner for my mom, my brother, and one of my sisters. And both of our sons will be  in the house, too! It’s actually going to be somewhat normal*, which I am extremely grateful for. (* FYI, "normal” with my family is never really normal, but I think you get what I mean.)

So, I guess it’s time for what has become my annual Thanksgiving Gratitude List. I don’t post much on this blog anymore, but I still like to sit down and make this list once a year. It kind of keeps me grounded. (If you’ve never made a gratitude list, I highly recommend it.)

Happy Thanksgiving from me and mine to you and yours. My hope is that you have an enjoyable day with people who truly matter to you, and that you eat well in the process. Appreciate what and who you have, because there are a lot of people who would love to have the same. And at some point, you may not have everything or everyone you have today. So, be in the moment and take it all in. As my spiritual advisor Anne Lamott says, “Right this minute, we understand that this is all there is, so let’s really be together.” (My family actually uses that line as our pre-meal “grace.”)

And with that, here's my stream of consciousness, in-no-particular-order gratitude list for 2021. As always, there will be overlaps from last year, but so be it. 

Some Things I Am Grateful For

Kathleen Marie Cook Dauphinais (always at the very top of my gratitude list)
My 90-year-old mom
My two sons, Sam and Josh

My other two sons, Thelonious and Monk

Everett, Duncan, Christy, and Kyle

My siblings

My job at Families Against Narcotics

My co-workers 

Vaccinations

My Pontiac Solstice convertible
Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption on ESPN (my favorite hour of television)

The TV the guy on Facebook Marketplace gave me for free

Friends (the actual people, not the TV show!)

Fredi Bello (a.k.a. Fredi the Pizzaman)

My house

Cookbooks

People with a similar sense of humor

Hosting living room shows

Window screens

Spending time with my two little buddies next door

My fireplace

Naloxone

Boat days with my neighbors

A basement that’s getting closer and closer to being back to a pre-flood state

My electrophysiologist

Music
Anne Lamott and her amazing words
Everyone who follows my Anne Lamott Quotes Twitter feed
33 years of marriage
Decent writing and editing skills

Jim Bryson

Matthew Ryan

Kathleen Edwards

Pizza (duh)
Will Johnson’s artwork

The Serious Eats website

J. Kenji López-Alt

Clouds
Zoloft

Cashews

My neighborhood and all my wonderful neighbors

Chris Walker at Golling Toyota

Gratitude (Can you be grateful for gratitude? I think so!)
Memories of those no longer with us (my dad, mother- & father-in-law, & grandparents)

Taylor Swift

Essential workers

Lake Michigan

Siblings-in-law, nieces, and nephews

Random acts of kindness

Saturday New York Times Daily Mini and Spelling Bee challenges with David and Alli

The Internet

The moon

The Detroit Lions (Just kidding! The Lions suck!)

Mickey Redmond

Facebook Marketplace

Jennifer Garner

Julia Kristina, M.A. Psych.

JM Storm

Spring, summer, and fall (sorry, winter)
Freshly baked bread with butter

Eastside Bagel

Reasonably good cooking skills

The writings of Matt Haig

Hope (always)

Good health insurance

Bob and Jayne at Undertow Music

 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who reads this. Peace, love, and good food. 

What are you grateful for today?

-Dean

 

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Melody Beattie

Cooking: A Key Ingredient in My Recipe for Recovery

This blog post was originally posted on another website on July 8, 2015. It popped back into my brain this morning while I was in a harm reduction/recovery coaching class and the trainer mentioned that cooking was therapeutic for him. My feelings exactly! So, I figured I'd share this "vintage" post again here.

I love to cook. It’s one of my favorite hobbies. In fact, as I sit here typing, I have four whole chickens brining in the refrigerator, waiting for their mid-morning date with the smoker.

I didn’t start cooking until I was in my early 30s, when I lost my job and my wife made the decision to go back to work. It was then that I began a two-year stint as a stay-at-home dad, taking care of my young son and doing all the things necessary to run a household. Including cooking.

Up until that point, I had hardly any cooking experience at all. Sure, I could make grilled cheese sandwiches and macaroni and cheese out of a box. But other than that, I was a neophyte in the kitchen. Things had to change, though, because it wasn’t fair to have my wife work all day, then come home and have to cook dinner. So I decided I was going to expand my cooking knowledge and see if I could feed my family without getting anybody sick.

I remember the first real entrée I cooked: It was meatloaf, and I remember calling my mom and asking her for her recipe. I still have the scrap of paper I wrote that recipe down on, but I don’t have to look at it anymore because it’s all in my head now.

Fast-forward to the late 1990s. That same son I stayed at home with for two years was now a teenager struggling with addiction. My world was turned upside down, and I felt lost and helpless. But I eventually learned that self-care and my recovery were just as important as my son’s recovery. I needed to do things that made me feel better so that I could have some semblance of a normal life while I dealt with my son’s issues. Cooking was one of those things.

During my son’s active addiction, I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, immersing myself in cooking. I still cooked from recipes I found in the countless cookbooks I’d collected over the years, but I also took things to the next level. I started creating my own recipes and making original dishes that actually tasted good. To quote a famous Cajun chef: “Bam!”

Like writing, cooking is incredibly therapeutic to me. When I’m cooking, my mind is focused on the task at hand; not on the little—and not so little—life problems that bring stress to my world. I feel at peace in the kitchen. It’s my happy place and my sanctuary. There’s no doubt that cooking has been a key ingredient in my recipe for recovery from my son’s addiction.

Today, my son is three years clean and sober, and I’m still cooking up a storm. I do about 95 percent of the cooking in my house, which makes my wife super happy. Best of all, it makes me super happy, too.

I thought I would share one of my favorite original recipes with you. This recipe was made up as I went along, so I apologize if quantities/measurements aren’t exact. The recipe as it is below makes about 14 enchiladas (two pans of seven each). So you may want to adjust accordingly. Enjoy!

Grilled Sweet Potato & Black Bean Enchiladas

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut lengthwise into “planks”
1 onion, chopped
1 fresh jalapeno pepper, chopped
1 15 oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed
19 oz. of red enchilada sauce
8 oz. shredded “Mexican Blend” cheese
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese
14 soft taco size flour tortillas
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Pepper
Cumin
Chipotle chili powder
Fresh cilantro, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1 tbsp. butter

Put the sweet potato “planks” on a couple of baking sheets. Brush the surface with olive oil, then season with kosher salt, pepper, and cumin. Turn the sweet potatoes over and brush the other side with olive oil, seasoning with kosher salt, pepper, and chipotle chili powder.

Grill the sweet potato planks on a grill over medium heat (with the top closed) for 10 minutes. Flip the sweet potatoes over and grill with the top closed for another 10 minutes. (Don’t be alarmed if the sweet potatoes char. When they char, you get all kinds of flavor and crunch without a burnt taste. It’s caramelization, baby!) Note: I suppose you could broil the sweet potatoes instead of grilling them, if you wanted to.

When potatoes are done, transfer them from the grill to a large bowl and mash them with a potato masher (I added about a tablespoon of butter to mine).

Put about 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a small skillet and sauté the onion and jalapeno until soft.

Add the onion, jalapeno, cilantro, and black beans to the mashed sweet potatoes and mix thoroughly with a spatula.

Brush the inside of two 9 x 13 baking pans with olive oil. Then pour enchilada sauce into the pans so that it covers the bottom.

Prepare each enchilada by spooning approximately 3 tablespoons of the potato mixture down the center of a tortilla. Then sprinkle about a tablespoon of the Mexican cheese blend on top of that. Roll up the tortilla and put in the pan (seam side down). Continue doing this until you’ve used up all the potato mixture.

When your enchiladas are done being assembled and are in the pans, pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the top of them. Then cover with the shredded cheddar cheese.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes, until the cheese on top is melted and the sauce is bubbling.

Serve immediately. Suggested garnishes: sour cream and guacamole.

"There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good." --Brian Andreas

Trust me. These are badass.

Anne Lamott to the Rescue (Again)

Over the years, the words of Anne Lamott have helped me through some very difficult and challenging times in my life: my son’s addiction, my father’s death, an extended period of unemployment, and a cancerous tumor on my kidney, to name just a few. So, it came as no surprise whatsoever that Dusk Night Dawn: On Revival and Courage found its way into my hands the same week my father-in-law had a massive stroke and lay in a hospital bed with a very uncertain future. (Cue Twilight Zone theme song here.)

I am incredibly grateful for Anne Lamott and her writings. (So much so that I started the Anne Lamott Quotes account on Twitter, which you should definitely go follow!) To be honest, I’ve pretty much fallen in love with every book she’s ever written. (Full disclosure: I haven’t read any of her novels!) That’s why my brand new love affair with Dusk Night Dawn was entirely predictable. But, even though I may be a bit biased, please trust me: This one’s another winner.

Annie tells it like it is and, quite often, tells it like she wishes it was. After all, she admits to us that “most of my life force goes into trying to self-will life and me into cooperating with how I think things should be.” On the other hand, though, she seems to be making some progress in her “third third” (love that term!) of life. “I am slowly making my way from a hypnotized engine of delusion and self-obsession to being a bit more real, a smidge more alive more often. I’ll take it. I am learning to live more often in reckless love.”

 

Speaking of love, that’s covered in Dusk Night Dawn, too, as Annie frequently talks about her still-relatively-new marriage to her soulmate, Neal. Sure, she loves and adores him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a target at times. “When I’m watching him, I observe what a tall, nice-looking, thoughtful focused know-it-all he is. He comes from a family of know-it-alls. His brothers are just like him. I love them, but at our family vacations it is like Wikipedia with PMS.” 

My favorite essays in Dusk Night Dawn are probably “Lunch-Money Faith” and “Light Breezes.” In “Lunch-Money Faith,” Annie talks about her friend Terri who, one day at church, told her, “I have made a life and career out of being a good sport…And I am worn out.” Annie concurs. “Me too. I am sick and tired of being such a good sport and worker bee, chin up and adorably ironic, while we notice how much worse things have grown.” Amen to that. Aren’t we all just a little tired at this point?

 

Meanwhile, in “Light Breezes” Annie explores one of my favorite “D” words: Dread. As a lifelong catastrophizer, I can easily relate to what Lamott calls “my most reliable companion, always there for me, like God in a bad mood,” sharing with us that “Dread was my governess growing up.” She adds, “If Dread is not still right there at my side, she’s there in the wings, humming her hymns, drumming her fingers, knowing there is always a place for her in my heart. Life will push her call button.”

 

In true Anne Lamott fashion, though, there is lots of positivity in Dusk Night Dawn, too. “Yes, these are times of great illness and distress,” Annie writes. “Yet the center may just hold.” She also posits that “Hope springs from realizing we are loved, can love, and are love with skin on. Then we are unstoppable.”

 

Dusk Night Dawn is classic Anne Lamott, full of observation, honesty, sarcasm, positivity, self-deprecating humor (“I have a doctorate in morbid reflection.”), and the occasional eff bomb (“Never disobey Sunday school teachers. They will fuck with you.”). If you need a little bit of hope and courage, do yourself a favor and read this book. And remember: “The kitten isn’t dead. The kitten is in the living room.” (You’ll have to read the book to understand the meaning of that!)

"In the third third of life, you may become just as miserable and prickly as ever, but you cycle through more quickly. You remember other dark nights of the soul and how by dawn they always broke. You discover that everything helps you learn who you are, and that this is why we are here. You roll your eyes at yourself more gently. You sigh and go make yourself a cup of tea." --Anne Lamott

Thanksgiving 2020: Damn, This Is Weird

COVID-19 sucks. 2020 sucks. And for a lot of people, Thanksgiving 2020 might suck. But not for me. Don't get me wrong--this Thanksgiving is gonna be weird with a capital W, because I won't be able to see any of my immediate family. My 89-year-old mom. My youngest sister. My oldest sister. My brother. My two sons. I won't see any of them on my favorite holiday because of this stupid coronavirus. And it's super weird.

My wife and I will, however, be having Thanksgiving dinner with our next door neighbors. That might sound crazy, but our next door neighbors are like extended family. Kathy and I are old enough to be their parents (I think), but we have been incredible friends since they moved in several years ago. Not only that, their two boys--ages one-and-half-ish and going on four--are like our surrogate grandchildren. We babysit them all the time and love them with all our heart.The reason we're having dinner with our neighbors is because they are in our "pod." We've stayed in contact with them pretty much since this COVID bullshit started, and we're all very careful not to have much contact with others. Plus, we're pretty much family. 

So we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with people not related to us, but it will still be fun. I hope you have a fun Thanksgiving, too, no matter who you're celebrating with.

Now, onto the purpose of this post: a gratitude list! 

It's funny: I used to post on this blog pretty often. But since I found a job I truly love, I've been busy. In fact, the last post I made to this blog was last Thanksgiving. And it was a gratitude list. Maybe I'll just come back here once a year to list a bunch of things I'm grateful for. Who knows? In any case, here's my stream of consciousness gratitude list for 2020. There may be overlaps from last year, but so be it. 

Some Things I Am Grateful For

Katinka (a.k.a. my lovely wife Kathy; always at the very top of my gratitude list)
My job with Families Against Narcotics (FAN) and all the amazing people I work with
My 89-year-old mom
My two sons, Sam and Josh
15 months of sobriety for Sam
My new-to-me 2006 Pontiac Solstice

My amazing next door neighbors and their adorable boys
Great neighbors all around me

Law & Order reruns

People who believe in me

Opportunity

My ceramic, light-up Penobscot Building

Friendships

Dr. Gabe at Platz Animal Hospital

Ronnie's Meats

A nice home to live in

My new front porch and railing

Music and the people who make it
Mickey, our 15-year old sweetheart of a cat
Anne Lamott
The Anne Lamott Quotes Twitter feed
Jason and the Clear Minds sober living house
Good health
32 years of marriage
A sense of humor

Kathleen Edwards
Pizza (always!)
Clean water to drink
My grandma's soup recipe
My father-in-law
Kindness

Zoloft

My electrophysiologist

The ability to help others
The Leelanau School

My brothers- and sisters-in-law

The New York Times crossword and Spelling Bee puzzles

Spotify

Facebook Marketplace

Jim Bryson

Apple products

Julia Kristina MA Psych
Peace and quiet

Love

Birds
Freshly baked bread with butter

Reasonably good cooking skills

Memories of my dad

Memories of my grandparents

Democracy
Author Matt Haig

Hope (always)
Retro-Taku Videogames

Good health insurance

Matthew Ryan

Dreams

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who reads this. I hope you're able to enjoy the day, even if you can't be with the people who matter to you most. And if you've lost people who matter to you, I hope they live on for you in the memories you have of them.

Peace, love, and good food. And please wear a mask.

What are you grateful for today?

-Dean

Thanksgiving Gratitude

It's been forever since I've written anything for this blog, and even longer since I've written anything of a personal nature here. But today I decided I'd stop by and write a simple gratitude list for Thanksgiving. This year has certainly been a challenge, but I still have plenty to be grateful for. So, here goes...

Some Things I Am Grateful For

Katinka (aka my lovely wife Kathy)
Love
My job with Families Against Narcotics (FAN)
My 88-year-old mom
My two sons, Sam and Josh
91 days of sobriety for Sam
Narcan
The City of Grosse Pointe Police Department
My amazing next door neighbors and their adorable boys
Great neighbors all around me
A nice home to live in
Music and the people who make it
13 years of kitty love from Ryan (RIP, sweet boy)
Mickey, the sole survivor of the Kitty Triangle trio
Anne Lamott
The Anne Lamott Quotes Twitter feed
Jason and the Clear Minds sober living house
Good health
31 years of marriage
Reasonably decent cooking skills
A sense of humor
Pizza
Live PD
Clean water to drink
My mom's cheesecake recipe
My in-laws
Random acts of kindness
Zoloft
Flannel
Brian Andreas
My siblings
Stuff my wife knits for me
The ability to help others
The Leelanau School
Sam Lamott's "How to Human" podcast
Peace and quiet
The smell of baking bread
Reasons to Stay Alive and Notes on a Nervous Planet (two books by Matt Haig)
Hope (always)

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who reads this. I hope you're able to enjoy the day with the people who matter most to you. And if you've lost people who matter to you, I hope they live on for you in the memories you have of them.

Peace, love, and good food.

What are you grateful for today?

-Dean

Book Review: Once More We Saw Stars

Once More We Saw Stars: A Memoir is a book that is at once heartbreaking and inspirational. Jayson Greene wastes no time getting to the accident that took the life of his 2-year-old daughter, Greta, much too soon; we learn about the tragedy on the second page of the book. From there, Greene takes us on a journey that includes loss, heartbreak, anger, grief, guilt, and just about every other emotion you can imagine. Just how does a young couple deal with such a devastating loss? Greene's brutally honest and beautiful writing makes the reader feel like they are right there with him, his wife Stacy, and his mother-in-law Susan ("Grandma Suz," who was with Greta when the accident occurred) as they navigate their way through the unthinkable. Learning how each one of them manages to live through such a horrible event and come out relatively okay on the other side is an inspiration.

I found myself getting teary-eyed more times than I can remember while reading Once More We Saw Stars. Some of the things that are said by Jayson and Stacy are just gut-wrenching. For example, not long after Greta's death, Stacy says, "Haven't we done this long enough? Can't we have her back now?" And at one point, Jayson writes: "A pall of societal shame hovers over everyone in this club....Children who lose parents are orphans; bereaved spouses are widows. But what do you call parents who lose children? It seems telling to me there is no word in our language for our situation. It is unspeakable, and by extension, we are not supposed to exist."

This book also teaches us about the grieving process, and how no two people will go through it in the same way. "Grief is fluid, and it is always changing," a grief expert tells Jayson and Stacy during a retreat. "Above all, 'grief is unique as a fingerprint. We can show you the stages, but they are not a linear journey. In the end, nothing and no one can hand you the map to your own grief.'"

Yes, this is a sad book. But it is also a book that reinforces the idea that people can--and do--find the strength to deal with unfathomable loss and learn to live again. Is it easy? Hell, no. But if you work hard at it, you can overcome even the worst things in life. I've never been able to imagine what losing a child would be like--until now. Kudos to Jayson Greene for his courageous memoir. Once More We Saw Stars will make you cry, but it will also make you smile. Especially after the birth of the couple's new son, Harrison, of whom Jayson writes: "Under his tutelage, I can feel a frankly ludicrous conviction growing inside of me. We--myself and my wife, the growing child in front of us and the one we never see--are going to be all right."

Take it from me: This one's a must-read.

Jayson Greene and his late daughter, Greta. 

Anna David Learned from Her Mistakes...and We Can, Too

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an adult son who has struggled on and off with severe depression and addiction for more than a dozen years. I don't try to hide that from anybody. In fact, my son's issues inspired me to become a recovery and mental health advocate. Along the way, I've read just about every book on addiction and recovery I've been able to get my hands on, including countless memoirs and self-help books by people in recovery. And I have to say, How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life: Essays on Addiction & Recovery by Anna David is one of the best I've read.

David is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Party Girl, a semi-autobiographical tale about a celebrity journalist who falls victim to a world of drugs, alcohol, and sex, which leads to her self-destruction before she finally finds sobriety. While Party Girl may have been classified as fiction, How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life is 100 percent authentic.

In David's latest book, she shares essays that document her struggles with addiction and her journey to recovery. The essays, which are brutally honest and oftentimes laugh-out-loud hilarious, are grouped into three sections: What It Was Like [Pre-Sobriety]; What Happened [Early Sobriety]; and What It’s Like Now [Today]. This format allows the reader to ride along and witness first-hand the progress David made on her road to sobriety (potholes and all). And while the essays alone make this book highly entertaining and educational, David goes a step further and includes a value-added twist to the end of each one.

Personally, I think the "Lesson Learned" feature that appears after each essay is the absolute best part of How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life. This is where David shines the brightest, taking the frequently negative experiences of her addiction/recovery journey and reframing them into a positive lesson that she, and others, can use to improve life going forward.

For example, in the essay entitled "What Addiction Sounded Like," David talks about how cocaine, the drug that once kept the party going all night long for her, had betrayed her. "It made me unable to do anything but sit in front of my computer and shake," she reveals. And while sitting in front of her computer, trying to write, the computer would emit an annoying "BEEP!" every 60 seconds. "I lived in fear of the beep," David confesses. "It somehow symbolized just how bad things were." At the end of the essay, David shares her lesson learned--“Remember the Bad Times (So You Don’t Repeat Them)”--and provides the reader with some insightful words of wisdom.

Anna David is a gifted, intelligent, funny writer, and this collection of essays shows us that a person can make mistakes in life--BIG mistakes--and still find success and contentment. As she says in the Introduction, David hasn't followed "the typical paths. But at this point in my life I can honestly say I feel successful on all levels…not just with what I’ve achieved but with how I feel about what I’ve achieved, not to mention how I feel about what I haven’t achieved." That’s not a bad place to be, and I'm guessing most people would be incredibly happy to feel the same way. Reading How to Get Successful by F*cking Up Your Life might just help them get there.

Anna David (photo from her Facebook page)