Last ride

Yesterday, on an unusually balmy and breezy Sunday for November in these parts, my husband and I took our very last motorcycle ride to a nearby orchard, where they still have relatively fresh local apples available. Our favorite orchard is closed for the season, but this one keeps their extra apples in cold storage, where they stay more or less fresh for a longer time and there's plenty to choose from for the ubiquitous Thanksgiving apple pie.

The ride was a lovely way to enjoy the last of the warm weather before a cold front threatens to rain and possibly snow on us later this week, probably on Thanksgiving Day. Despite the dire forecast, I'm excited because my sister and her three teens, all of whom are my godchildren, are coming to stay with us for the first time since my husband and I moved to Ohio in 2001. It's been nine years but nunca es tarde cuando la dicha es buena. We'll have a full house on Thanksgiving because my Puerto Rican friend from the Bronx and her husband and two kids are also coming and that's exactly as it should be. It doesn't get any better than that.

Since it was most likely our very last ride of 2010, I thought I'd take a picture of the helmet that my husband gave me as a present a year or so ago, and which he recently enhanced with a sticker that says: "Tribú del Chihuahua." The sticker is perfect for me, for more reasons than one. That's the name that the friends of Valentino Rossi, the greatest MotoGP motorcycle racer ever, call themselves and since I'm a big fan of Rossi's, plus I actually have a Chihuahua (Chiquita), the sticker is perfect for me. (I love the way my husband thinks!)

These moments of happiness all have an edge of sadness since this Thanksgiving is the first I will spend without my dad. He wasn't big on the holiday (though he did like to come to our house in Puerto Rico when we lived there) but not having him with us gives us all the more reason to find ways to make this one particularly special, particularly familial. That's why my mom is going to my brother's and my sister is coming here so we'll all be, in our respective places, en familia, as it should be. And that's something we can all give thanks for.