As turkey and stuffing gorging dies down, it’s time to share my Thanksgiving Day 2010 reality check with you, my valued friends and family.

I awake to a beautiful Arizona morning, complete with wind storm and weather change, producing a level 7 migraine. Not the most glorious start to this day of giving thanks, but I soldier on, and lay in bed with ice packs on my head and silently inventoried the wonderful people in my life, past and present who have loved (or tolerated) me through thick and thin. Some have moved on with their lives, and some are still here, bringing me your unique perspectives, honest advice, and kindness. You are receiving this email because you are one of the people who came to mind this morning, as I lay in a migraine semi-stupor.

With a little time, the migraine passes. While I missed out on a 5k race I had planned to run this morning, I decide to make the best of the day, and enjoy Christmas music, and watch the windstorm make my patio umbrella leap and pivot like a ballet dancer with a parachute attached to it.

After a scant breakfast, leaving room for the massive amounts of yummy, fattening foods I plan to stuff into myself all day at friends’ houses, I reach for my keys to make some last minute housewarming gift purchases.

But there are no keys.

I do a cursory search of the regular places I might toss the keys… kitchen counter, on washing machine, on car seat… no keys.

My brain defaults to simple logic: *I* am here. The *car* is here. So the keys MUST be in the house or garage somewhere.

After checking eye-level surfaces, a slight panic sets in, as dinner time is fast approaching at my FIRST stop of the day (3 dinners planned, you see).

You may have met my male cat, Gizmo, the loveable kleptomaniac in the house. He has a habit of throwing anything that’s on the kitchen counter on the floor in the middle of the night. So I figured that’s just what happened, and knelt on all fours, putting myself at cat-level, and crawled around the house looking under all furniture, appliances, draperies, etc.

No keys.

Instead, I discover dozens of cat toy stashes. By this point, I am bordering on frantic, and a mild form of obsessive compulsion kicks in. Before I know it, I’ve got the refrigerator pulled out, which has dust bunnies, toys and broken glass behind it. So I grab the mini vac and get to work.

Then I pull out the stove, which has more toys under it, and assorted ancient food bits. That’s unacceptable, naturally, so I grab the mop and get to work. All the while, Gizmo, is happily batting the toys BACK under the refrigerator and stove while I’m trying to clean things up. And I’ve completely forgotten that this mission is supposed to be about KEYS.

After the kitchen is scoured and the toys are in a bowl of hot water to soak, I realize I have done the A.D.D. thing and completely gotten off track of the key search. For two hours. So I start in the living room, again, back on my hands and knees. Under the sofa, there is a third stash of jingle balls and bouncy balls and fuzzy mice, oh my. So I move the sofa across the room and get to work cleaning up the dust bunnies.

That done, it hits me that I once again forgot I was supposed to be looking for keys (Doh!). Perhaps, I thought, the keys dropped between the sofa cushions. So I remove the cushions and discover… more toys. And hair, and food, and dust, ugh. So I grab my mini vac and a lint brush and get to work. Forgetting, once again, that I still have no keys.

After several more bouts of obsession/reality check cycles in different rooms of the house, four hours later I have a spotless house, organized kitty toys… and no keys.

At this point I’m close to tears when I realize that I only have healthy food in the house, which just won’t do on Thanksgiving, and I’ve missed at least one of the dinners. So I retrace my steps from the night before. I sit in my car going through each motion I would have made last night. I grab a flashlight and look between the seats, under the seats, in the trunk… and notice there’s pea gravel and dirt under the seats. So I grab my mini vac and go to it. My car is now spotless, but… no keys. And another hour has gone by, and now I’ve missed two meals.

At this point, I am hungry, on the verge of tears, and still sporting a touch of obsessive compulsiveness. And I decide that Gizmo has conspired to keep me at home. He’s been following me around the entire day “helping” in his cat way. It’s at this point I imagine that he has stolen the keys and hidden them from me. And no, I’ve not had a drop of eggnog yet.

So I check inside all of my shoes, sift through his kitty litter, dig into his food bowl, go through his toy box, look under rugs, and even dig through the trash. I look IN the fridge and freezer, the pantry, the cupboards, linen closets, the bathtubs (where he is known to pile up his toys), my briefcase (where he occasionally deposits a toy for me to take to work with me), file cabinets, jewelry box, drawers (sadly, I’m not joking), and pockets of every piece of clothing and realize, once again, that I’m being obsessive.

And still… no keys.

It’s about 5 1/2 hours now into this fiasco, and I am frustrated, upset, starving, frantic, and threatening my cat that I will disown him if he doesn’t “for the love of God give me my keys back!!”

At the moment I say this out loud, I catch myself in the hall mirror.
And a Thanksgiving Reality Check sinks in.

I look around at my now clean house with my furniture, appliances, pets, patio, cars, TVs, antiques, ____fill in the blank____… and a sense of shame creeps into my heart as I realize my entire THANKS GIVING day has been about… lost keys.
MY lost keys. My house, MY car, MY ___fill in the blank___.

ME, ME, ME.

And I’m reminded abruptly that there are too many people with less than nothing. And I’ve spent the entire day lamenting over lost keys and missed dinners. And that I’d forgotten to give thanks for those keys, and all the other abundance I have in my life physically, spiritually, and mentally.

So, dear loved ones — and you are — my Thanksgiving Reality Check story is for you, to remind you in case you ever had a doubt, how much I value and appreciate you.

I am now sitting on my patio sipping wine, and watching the amazing Arizona sunset. I’m planning a dinner of mushroom ravioli with fresh artichokes, tomatoes and asparagus, and will indulge in a Christmas Classic movie marathon tonight at home. Yes, I am planning on spending the rest of this Thanksgiving home reminding myself of all the wonderful things I have to be thankful for. You are one of them.

And no, I still haven’t found my keys.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that when I wake up tomorrow, they will be on the kitchen counter. Maybe my sweet cat decided to teach me a lesson today. Hey, you never know…

Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Gratefully yours,
Barbara