Sewing machines and I are not compatible. For Christmas many years ago, my husband surprised me with a portable sewing machine. He reasoned that anyone who loves color, design and fabric as much as I would be a natural at sewing.

My spirits sank when I looked at my owner’s manual. All fifty pages of it was a literal translation from the Japanese. Seventeen steps were required to thread the needle and bobbin. Multiple pages were devoted to troubleshooting problems of “tension”. I had a hunch the manual wasn’t referring to the type of tension I was feeling.

Accurate measuring has never been one of my talents, and I quickly discovered that sewing clothes is a mathematical exercise.

After many botched projects, I took refuge in the fact that sack dresses were in fashion. I could take two identical rectangles of fabric, sew two straight seams and put a drawstring on the top and a hem on the bottom and call it a dress.

My young daughter and I sported matching sack dresses for many of her birthdays.

By the time my son was ten, sack dresses had gone out of style, and I had reached  a peak of frustration with my machine. I vividly recall sitting down to repair a torn seam in his jeans and having the thread dissolve into a tangled ball of knots and loops. My mechanically inclined son fixed the mess and volunteered to sew the seam. I let him. The time had come for me to donate my machine to a friend who loved to sew.

Since then, I have inherited two more sewing machines. You might have seen them sitting at the end of our driveway with signs saying “Free to a Good Home”.

A sewing basket filled with colorful spools of thread and a pincushion bristling with needles sits on my closet shelf. I enjoy doing hand sewing for simple alterations, repairs and button reattachments. And I excel at emergency surgeries on Raggedy Anns and teddy bears in crisis. I have never lost a patient.

All I ask of the sewing goddess is never to bless me with a sewing machine again in my lifetime.

And to all of you who have mastered these treacherous machines, I am in awe.

Last week was a mess. At times we didn’t know which mess to tackle first.

I don’t understand how two people who value calm, ordered and beautiful surroundings ended up running a shelter for homeless cats, but we do.

On Monday, Neko started the wreckage ball rolling by marking his territory. As we were running for buckets and sprays, his brother, the infamous Gato, hopped up on the abandoned breakfast table and knocked over a full travel mug of coffee. Coffee and cream were running down the walls and rapidly soaking into the kitchen carpeting.

Since our one scrub bucket was already in use, I grabbed a new roll of paper towels to start blotting. Buying stock in a paper towel company might be a wise move for us.

After my husband had the first mess under control, he appeared in the kitchen with the handiest cleaning device ever invented, the shop·vac. This is a wondrous machine as it likes to lap up liquids. Anything a cat can throw out, it can suck up. A prim and proper Hoover would short circuit under that type of stress.

The week proceeded with missed litter boxes, multiple fur balls and a dismembered mouse. Batman dumped a bouquet, and mom cat had three nose bleeds. By Friday we considered sending all the cats for a getaway weekend at a pet hotel.

A small woodcarving of Saint Francis by a folk artist in Cordova, New Mexico, adorns a window sill in our house. The good saint frequently is invoked for patience.

In these pre-Thanksgiving weeks, elementary school children all over America have been busy writing assignments on “I am thankful for”. At this stage in America’s history, when “no” seems to be the most fashionable word, I think it would behoove all of us adult Americans to write a similar essay.

Given that assignment, I would focus on my parents and my thankfulness for the world view that they gave me.

The apple incident is as clear in my mind today as when it happened over sixty years ago. I choose a large apple, took a few bites, felt full and tossed the remains in the kitchen garbage. A while later my father spotted the apple, retrieved it and found me. He was not angry but profoundly sad. “You can’t do this,” he said. “Many children in the world go to bed hungry. You are lucky to have enough food, and you may not waste it.”

He also told me what I should have done. “Take a small apple (schoolboy size as they were called then) and if you finish all of it, you are welcome to have another.” I got the message, and it has remained with me all my life.

My father’s view on peanut butter sandwiches has stuck with me as well. He was against stockpiling food, overbuying and overcooking, “just in case someone drops in”. We had a week’s supply of food which was carefully planned and cooked by my mother. She was extremely skilled at cooking the right amounts, but occasionally  fell short.

“You can always have a peanut butter sandwich if you are still hungry after dinner,” my father would say. He saw this approach as far better than throwing out extra food cooked “just in case”.

Because of my parents, I am grateful for food. Grocery shopping, cooking and eating regularly are reminders of my privileged position in the world. I remain one of the lucky ones.

We will host two Thanksgiving feasts on Thursday. Our family dinner will be followed by the beast feast in the Tooley Cafe. Every leftover spoonful, burnt crust, bone and scrap will vanish before dawn.

Perhaps I love California because we had such a hard time getting there the first time.

Our children were young, and we were on a mission to show them as much of their country as possible before they flew like arrows from our care.

Every summer a trip was planned, the Ford station wagon was loaded and our daughter took her dramamine. Before long, we had crossed an impressive number of states off the list. Was it time, we wondered, to plan a trip to the wondrous Golden State, home of oranges and dreams?

My husband and I plotted a strategy. We would go only as far as New Mexico the following year. If the kids could travel that distance and still be enchanted by the “Land of Enchantment”, we would head for California and the Pacific coast the following year.

The New Mexico trip was a success, and the next summer we booked two weeks of motels of the Howard Johnson’s ilk. Disaster struck two days before the California departure date; our son got mumps. We were quarantined and had to cancel and rebook the entire itinerary.

A week later we were ready to roll when I felt a horrible sensation in my throat. I had a full blown case of mumps.

Fortunately, we are not quitters… we simply cancelled all the rooms and rebooked them for a third time. When we finally hit the highway a week later, we all felt like a flock of birds that had been let out of their cage.

I’m sure that the skies of California were bluer, the coast more magnificent, the foliage more exotic, the flowers more dazzling and the mountains more majestic because of our confinement.

I’ve been back to California scores of times since that first trip. Our son and his family have chosen to make their home in San Diego on the Pacific rim. And that old California magic still continues to work for all of us plus a whole new generation.

Pictures from one of my favorite childhood books, “Mickey Sees The U.S.A.” by Caroline D. Emerson, copyright 1944.

Last Thursday I walked into my library to see a book display informing me that November is “Pursuit of Happiness Month”. Considering the election that had occurred two days prior, I’m wondering where I should find this happiness. My Czech irony meter rated this display as a ten.

A quick glance at the books that would supposedly induce my euphoria was not productive. I am not a believer in magical thinking or chicken soup.

However, the ill-timed book display did induce some serious, nonmagical thinking on my part. How can I, a happy person in my personal life, maintain that happiness when the evidence that America is now a plutocracy is alarmingly apparent?

So far I’ve come up with the following guidelines:

• Face reality… things are unlikely to improve for a generation or so. Nevertheless, keep fighting the good fight.
• Only get enough news to stay informed. News is a form of torture these days.
• Avoid being around people whose main topic of discussion is money; how to get it, keep it and not pay taxes on it.
• Be totally supportive of the younger generations. Their road ahead looks like a rock quarry compared to the one we traveled in our youth.
• Drink wine, but don’t become an alcoholic.
• Redouble reading for pleasure.
• Listen to more classical music. Many years ago, an amazing friend told me ,”You will need classical music when you are older.” She was right.
• Spend as much time as possible with family and friends.When the big world is dysfunctional, work harder to keep the little world sheltering.

Any additions to this happiness survival list will be warmly received.