--- Hey, I'm still alive.

I know---you were worried, weren't you? All five of you thought I'd disappeared into the internet ether. Poof.
Ghandi. And you were feeling the void. I'm sure of it. Sigh. I'm sorry.
I just got busy with pre-holiday preparations. Polishing silver and
cleaning the house takes time, you know? These things just don't do
themselves, although it would be cool if they did. Can you imagine
buying a house that cleans itself? How fabulous. I mean, why the heck
hasn't someone come up with this? We can come up with self-cleaning
ovens---why not a self cleaning house? I'd be the first in line to buy
one. But, then again, what would I have to bitch about? I need
something. Might as well be the house and the dirt within it.
--- Thanksgiving was good. We had some friends over as the rest of the
Cake Eater family was in Colorado for the holiday and we weren't able
to make it down there. Damn shame, too: it was in the sixties there.
Such is life.
But we had a nice fire, a GREAT turkey (the husband took that one
over---stuffed the bird with an apple and garlic and loads of garlic
butter---mmmmmm), some very tasty wine and good company. What more
could a girl ask for? Other than roomier jeans, not much. When I was
growing up, my mother always used to point out to us kids that we
should be thankful every day of the year---and not just on the one day
specifically designated for such thanks. Sort of like celebrating
Valentine's Day all the time, instead of just on February 14th. Makes
sense, but it's harder to put into practice than you think it would be.
Life gets in the way. You start getting caught up in all the little
slights (perceived or real) that happen on a daily basis and the rest
of what you do have seems inconsequential, damnit, because if only this
one thing would work out, you'd have more. It's long been an observation of mine that we're a pretty greedy people, on the whole. We want
things, regardless of whether we need them or not. It's no great bit of
irony to me that the busiest shopping day of the year comes directly after the day we're to give thanks for what we've got. It's like saying, hey, I'm seriously thankful for what I've got, but now I need more---where's the VISA?.
But that's not necessarily wrong. How many other people in the world
would like to have the luxurious and typically American conundrum of
basic-needs-met-what-the-hell-else-can-I-have? We're blessed to be able
to think like that. I'm sure there's a poor man in Zimbabwe or Brazil
who would love
to be able to think like that. I'm sure there's a woman in Sudan right
now who would enjoy just looking at the adverts that came in the paper
yesterday, because just looking at what's available is half the fun.
We're blessed with our success. Does this mean we should pull back?
Start pulling on the hairshirts and flogging ourselves whenever the
desire for the Prada handbag becomes too strong to resist? I don't
think so, because after all, hairshirts and bullwhips cost money, too,
but I don't think we should lose sight of our blessings, either. We
should be readily aware of how blessed we are. So, in the spirit of
gratutitous overabundance, here's a few things I'm thankful for being
blessed with. Needless Markup catalogs
Amazon.com
The Economist Lunds
Costco Movies DVD's (and my sweet DVD player)
Sony televisions
The Matrix
CD burners and friends who are willing to break copyright laws
Real One Player for making the aforementioned copyright law breaking so darn easy.
The Edge
DirecTv (but not their DirecTV DVD-R with Tivo---will never be grateful for Tivo)
Digital cameras
The books of Arturo Perez-Reverte
Merrells and Birkenstocks
Gap Jeans
The wine bar down the street
Walgreens
Wells Fargo
The promise of any Hugh Grant movie
CSI and The West Wing
The Convention Grill (greasiest hamburgers and fries anywhere in the developed world)
My sofa
Diana Gabaldon
Nellie (my car)
The possibility of Minnesota Public Radio's going completely broke
Concrete Blonde's Live From BrazilMichelin
Maps (and of course the bulimic Michelin Man)
Frequent flyer miles
Star Wars Galaxies--just kidding
Yo Yo Ma and his cello
CNN International
Lileks (have an enjoyable nonblogging December, dude)
Sullivan
Instapundit
A Small Victory and her ever so gentle art of making enemies
Vodkapundit
Mil (you bastard!)
Down pillows and comforters
Grover (yes, the blue one)
imdb
France (and yes I mean that) and friends who live there.
Scotch---preferably the stuff that was 18 years old when I was a
toddler
Silly Germans
President Bush
Runzas
Johann Sebastian Bach
Nat King Cole
Windows XP and of course, Wee Bastard
Marlboro Ultra Light 100's
And disposable lighters
This is to say nothing of family and friends who manage to keep this
sort of commercialism all in perspective. I'm thankful for it all. I've
got it good thanks to the ancestors who got on the big stinky boats and
sailed across the big, blue sea so that I could have this sort of
gratitutious overabundance.
Bless you and have a glass of wine on me. You deserve it.

Posted by: Kathy at 06:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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