Thanksgiving is tomorrow. And do you know what I'm going to be doing?
Nothing. Not a damn thing. Not one single damn thing.
We have decided to stay home and just rest for this Thanksgiving.
Granted, there will be cleaning of the house, working in the yard, working on cars and the like. But as far as leaving the house, battling traffic, shuffling around a crowded house trying to talk to family while in-laws try to start arguments about football, crying babies burst our eardrums, children bounce toys off our groins, and other typical family holiday activities, there shall be none for us this year.
We are staying home. Just us. And two cats, one of which is insane. And the neighbors' giant Himalayan monster that keeps coming over trying to kill our kitten and run off our male cat.
So, it's Thanksgiving, a time for giving thanks. Let's see how many things I can come up with that I'm thankful for:
1) My Health - if you look to the left in my blogroll you'll see a blog called "Dundee's Battle". You should click it and read. Seriously, go check it out. She's young, beautiful, Australian, and she has cancer. It's kind of a big deal. They already operated earlier this week. It's in her frontal lobe. That's the brain. Yeah, a big deal. And now she's trying to rehab, which involves the struggle of trying to relearn things and rewire the brain so she can have a normal life. Kind of a big damn deal. I thank God for my health, despite the problems I have. We all have a few problems. But we don't all have cancer.
2) My Job - yes, it frustrates the hell out of me, mostly because I have to work with multiple PCs and at least one of them is a huge piece of junk . You should hear me cursing it when I'm working late in the office alone, mostly because the slow-assed computer makes working so inefficient that I end up working late to make up for it. But at least I have a job. Over 80 percent of the unemployed in this country are males. No, that's no accident by our first lesbian feminist president, but nevertheless, I still have a job. And unlike most of my previous jobs, I'm not working with any crazy evil sociopathic people. Or at least so far I have yet to encounter any. Not a single one. I am grateful for my job. I like my employer and my fellow employees. Even though I'm grossly underpaid.
3) My Family - my father died a few years back, but other than that, everyone is alive and well, more or less, and we are able to get together and hang out if we really want to. Usually we do on major holidays, but after last Christmas when a snowstorm resulted in a certain family member having a house full of food she spent days cooking and no one able to get through the snow to come eat it, she didn't want to do it again this year, so we are all sort of on our own. Still, I know she's alive, and the rest of my family is, too, except Dad. And I'm grateful for that.
4) My House - I may rarely get to see it because of my work situation, but I own a nice house and it sits in a nice yard and we have nice neighbors, so very unlike my previous house and neighbors which I mention in my profile here on this blog. It's a nice change to go from a drug dealer across the street and an alcoholic next door to him and various white trash criminal firemen's kids terrorizing the neighborhood to a nice neighborhood with none of that.
5) My Stuff - I realize it sounds like an odd thing to say I'm grateful for, but just bear with me for a second. I am grateful for all my stuff. I have cars and they don't leave me stranded. Just last night I saw a guy sitting on the side of the road with his feet sticking out the passenger door as he dialed someone while sitting broken down on the side of the highway in the dark and the rain. I sped past, not stopping to offer any help. But as I did so, I was reminded that my car hasn't stranded me like that. It's not a pretty car by any means, but it always gets there as fast as I care to drive and it's comfy. And when I get bored I have a fleet of others I can drive if I wish. I have a bunch of stuff like that, not necessarily pretty, but that gets the job done and without much hassle. And it occurs to me that I'm glad, because I hate hassles, which is why I hate my computer at work. My TV isn't new, but it always works. My cars aren't new, but they always get there. My watch isn't expensive, but ... wait, where the hell did I leave my watch, anyway? Oh well, it wasn't expensive and I can replace it with ease at any time. Which leads to the next point ...
6) My Money - no, I'm not Jewish, and yes, that's a prejudiced thing to say, but I am grateful for the money that I have and the fact that I have it. I'm not rich, but I can afford a house and my old cars and my watch that I lost and the clothes I just bought at Kohl's because I needed new ones for work and my TV and my guitars and the stuff that keeps me occupied and more or less content. I know people who have nothing and have to struggle. I know people who spend every dime and appear rich, but have constant stress of making payments on all their stuff because they can't really afford it and they don't want anyone to know that, so it's all purchased with debt. I don't have a lot of debt. I'd rather have a car that's older and paid off than a new Lexus that costs me a $600 per month car note. It's just the way I am.
7) My Friends - I've written here and there over the years about reevaluating my friendships and realizing that a lot of the people that I called friend really weren't. But during that time I also realized that many people I had overlooked really were. And I made new friends during that time, too. Maybe as I get older and less willing to tolerate bad friends, I am making better decisions in who I am willing to be friends with? Or maybe I'm just lucky and the new friends I've met recently just happened to come along at the right time? I don't know. But life without friends is not worth much, in my opinion. A man without friends is either living in a shitty place where no one is worth much, or else he himself is not worth much because no one wants to be his friend. Whatever the case, I am grateful for my friends. They make life much more worthwhile.
8) My Country - I make no secret of my opinion of President Obama, our first lesbian president, or Vice President Joe Biden, or a whole host of other non-leader politicians who screw us over as often as they can here in America. But I am also aware of how bad it is in many other countries and how unhappy the people in those places seem to be, both with their current situation and their current crop of 'leaders'. We have a real crisis here, and we had better get it straightened out quick or else the country everyone always wanted to move to will be no more. Or rather, it will be called Australia, if it isn't already (carbon tax.) But even so, we still have a lot worth fighting for in this place and we still have it pretty good thanks to the incredible foresight of our Founding Fathers who did all they could to shield us from the very sorts of crooked politicians who currently dominate our national government. It could be a lot worse. We could be Venezuela.
9) My Faith - you might not know it, but I am actually a Christian. I have friends who have various other different beliefs, but the ones I see as the most unlike me, and whose lives are the most unlike what I would ever want, are the ones who believe that there is no God and nothing after this, that this world is all there is and after that, nothing. Their belief that our lives are meaningless, and that all we are and all we do is for nothing in the grand scheme of things, seems to lend itself to a perpetual emptiness that they struggle to fill, but can't. And the older they get, and the more time seems to speed up, the more I hear their thoughts on the meaninglessness of it all. I also take note of the fact that this belief in no God is a requirement for the destructive and misery-creating policies of the socialist Left, who believe that the only Heaven is what we create here on Earth right now, and that we have to hurry and do it right away because tomorrow we die and then it's all over, so no time for deep thought or wisdom, only to act and act NOW. Its one of the reasons why the Hard Left is so religious and fanatical in their dogma, so intolerant of any other viewpoint that differs from their own, so frantic to destroy and remake the entire world in the image of their empty dream without slowing long enough to see their own mistakes, and so willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of that dream. Because it is their handmade god. They believe that everyone else has to create some sort of god because they themselves have done this, or attempted to, but they have failed. I don't have to make my God. He made me.
10) The Internet - during some of the darkest, loneliest of times, when I was living in a hell surrounded by rednecks, white socks and blue ribbon beer, but no real friends, I was able to go out onto the internet and find friends all over the world. That was something brand new to me and it was very exciting. It's been almost 8 years now that I've been writing this stupid blog and I am still friends with a great many people whom I have met because of it. Yes, I realize that friendships involving people you have never met face-to-face is a bit different than daily life friendships, but that doesn't mean that they don't add value to your life. I'm grateful for you.
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