I’m at home now prepping sweet potatoes and mustard greens (not together) for our Thanksgiving in Temple (an hour north of Austin). This wiil be perhaps a less joyous occasion than it has been in years past as Liz’s uncle Glen just passed away on Tuesday of heart failure. Nonetheless we will be thankful for the time we had with Glen and the remaining time we have with each other. We will express this thanks by drinking heavily and eating to excess.
And thank you all for a great year of blogging, debate and related shenanigans. I am thankful that we have this forum where my friends can continue you to influence my life even though I’m lucky to see some of you but once a year.
I am also thankful for (among many others):
Toby’s willingness to share the wealth of his musical taste,
Ned’s emotional honesty,
Peters’ repaired computer,
Shott’s commitment to reading hours of Harry Potter for the sake of debate.
And at the risk of stoking the fires of Ned’s unquenchable wrath against music videos I offer this:
Not bad J.E. I like that band even though they’re a bit more derivative than some people realize. I didn’t mean to imply that there were no good videos. I just think music has real power and images have real power and you put them together and you’ve got something with incredible potential – a potential that does not seem to be utilized as often as it might.
Jenny, Ryan, and their three boys have left, and I have the house cleaned up and ready for my parents and Kathleen who arrive tonight; so I’ll take a few moments to say some things I’m thankful for about this group as well:
1) The influence now or in the past of the friends on this blog.
2) The patience such friends show with my blunt and untempered remarks.
3) The opportunity for discussions I wouldn’t otherwise have and the recommendations I might not otherwise take.
P.S. Nice choice of song for the occasion. That didn’t go unappreciated.
I am thankful for the long holiday weekend and all the fun Amanda and I have had hosting my family at thanksgiving. I have thought a little bit about the t-g’s gone by- the bagel runs, the assortment of machinery required to ensure Jerod’s relative comfort, the museums, the music, the movies, the food (from Ember’s to our own and beyond), and the general snark that came with each treasured event. Each year was like an oasis from school and the dire straits I felt I was in each year, an event to look forward to. I would have lived in an eternal thanksgiving holiday with you guys. Now, of course, I have my own events to look forward to for very different reasons, but I thank you, you hollow men, for the opportunity to be a part of it all.
Good to have this Thanksgiving cheer, abiding. It sounds like everyone had a great holiday in our various corners of the country.
J.E.’s message reminds us that we have a lot to be grateful for. I’m sorry to hear about Liz’s Uncle Glen passing away. I imagine it was good for the family to be together for the holiday after that, especially. It has not been an easy year or so for the Johns(t)ons, which is an understatement. That you can still be positive–and still cook sweet potatoes and mustard greens–is a good testament to resilience and gratitude. I suppose those may be all we have to stave off what we can’t control.
Toby, I appreciated your phone message, which I didn’t hear until Jen and I were back in cell phone range. I imagine you and Steph had a really good Thanksgiving this year, with Clara enjoying her first tofurkey.
Ned, sounds like you and Sara had many guests over the holiday. I hope it all has gone well.
Peters, sounds like you and Amanda hosted in good style. I hope it was a good time with your side of the family.
Jen and I had a terrific five days on Puget Sound–it was really what I needed: foggy mornings, damp woods, long walks on trails and beaches, good food, family reconnection, relaxed time with Jen. We also saw Charles Teague and his family, and my old Macalester friends Gus and Bonnie and their daughter, for whom we were asked to be guardians in any unforeseen event. Humbling to take that role with someone who isn’t technically family. (Jen and I are also named guardians for one of our nieces.) As usual, Thanksgiving allowed me to take some stock in all the good things around me. Frankly, I often forget, and can get pretty negative. I’ve also noticed–J.E. and Peters will laugh–how much more introverted generally I have become in the last couple of years. I’ve really needed and craved much more alone time and time to recharge on my own, or at home, time to be inward. Perhaps some of that is a reaction to being married to a clear extrovert, which has tipped my nominal extroversion toward introversion. In any case, the time on Puget Sound was restorative.
Here’s to the holidays yet ahead, and to the ten-year tradition of HM Thanksgivings of yore–including Peters challenging everyone by pulling out dictionaries, Toby’s excellent CD compilations, gravy you can walk across, Jerod’s philosophizing, cigars on long cold walks, Asian food on Thanksgiving Eve, Peters’ cot, Toby dry humping everything in sight, movies of varying quality, long discussions of the “morals” of The English Patient, J.E. taking us out to the Hill Country, a U2 song or two, pints at many a tavern, talk talk talk mock mock mock tradition tradition tradition. Here’s to it. It was grand.