THANKSGIVING EVE

THANKSGIVING EVE



It took longer than usual this year.  I
had almost no sense of holiday spirit, or any sort of anticipation or
eagerness to do Thanskgiving.  Usually I love to do the cooking,
the prep work, and get pretty excited in advance of Turkey Thursday.



Not so this year.



On Sunday we finally got around to our Thanksgiving shopping.  We
did great -- everything we were looking for was found, in the right
shape, quantity, size, and even, for the most part, at the right
price.  We did some of the prep work Sunday evening, and I will do
some more tonight.  Susan will be here tonight, and she will
continue with her annual battle with the chestnuts --  scoring
them, slightly roasting or steaming them, then shucking them for
inclusion in the stuffing.  A mammoth task, every year.  We
even bought walnuts, to use in lieu of chestnuts, as I was of no mind
to assist in the scoring and shucking this year. 



Susan nobly volunteered to give it a go, so the chestnuts will not go
by the wayside this year. She began the campaign Sunday evening, and
has what seems like less than half of them left waiting for the process.



The weather has been pretty good.  Opportunities have been arising
in a number of areas.  Health, for the most part, is good among
the people I care about.  Last week I learned that I'd lost 14 lbs
since September 13th, so that's some encouraging news.



But the holiday spirit is simply invisible and unfelt this year.



We're going over to do the cooking at our friend Bob's place, as we did two years ago [1]. 
That is something to look forward to.  Actually, there are a bunch
of things to look forward to, but yet the spirit of the holiday, the
joy of the cooking and the celebration, is just lacking.  A vapid
feeling, empty in some way.



Sure, we will enjoy the cooking and the meal. I'll even enjoy the
clean-up part, afterwards.  There's something very satisfying
about cooking, cleaning up, the whole kitchen experience.  But the
spirit of the day, as a holiday, or a moment in time to stop and smell
the roses (which, one might observe, are all dead just about this time
of year) . . . the feeling just isn't there.



There's even a hidden benefit in a Thanksgiving so late in the month --
it means a shortest of the short holiday season.  I always feel
like a Scrooge-like outsider during the holiday season, so it is a
welcome good fortune, this turn of the calendar.  Tomorrow the
Macy's Parade will end with the jolly man in the red suit, and then it
will be only 29 more days of the onslought of advertising and the
annual overkill of holiday-related events.



I take some joy, however, and will celebrate the closeness of New
Year's Eve to this year's Thanksgiving.  Our New Year's Eve plans
are an annual party, an event I look forward to each year.  As the
Baseball season ends I susually find myself counting down the time to
the New Year's Party.



There.  I did it.  I blogged my way from a minor funk to some
relative optimism.  Turkey tomorrow, and then a short season of
holiday madness, followed immediately thereafter by the New Year's
Party.



I believe this post might best be classified under the heading of "Therapeutic Blogging."



A Cautionary e-tale



Big Blogger, or is that Big Botter, is either watching you, or about to start doing so.  In a conversation on the Omidyar Net [2] my
friend Tom Munnecke, a man committed to making the world a better place
(and a person who takes action, not just talk), pointed to a
link.  Click over and check it out, it is well worth the 8 minutes
viewing time.



Watch this futuristic piece [3]
over on LetItBlog, set ten years from now.  It might strike you as
Orwellian, Kafka-esque, chilling, or just plain amusing.