Thanksgiving has come and gone. Kristen and I spent it up in Pleasantville, NY with a goodly percentage of her immediate family and I was exposed to the fact that gluten-free stuffing is STILL absolutely delicious and that there’s a special magic to cranberry goo that I was never exposed to as a child.
I’m thankful for that. Man do I Love that stuff.
I guess I could catalogue the things that I’m thankful for but I try not to save it for a singular day. I try to make sure that I’m thankful on a regular basis but I guess Thanksgiving is still a good reminder, and I Love the Mortonian tradition of really blending a lot of Christmas into their Thanksgiving. Of course, nowadays we sort of universally skip Thanksgiving décor in favour of getting our Christmas commercialism on track earlier and earlier so I guess we’ve got no choice, but I really liked eating Thanksgiving dinner with the accompaniment of Christmas carols and the discussion of getting the tree and everything. Scattered childrens’ Christmas lists and a Muppet holiday special on the television – It is the declaration that we’re going to spend the last twelfth of the year celebrating the end of the year, and that that’s okay. At least one twelfth of our time ought to be a party in any case, methinks.
For Thanksgiving Kristen and I drove up to Pleasantville, NY to stay with her sister and her family. The NEWEST member of said family is the above mostly-beagle pup, Sadie. She spent a lot of time trying to help out in the kitchen.
The drive up was grey and threatening, but the threat never quite materialized until the end of the drive, and even then the threat didn’t really deliver and certainly didn’t slow us down. The drive back is delivering on ITS promise of a beautiful drive and that’s working out just fine. Streamers of sun are breaking through the clouds ahead of us, illuminating the mountains of New York and Pennsylvania in patches of light and dark with ribbons of cars wending their way east and west and Vs and swarms of birds migrating north and south.
I am very thankful for the world at large. I’m a fortunate boy. I’m thankful for the people around me first and foremost. My partner in crime, Heather, was the first person I thought of waking up on Thanksgiving morn and I wanted to make sure she knew it.
Separated by hundreds of miles this holiday, I had a strong hankering for music and that’s rarely something I can satisfy without her. Tomorrow night we play in Gaithersburg and I’ll be grateful for that too, because I’m one of those rare people who’s dream, job, Living, hobby, foremost method of heartfelt expression AND primary relationships are all rolled into one all-inclusive package. All of my eggs are indeed in one basket, but I refuse to see fault in this strategy.
Roadside America and it’s Miniature Village has seen better days on the outside, but on the inside it’s still truly astounding. Heather and I have passed this dozens of times on I78 going to and fro across the country. Kristen and I finally had a spare moment to check it out! This is where the Journal’s inherent limitations begin to really show. I’ve never bothered to really go out of my way to create a better gallery function, with the idea that one day we might even make a real book out of it… alas, that means that this is a sadly tiny photograph of the biggest indoor miniature village. And it is… huuuuuge.
I’m a fortunate boy indeed. I’m thankful for my band, my friends and our fans. I’m thankful for the talents that I’ve been gifted with and the opportunities that these have afforded. I’m thankful that I was born into a fortunate family, who Lived in a very fortunate state, who Lived in a pretty spectacular country on an incredible continent on an overwhelmingly amazing world in an imperfect but infinite universe. We’re a fortunate species to be at a point in such a bizarre and unlikely (yet perhaps inevitable) chain of events that has resulted in entities such as we that can appreciate just how fortunate we are.
And we’re a pretty amazing animal, capable of drinking all this in and generally taking it so much for granted that we have had to create a special day specifically to remind ourselves to be thankful for it all. All-in-all a very good Thanksgiving. I hope yours was good too.
Ha – well, now I DO have some gallery functionality…. so… voila!
The spectacular detail of Roadside America is… well.. spectacular. If you’ve got a free moment while you’re passing by, take the time and the $6.95 and explore it. Kristen running one of the myriad trains at Roadside America in Shartlesville, PA
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