Happy Thanksgiving ~

Happy Turkey Day to my US-born readers. To all others, Happy Thursday.

This is the first Thanksgiving I have been here in the US since like 2002 I think. Maybe 2003. My company is not open on Friday, which may seem normal to you all, but I always used to have to work Friday in the past, before I worked here. It was always a pretty quiet day in escrow because other companies were closed and nobody expected us to be open. Today I am thankful for being able to sleep until 7am for four days in a row.

Tomorrow is a traditional day in US culture - Black Friday. I just heard them say on Good Morning America that it's called Black Friday as it allows the retailers to stay in the black - I just assumed it was because 4 BILLION SHOPPERS will descend upon the malls and big-box stores at some unGodly hour to buy socks and iPods for lo-lo prices. As if saving 50% on last year's crap is worth elbows in the face and screaming (not necessarily from the ill-behaved kids) and clawing and hissing and spitting... As you can see, this is not a tradition I have ever upheld. As a matter of fact, I better not need anything from the mall until January because I simply will not venture forth for all of December. Except for Target, you know, because Elizabeth will need sugar-free Koolaid.

Another tradition this day is "Alice's Restaurant". I remember Thanksgiving 1994 (right?) that I spent with SS at her folks' Christmas tree farm in Ohio (she links to it in her blog, Note2Self, which I link to so after you're done reading this, go look). Aside from being probably my favorite Thanksgiving on record, it was also the first time I heard that this Arlo classic is generally played every Thanksgiving at 12n (the problem I am having is that I can't figure out where it is being played here locally. I guess KGON but it doesn't really tell me on their website). I was not aware of this because my parents were born in the '20s and consequently my dad liked to give the hippies a bunch of shit. Plus he was in World War II so the hippies protesting the Vietnam War were not among his favorites. It's probably a good thing that I waded through childhood in some sort of oblivion because these days I find I am overly opinionated and I probably would have been punished severely if I was like this at 8.

My Place is having a big turkey dinner tonight, lots of people made reservations, it should be fun (exhausting). Myself, I am going to dinner with my mom and Tom, but before that I am supposed to go over to Skip and Sue's since I haven't seen or talked to them really in 2 years. They are far too nice to me. Correspondence oddly enough is not a real strong point for me.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all that care. This time 2 years ago I was getting ready to move away. Look how much has changed! I think that's good, for me. So I am thankful for that.