Son of Timatollah

I'm cleaning for company—Mack's sister and her long-term companion (aka "husband", see this)—arrive late this afternoon. We visited them several years ago for the Oyster Ridge Music Festival in their town of Kemmerer, Wyoming.

Also cooking. Have already baked a pumpkin pie and cooked green beans to heat up right before serving. In addition to those, we're having turkey breast, those sauteed sweet potatoes that The Minimalist guy from the New York Times has been pushing and that have been featured several places around the web, and some Pillsbury crescent rolls.

So let's get to a quick, incomplete, list of things I'm grateful for this Thanksgiving in the United States in 2008.

• The love of my life, Mack McKinley, who by being in my life has made everything better, more worthwhile, more intense, more important;
• A job I enjoy, since "teh kids" and my co-workers keep me on my toes and create the opportunity for me to learn something every day;
• A challenge for the rest of my life: Helping secure the rights that every human has by being born for those of us who are sexual misfits (misfits compared with some supposedly large chunk of the rest of humanity);
• A roof over my head, good food on the table, and a degree of comfort that the vast majority of humanity, now or in the past, has never had the pleasure of;
• Wonderful folks in both our families, at our workplaces, in our friendships (real and virtual).

Thanks to all for reading. May this Thanksgiving Day and the rest of the holidays—So the French get all of August off: Unless you are in the medical, emergency services, or retail fields, we basically get from the fourth Thursday in November until New Years Day with a substantially reduced or non-existent workload—bring you, those you care about, and all of us a chance to appreciate the gifts we were given just by existing, just by breathing.

Labels: 2008, thanksgiving