Giving thanks

I don't have to look very hard to find things in my world to be grateful for.

If I look behind me, I see my wife of five years, sleeping the sleep of the sick. In the last month, she's worked 129 hours of overtime, converting to a new computer system at work and forcing it to accept thirty years' worth of exceptions and one-offs at a gulp. Since the stress is over now, her body has let its guard down. It's just a cold, but a bad one; she'll recover soon.
I'm thankful to Eva for marrying me and sticking with me. We've been through more in five years than many marriages see in fifty, and my love for her only grows stronger. Familiarity truly breeds content.

If I look over to the left, I see a little dog-ball named Tux laying on his pillow. A more enthusiastically affectionate creature would be -- truth be told -- frightening. He loves his Mommy and his Daddy and enriches their lives beyond measure.

If Tux wasn't in the room, our two little kittycats would be, and I'm thankful for them as well. As far as I am concerned, a house is not a home without a cat in it, and these two have made our house very homey indeed.

Casting my memory back just twenty four hours puts me in Britt with my father and stepmother, as well as stepbrothers and sisters and their families. These are people for whom I am enormously thankful. My father is a constant presence, my stepmother an inspiration, and I'm not sure I can express how grateful this only child is to be part of such a loving family. Even if I could, I'm not sure anyone would understand. (Oh, and Anthony--be sure to put in a word of thanks this Thanksgiving forAlexander Ovechkin: the only reason your Capitals will win any games at all this year. And yeah, I know, the Leafs suck. Hey, we're fans of bad teams. Aren't we thankful hockey's back?)

Looking around, I find myself in my own house, surrounded by comfort much of the world lives and dies without. I'm thankful for whatever it was that gave me a life in this great country. We bitch about the most trivial things without any conception of what it is to live elsewhere.

I'm off on much-needed (and not to be boastful, but much-deserved) holidays--probably the easiest time to say I'm thankful for my job. Even the worst days there are made bearable by the people I work with...and to think they pay me for the privilege of seeing these people daily!

And if I look straight ahead into the screen, I see a gateway to friends old (one of them dates back to 1987) and new. These people have been a bedrock for me throughout my life, and I carry a part of them with me wherever I go. Thank you, all.

Thank you, all.