Random Thoughts, Notes, & Incidents

I certainly hope that you all had a happy Thanksgiving, and found reasons to be thankful. They do exist, you know. Reasons, that is.

For our little gathering the primary reason was that it was the first time in at least seven or eight years that Leslie's sister came to sit at a holiday table with their parents. I think everyone was a little nervous about it at first, hoping that it wouldn't be too awkward. But once the evening started, it was as natural as if there had never been any problems.

These are difficult times, and there are also certainly reasons for stress and worry about the political situations at home and abroad. While we Americans were stuffing ourselves with turkey (etc.), there were multiple terrorist attacks against Israelis - a hotel bomb in Kenya (at an Israeli owned resort), an attempt at shooting down an airliner, and shootings at a bus station and a polling place.

It's hard to find something to be thankful for in all of that. Sure, I'm certain that some will say, "I'm thankful that the attacks weren't against us," but that's wrong for a number of reasons. In the general sense, we are all part of humanity, and violence anywhere hurts us all. In the specific sense, if you think the timing of these attacks on the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving is a coincidence, you're very naive. The victims may have been Israeli, but the target included us.

And still, somehow, it was a beautiful day, and today will be another. Somehow the sun rose this morning, and I'm looking forward to a walk in the woods after breakfast. Then, we may all go up to Oakland to see one of Leslie's cousins, and play with their new baby. I'm willing to bet that by the end of it all, we may be thankful for this day as well.