But alas, welcome to the unpredictability of my life. I was sad when I was walking to work on Thursday. I started to think about all my friends back home going to their families for dinner, and about my mom, dad, and brother looking so small at our big dining room table. Work was just like any other day for the most part. It was a friend's birthday, so we were celebrating her birthday more than Thanksgiving, and I was honestly thankful to be celebrating something, anything at all. To my surprise at the end of the day one of the grandmother's of a student sent our staff a "Thanksgiving dinner". Although the turkey was actually sliced deli meat turkey, it was a nice gesture. There was cheese cake, turkey, salami, salmon, pickles, cheese, bagels and cream cheese, and my favorite pumpkin pie. I joked with a co-worker that this was the best Jew Thanksgiving I'd ever had.
So it turned out to be a pretty good holiday away from home after all. And it did give me some time to remember what I'm thankful for.
I am thankful for:
1. Coffee (what? This is perfectly acceptable as the number one thing I'm thankful for.)
2. Having the means and the motivation to travel, and to keep traveling.
3. My mother. She makes most things I have had and will have in my life possible.
4. Christmas music.
5. Hot showers.
6. Hamburgers.
7. My best friend Samantha Sovde who has stuck through me during the worst of times, and the best of times.
8. The time I spent in Hawaii, Spain and Boston.
9. My dad and his gentle heart.
10. Books and the authors that keep writing them.
11. Pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie....pretty much any kind of pie.
12. The uncertain and unplanned future.
13. Skype
14. These blankets I have wrapped around me because I refuse to turn the heat on.
15. The strength to keep going, even though the destination is unclear.
And last but certainly not least, I'm thankful for Led Zeppelin who sing one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time appropriately titled, Thank You.
Happy Holidays everyone.
