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Good morning and happy Thanksgiving, dear friends.

As a child I was told that the day would come when I'd no longer want to brag about this, but it hasn't happened yet.  Today is my birthday.  I am 37 today.  It's not a particular milestone of a birthday, but it still bemuses me.  When my mother was 37, I was a senior in high school.  She was a child bride, and I was a little younger than my fellow high school seniors, but still, the idea of my sloppy and feckless self being the parent of a teenager feels as remote as the Russian steppes, and serves to remind me once again of what a brilliant and amazing woman my mom is.  At some point today, I will call her and thank her for the million million things she has done for me, with extra thanks for not leaving me on a bus somewhere, as I have so richly deserved many times in the past.

"Are you sure you don't mind cooking Thanksgiving dinner on your birthday?" says Lloyd. "Are you kidding?" says I.

It is 11 a.m. and I am just about recovered from yesterday's office potluck.  Normally I am not a fan of office events, but the potluck is special, a 30+ year tradition of Funky Little Company's.  Everybody brings something, two or three people take care of the wine, we all eat too much, most of us drink too much.  At some point before the party starts, I sneak down to the farmer's market to pick up my turkey and the last of the vegetables.  I put them someplace where they will stay cold, and then I join the party.  About midway through, the legacy Funky Little Company managers break away from the party with a bottle of good vodka and toast the memory of one of the salespeople, a Funky Little Company lifer, who died in 1999.  We recommence eating and drinking, we help clean up, and I stagger home drunkenly to do as much advance prep as I can before collapsing in front of whatever Lloyd has put on the DVD player.

We are having comedy Thanksgiving this year.  Lloyd, lovely man that he is, gave me America: The Book and Matt Groening's The Big Book of Hell, which was particularly sweet to get, because the year that it was originally released was the year I started working at Tower Books, making $5/hour, unable to pay my rent, having to make choices between food and laundry, and thus The Big Book of Hell was not an option for me that year.  I have spent the morning -- at least the portion of the morning not making celery remoulade or rolling out pie dough -- cooing over the Groening book ("they have the 1984 strips!  Sharon and I used to cut these out of the paper and hang them over our desks!", reading the best bits out of America: The Book, and listening to the Goon Show and Firesign Theatre.  In four hours the turkey will go in the oven; in the meantime, I will mix and bake the pie, start the stock for the gravy (made from chicken stock, the neck, giblets and wingtips of the turkey, maybe a chicken foot or two, a peeled shallot), make the stuffing and prep the potatoes, both mashed and sweets.  I will have a little hard cider, and then I will have a little more. 

Dear friends, even with my year of mewling and puking, I do have a lot for which to give thanks this year.  For starters, I am glad for all of you, for your myriad kindnesses and words of advice and care and encouragement, for sharing your good hearts with me.  Thank you all.