Today is the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend in the United States. The holiday is celebrated in commemoration of a meal shared by a group of the Wampanoag and a group of colonizers who arrived from England to avoid religious persecution. The colonizers were Puritans, a radical Protestant sect from England. We celebrate Thanksgiving as a secular holiday to bring us together as families and as Americans, but at the root of it, what we celebrate is the commemoration of the Puritan Pilgrim’s religious ritual of giving thanks.

In the spirit of this celebration, I will share with you a moment in time in the season of giving thanks.

I am writing this post on Friday November 24, 2022. The time is 10.35 am. The outside temperature is 82F (28C). It is cloudy.

I have had breakfast, and now I’m having a cup of coffee. I wasn’t very hungry for breakfast because I was still full from last night’s Thanksgiving meal, which I cooked myself. I had turkey thighs, roasted with salt, pepper, a cup of water, one bay leaf, and a twig of rosemary. I had mashed sweet potatoes seasoned with salt, pepper, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg. I had a salad made from mixed greens, onions, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, and pearled barley with a red-wine vinaigrette with salt, pepper, sage, and olive oil. I had cranberry sauce, sliced. For desert I had pumpkin pie with ice cream.

I spent Thanksgiving Evening watching this week’s episode of IMPACT Wrestling, which is on AXS TV every Thursday night.

I am writing this post sitting in my apartment. I like this apartment. It has a patio that overlooks a golf course. It’s like a having a backyard that I’m not responsible for. Although meticulously pruned and heavily doused with pesticides, golf courses are homes for a lot of wildlife. The golf course next to my apartment is no different. From my patio I see ospreys, blue herons, night herons, egrets, red-tailed hawks, black vultures, red-bellied woodpeckers, blue jays, mockingbirds, starlings, crows, ibis, mourning doves, white-winged doves, racer snakes, and coyotes. On the patio, I have a collection of golf balls that golfers have shot off the course. They are a warning to the golfers. If they come to close, I’ll take their balls.

Today is a day off. I slept in late. It was nice.

This is what I am thankful for: family, good company, a place to live, food to eat, books to read, something to write on, something to write with.

In the words of my friend, the Australian, I shall return.

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