Thankful Friday: The Post I Should Have Done

Somebody proposed, as a corrective to the "Black Friday" hype and excess that crowds out Thanksgiving, calling it "Buy Nothing Friday." 

Well, bleep that. Friday is market day in my town. This post is appearing early so you can read it before you go out and shop. Or, if you like to read slowly, shop now and come back to it. People who don't shop on Friday are the ones who "have to" shop on Saturday, which is the day the Bible sets apart for rest and worship, or on Sunday, which is the day for visiting and entertaining friends, at church or at home.

The privilege of shopping is something for which modern Americans should be thankful, so that continues the mood of this weekend nicely. 

Now, about the post I should have done yesterday...

I did what I often do with this blog, in this season of (thank God and the sponsors) reliable Internet access. I read a friend's blog, clicked on a link, thought of a lot to add, wrote a nice snarky post and scheduled it for the next day that was open for a post. Thanksgiving Day, that was. Well, if people were online on Thanksgiving Day they ought to enjoy something snarky to read, I thought, clicking the "Publish" button.

But it does not express the spirit of thanksgiving, nor does it reflect what I did on Thanksgiving Day:

I stayed up most of the night, reading and writing, and cooking, and keeping lights on and shadows moving at the windows to discourage the Professional Bad Neighbor.

He still drives. He's been driving up in the dead of the night regularly, watching for a deer who is bounding in gleeful circles around him. 

In the past, sharing the HSP gene made him the sort of poacher who saw a deer and bagged it, but no more. Time and glyphosate are catching up with him. I've been sitting up all night, 'cos night is when the Internet runs best, and I feel the effects of trying to be a nocturnal human too, but not as badly as the P.B.N. does. It's not nice to laugh at what might be the effects of age, because one's own time is sure to come, but in this case I believe they are more the effects of his evildoing, and I just laugh and laugh at the decline of the P.B.N.'s special abilities, which so many of our other relatives kept into their eighties, and he's losing while only in his sixties. Give it up, you geriatric weasel, I chortle. You're so slow these days you might as well be some poor old White Man From Town. 

("White Man From Town" is a reference to a vintage Stephen King movie. As when those shorter-than-the-average-baby-boomer friends and I were dancing and roaring along with "Short People," it's not being used to refer to White people generally, but to a specific kind of person that is usually White. The P.B.N. and I, and the more or less mutual relatives involved, are legally White.)

So, my job happens to be well suited to night-shift work. I work the night shift and sometimes I do think it slows me down, like remembering to post things on the most appropriate days.

I fell asleep just after letting the fire go out, leaving the rice to dry out slowly on a cooling burner, and dozed until the first car rolled up at 8 a.m.

It was a sunny, festive day, warm for November, and people came up and enjoyed being festive and thankful. I woke up and was festive and thankful. The P.B.N. slunk away home. The rice came out perfect. There was extra meat for the cats.

About 1:30 p.m. the P.B.N. rolled past, accompanied by a young nephew who looked bloated and likely to have a heart attack before age forty. His whole side of the family have a peculiar sort of face. On the short, slim, trim ones it looks like a charmingly quirky smile until you've seen them in a bad mood and realized that it's a permanent birth defect. On this big puffy kid it is hideous.  

About 2:00 p.m. the evil wind blew, with that smell that might be some sort of freshly cut vegetation, or at least freshly cut rotten vegetation, except that, hello, it's November and there is no fresh vegetation to be cut, so you know it's that "Roundup" poison. The decent human beings left as fast as they could drive away, one vehicle at a time, without bumping into one another.

The evildoers sat in their truck till about 6 p.m., not freezing, unfortunately, but inhaling their own poison while not seeing any sign of the wily deer. I was really hoping to see at least one of them collapse and the other one not have the strength to take him home. That did not happen. But hey, knowing what I have to look forward to this weekend and what my nice relatives have to look forward to, I think life owes me the sight of at least one glyphosate poisoner going down into a long, slow, horrible time on life-support machinery...the kind of thing that will make the rest of the Rotten Branch of the Family Tree paupers, and force them to sell houses and land cheap, so that my nice relatives can reclaim our ancestral land easily and my rich ones can decide what to do with the frackable farms from which the Professional Bad Neighbor is trying to move away. I recommend trying to reclaim the land, but only on account of the aquifer. 

Actually, I think we need a law to the effect that spraying anything you can't drink, outdoors, costs the person doing it any right ever to own land anywhere. Professional insecticide applicators could live in nice government-funded flats. Idiots who don't know any better than to spray poisons on mere plants should live in sub-basement apartments, preferably in New Orleans, where all the water has passed through eight or ten other bodies and smells like it, too, and a good bit of that water seeps in around the windows in wet weather.

I am not going to feel very pleasant for the rest of this weekend. 

When unpleasant feelings are unavoidable one might as well at least think pleasant thoughts, so I went online and started opening posts on other people's pleasant blogs. Before even reading those posts I realized that this web site needs a Thanksgiving post about some people for whom we thank God, and for whom we pray...Not all of these people ever were on the blog roll widget, even when it was working properly. Not all of them blog or e-mail regularly. Some of them are Tweeps whom I've followed and/or who've followed me for years during which the anti-private-Twits algorithm has blocked our tweets from one another's home pages. Nevertheless, this web site thanks them for the content they feed it.

This list is a draft of a Page that is going up, in a few weeks, to replace the broken blog roll widget. There will be more names on the Page. These are just the first few people I try to follow who popped into my mind.

I GIVE THANKS FOR

Private people we know in real life who do not have screen names, who are not to be named, photographed, or discussed in any detail on any computer connected to the Internet

Private clients who've exchanged e-mail with me but not disclosed public web addresses

Adayahi and family

Alana Mautone

Amy Singer, a.k.a. Knittymag

Andrei Codrescu

Andria Perry

Anne Lamott

April Munday

Barb Radisavljevic

Barb Taub

Beth Ann Chiles

Candace Owens

Carey Gillam

Carolina, a.k.a. Carolinaily

Dan Lewis

Daniel J Robles

Dave Barry, @rayadverb

David B. Clear

David French

David I. Ramadan

Diane Zoller-Ciatto, a.k.a. Jersey Nana

Dinesh D'Souza

Dsnake1

East Sussex Wanderer

Ellen Hawley

Ena Valikov, a.k.a. Notorious KGB Aggie, a.k.a. @beachvetlbc

Erin Brockovich

Fayanora

Gene Weingarten

Glenn Beck and The Blaze

The Grouch

Hanan Habibzai

Hazel Stark

Helene Rush

Idiotgrrrl, a.k.a. Pat Mathews

Iris Yang

Janis Evans

Javier Reinoso, @reinosoj

JD Edwin

J.D. Tuccille

Jeanne Frost, a.k.a. JP Sixbear

Jee Leong Koh

Jendi Reiter

Jerry Jenkins

JJ Pryor

John McCutcheon

John McDougall and Mary, Craig, and Heather

John Scalzi

Jonah Goldberg

KA Ashcomb

Karen Linamen

Kat Murti

KerrAvonsen

Kraeuter Verbena

Larry Elder

Laura Ingraham

Laura McKowen

LB Johnson and Barkley's heirs

Limyaael

Linda Ann Nickerson

Linda Lee Lyberg, a.k.a. Charmed Chaos

Lisiwayu and family

Lizza Aiken

Lydia Schoch

Lyn Lomasi, a.k.a. Momie Tullottes, and Richard Rowell

Magaly Guerrero

Margaret Atwood

U.S. Senator Mark Warner

The Marmelade Gypsy and his human Jeanie

Meg Swansen

Melissa and Mudpie

Messy Mimi

Michael S. Hart and his heirs, a.k.a. Project Gutenberg

Michelle Malkin

Millionhair, a.k.a. Morgan Mei

Moshow

MOTUS, aka Michelle's Mirror, and all the Moti

U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA-9)

Naomi Parker, @naogannet

Neil Gaiman

Pamela Dean

Pat Myers

Penny Nance

Petfinder

Plough

Priscilla Bird, a.k.a. Pbird

Proud Boomer

Rachel Parent

Ralph Nader and USPIRG

Revived Writer

Rick Bailey

Rita Quillen

Roadsend Naturalist

Rob Kistner

Robert Kennedy (Jr.)

Roger Latour

Rokujira

Rommy Cortez-Driks

Rosemary Nissen-Wade

Ruth Cox, bereaved human companion of Valentino

Sara McNulty, a.k.a. Purple Pen

SARK

Scott Adams

Shaunti Feldhahn

Son of Sobieski

Stephen King, a.k.a. Big Steve (no, he's not a close relative, and "King" is the name of the founder of the town where I chose this screen name)

Stryck

Susan Jarvis Bryant

Tamara Lebret

Virginia Delegate Terry Kilgore (R-1)

U.S. Senator Tim Kaine

Virginia Senator Todd Pillion (R-40)

Tom Cox

Trish Nicolson

Vandana Shiva and David

Veronik Avery

Virginia in California

Vivian Zems

Wendy Welch

Yona and family

The Young Grouch

Ysabetwordsmith, a.k.a. Elizabeth Barrette

Zazzle