Thanksgiving

Jordan, Ontario.

It's Canadian Thanksgiving today.  Due to a variety of circumstances, I'm spending (most of) the day solo.  I am actually fine with this.  Suffice it to say, this was probably not the best weekend for a Mexican standoff with my mother.

In any case, I've had some time to read, write, see friends, shop, and catch up on some TV.  (Next up- the first two episodes of the new season of The Affair.)

Of course, the purpose of Thanksgiving, other than eating turkey and pumpkin pie until you're groggy and uncomfortable, is to reflect a bit on what we're thankful for.  I certainly have plenty of things to list.  Here are just three:

• I'm Canadian.  Yes, I still dream of ending up in New York, or maybe a hill town in Italy, but for a place to be born and raised, I really don't think you can do better than this.  Thank you, motley collection of peasant immigrant relatives, for choosing this country.  I am looking forward to exercising the right and privilege of voting on October 19, and hope that after this election, we will no longer have a paranoid, venal, wannabe dictator as Prime Minister.  Cross your fingers if your not Canadian, and fucking VOTE if you are!
• Friends, and family.  As a Certified Judgmental Bitch™, they keep me grounded. They are as varied a group as you can imagine, across all political, social and ethnic strata. I am happy to have a lot of varying opinions in my life.  If you isolate yourself, and seek out only people who validate what you already think, you turn into Fox News. Gross.
• Anything that makes me laugh. Last year, when I got the (ultimately incorrect) news that I probably had ovarian cancer, after an epic crying jag, for some reason I found myself on the fuckjerry Instagram page.  In no time, I was doubled over with laughter.  Still shocked and sad, but the fact that I could laugh for a few minutes on that night was just the greatest thing in the world.  Comedy doesn't always have to be clever, or satirical, sometimes, it just needs to be stupid funny. I say this as someone who has probably an unhealthy level of love for John Oliver, but still has fond memories of Beavis and Butthead.

I can't get enough of fall colours.

So, whatever you're thankful for, wherever you are, take a moment to appreciate it, then get back to work, or shovelling pie in your face.  I have TV to watch, curry to make, and Madeleines to bake.