Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving has passed.

Spent part of it under the sink, replacing a garbage disposal that someone had killed by letting a rock get into it (decorative rock, the kind used in vases of flowers) , and not mentioning it until the thing had wrecked the seals, and water was dripping freely though the bottom of the disposal.

It was supposed to be an easy switch, one hour, tops, and I was going to school the Jigglet on some home maintenance tasks. It turned into about a six hour job, and the only thing I managed to teach him was my command of Coast Guard invective.

The holiday itself was just okay. The StepDaughter is feeling the passing of time. Her brother is a freshman in college, and she is a senior in High School. It might be the last "family" Thanksgiving we have for a while. Plus, her father, let's call him Jack, is disabled (bad back...sometimes), and she wanted all of us together.

Jack fancies himself a gourmet cook. It's one of the few things he can do. So he was going to cook a large portion of the meal.

Yep, my wife's ex-husband was making a large portion of our Thanksgiving dinner. I avoided most of the drama: when the man cooks, it becomes "The Jack Show," and I was not interested in being part of the Jack Show or his general pain-in-the-assness with everyone in the kitchen.

After I'd finished the garbage disposal, the Jigglet and I killed some Zombies on the Wii. Ate dinner, which was tasty, and then I went to bed...had to get up early the next day to run

The holiday didn't mean a great deal to me this year, which is strange. When I was single, I'd write thank you cards to the important people in my life, expressing my gratitude for their friendship. Yet, because of the family production it became, this year it was nothing special at all.

I realized on Friday morning, as I was running (training for the next Ironman) that I'd not expressed much gratitude the day before. Which is unusual, since most of my prayers are "thanks for this in my life (e.g., being able to fix the garbage disposal for the cost of parts and time and not having to hire a plumber)" or "Help this person."

Gosh, I hate when I let life and my own pettiness keep me from living right, from being a person making conscious, deliberate choices about how to live. Shucks.

On the other hand, every day we get to choose the apple. We get to choose between good and evil with the birth of every new day.

That could be Grace.