10+ Blessings: A Listicle
Become thankful with this one weird trick.
Monday afternoon, as I was finishing up assignments for my day job and getting ready to launch the Journal after hours—my computer reacted oddly to a find/change request, deleting my document. The usual methods of undo and file recovery failed, so eight hours of work was gone, just gone. For that reason, while the Journal did release on Monday (as you know if you’ve followed this Substack), I’ve been pokey about getting word out on all channels. I’ll be handling that today.
So…that’s not among the blessings I’m counting today. But it’s (1) an indirect apology and (2) a little context…
Turns out my supervisors are pretty understanding folks. The first thing I got when I informed them of the trouble was sympathy.
I did at least remember the work I did, so I was able to reconstruct it fairly fast. Took some extra time on Tuesday (hence my late correspondence), but I was caught up to where I needed to be by the time I clocked out yesterday. (I get the vibe that my boss would’ve understood even if I’d taken a bit longer to catch up, but he’d made my life easier and I wanted to do the same for him.)
I married well. Even though Janice had plenty of work frazzles of her own to deal with this week, she dropped everything and made sure I got some food in me just after the glitch happened, when I was starting to spin into a panic spiral.
Hey, the Journal did get put out!
It’s only work. Both the Journal and the day job are work that I love—and maybe that should be a blessing of its own—but work’s not all I am. This weekend, I’ll be leaving work behind—except for the posts here, I guess, but even those won’t be too taxing.
That said, it’s nice to have a day job and have a stream of money coming in—one less thing to worry about!
Natasha the diabetic kitty is doing well. We might need to make sure she eats a little more (she likes to be where her people are, not necessarily where the food is) but that’s an easy adjustment. This weekend, she’ll be enjoying herself at her “spa,” and the vets over there will be sure to monitor her condition.
It’ll be our first Thanksgiving with our niece Lucy, whose arrival interrupted Graham and Katie’s last Thanksgiving in the most dramatic way possible, short of dropping out onto the table and reaching for a slice of pie. All three of them—and Katie’s parents—are in good shape.
It’ll be my first time in many years seeing a friend from childhood. There’ve been a lot of changes since then for both of us, looking forward to catching up!
Mom and Dad are looking good.
There will be a few other guests, mostly friends of Mom and Dad’s, one of whom I know and others I’ll be interested to meet. Conversation may revolve around filmmaking and publicity.
Everyone at this particular gathering is on pretty much the same page, politically. I know that’s not the case for everyone observing Thanksgiving (and it’s not the case in all our friends-and-family gatherings either). And things can still go smoothly as long as everyone understands it’s a time to celebrate. The worries of the world will still be there when we get back to them. (But it’s nice to have that extra insurance.)
Janice and Katie are handling the FOOD, so I know that’ll be delicious.
Also, Janice really enjoys feeling useful—she’s excited and enthusiastic in a way that’s doing both of us some good. She’s busy as a bee putting together the FOOD.
FOOD.
The traffic on our trip down was smooth as butter! The butter that will soon be on the FOOD.
Tomorrow: Probably just some pictures. As I said, I’m taking it easy.
FOOD.