It is always a good idea to wash one's bedclothes

I have a special little lady in my life that I think I should tell the world about. She's beautiful, funny, fiesty, committed, endearing & quite often obscenely lazy. I love her. Her name is Dolly & she is a calico/persian... a mixed breed but still top-marks in my book. The relationships we humans build with our domesticated animals are odd. My bond with Dolly lies wholly on one fact: I show her things. I pick her up & give her a walk-through of the world that she cannot see from her foot-off-the-ground perspective. I show her the top of the 'frige; I show her the inside of the microwave; I show her the plants hanging from the ceiling. I also explain things to her. How the microwave works {in the best language I know}, what daylight savings time is {I employed the use of visuals for this one, setting her in down in front of two clocks, one set to daylight savings & the other not}. We both gain from this. She is exposed to a world & life completely outside of the one she knows & lives in everyday & I am given the opportunity to showcase that world which I life in & understand all too well but rarely ever think about. Think about at least in terms of what the top of the refrigerator looks like & what the difference {as well as the reasoning} behind daylight savings versus standard time is. My relationship with Dolly is the healthiest & most symbiotic one I have right now.

Which leads us to Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving! I didn't know this but a little bird told me that the smallpox which devastated the early American settlers was hiding away in their blankets. How tragic. Serves them right for being such swingers though, if they were to do that in this day & age it wouldn't be the pox but the hiv.

This was the first Thanksgiving I've had in a few years that came even close to exemplifying the old puritan idea of the holiday. A large group of friends & family getting together, eating way too much food, being thankful & crap, etc. Honestly it was that I spent it in a warm, loving, comfortable, familial home. Not my own but dear 4891 Donald, the Fones' residence. Last year's Thanksgiving was an extremely drunken segue to a decently drunken week. The Thanksgiving before that was, albeit with my family, spent in a upscale hotel in Portland, Oregon where I was regulated to eating box mashed potatoes & rolls due to my, what must seem to the chef at said hotel, ridiculous diet of vegetarianism. This year, Thanksgiving was not only a vegetarian's feast for a meal but also a day of good company, warm repartee &, in truth, a general yet overwhelming sense of thankfulness.

A few things I'm thankful for {categorized}:
Sweet:
Dolly, the cat {affectionately refered to as 'Mam'}
My Friends
My Skirt
Pie & Coffee & Cigarettes
This Band I'm In
Lotsa Blankets
Bittersweet:
My Job
France
Electric Radiators
Bitter:
My Job, which I'm about to lose
Current Conversion Rate from US Dollars to Euros
Utility Bills
{Ambivalent: sleep/rainbows/my job/hipsters/unicorns/
safety-first/existenialism...}