This week, I'm thankful for...

I am sometimes unable to access this site, so my response is delayed:

I spent yesterday expecting a benign outcome to a scary prospect and after twelve hours the diagnosis came in: myocarditis caused by a viral infection. Treatment is prescribed, and my son should be home today or tomorrow. I will say to all the parents out there that not imagining the worst outcome was really helpful. A low probability event is not where your mind should go, especially if you have no plan B other than a good outcome.

So, Thanksgiving all week. Son is fine. Daughter is a rock. I almost believe in Providence.

We're picking up my son at the airport on Wednesday afternoon so he can spend Thanksgiving with us. In the previous three years he has stayed on the east coast but this is his last Thanksgiving before he graduates and heads to Quantico on May. We're eating dinner at an old friends place in Mesa. It's a big Italian family so we'll all eat too much and end the day with drunk hugs. It's going to be great.

Those who know me are familiar with my cynical outlook on consumer culture and the commercialization and outright invention of major holidays, but those who know me well will tell you that I'm deeply committed to the idea of a civil society. The last five years (and especially the last two) have made a lot of people realize the fragility of the societies in which we, and all of our friends and families, live our lives. Indeed, life is too short.

So with that in mind, this week I have decided to shed a little bit of my cynicism and just be thankful.

I'm thankful for family, though I saw precious little of any of them during the pandemic.

I'm thankful for my friends, all of whom I met at different times during my life, and whose presence I have come to value even more greatly.

I'm thankful for my health, and for the health of others.

I'm thankful for my bicycles, and that I'm able to ride them around and see the world, a different part of it every time.

And last, but not least, I'm thankful to the administrators and members of this bicycle forum, where we maladjusted bike geeks can discuss nearly anything.






“Observe, in short, how transient and trivial is all mortal life; yesterday a drop of semen, tomorrow a handful of spice or ashes. Spend, therefore, these fleeting moments of earth as Nature would have you spend them, and then go to your rest with a good grace, as an olive falls in its season, with a blessing for the earth.”

-Marcus Aurelius

You get an amen from this member of the congregation, Steve!

1. Family, the other F word. A smaller-than-usual circle of mine will get some bird with cornbread-mushroom-andouille stuffing on Thursday.

2. Friends, some of whom I know because of this silly little place we inhabit.

3. Health. Because the alternative is rough.

4. Bikes, mine are an embarrassment of riches. Each an incredibly efficient smile generator.

5. Veesalon — see item 2 above.

I’m thankful to have had incredible fortune in health and stability, and thankful that I had the opportunity for amazing experiences this past year because of it.

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I think we can merge this and the thread I began. We are on the same page.

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Originally Posted by ides1056

I think we can merge this and the thread I began. We are on the same page.

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Same page established. Sally forth.

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Originally Posted by j44ke

Sally forth.

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A Sally Forth Thanksgiving

My son has been sleeping continuously since returning from the hospital. I drop by every day and he is out cold. The odds that he will return to college Monday are slim to nonexistent. Only a few more weeks remain in the semester before Winter break, so I am going to persuade him to do what work he can remotely and call it good.

Then he's got to learn to pace himself.

I'll skip forward to a statement I read as a conclusion in today's WP. This sums up alot, of course I dig this place. We are a community of bicycle dorks who get it. Love thy neighbor, kick ass and have few(er) regrets.

Ok ok ok I'm grateful for thoughtful people in this world who go beyond nodding and shaking their heads. They speak up, act up and challenge me to be a better man.

Here is the WaPO 11/26 quote (the article's context has to do with a BLM sign repeatedly vandilized) :

So this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the now-absent sign and its surprising-to-me savior. And I agree with Nix when he suggests that our shared discomfort can serve a sacred purpose: to make us challenge ourselves. Who hasn’t been taught to make diminishing assumptions about those whom society suggests we look past? Who doesn’t need to look deeper?

“You think you’re this really deep-down-good person until something unexpectedly shows you your complexity, your deficiencies,” Nix explains. Deep inside, he says, “We all have ugly. But that doesn’t mean we are ugly.”

Yeah, as Oscar Wilde suggested, we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.

Look up and be amazed.