trip to see the family for Thanksgiving

[Kragen Sitaker]

Development and business proceed apace at AirWave; we all went out for
Chinese on Wednesday.  I enjoy working there more over time.

Beatrice and I took a hike up through the Presidio and back home this
last weekend.  I felt quite out of shape.

Tuesday, I'd planned to speak at Toastmasters, but the club officers
cancelled the meeting due to lack of attendance.  I guess a lot of
people had no time this week.

We have begun a trip to Portales, New Mexico, where my grandparents
live.

Wednesday, I left work at 15:00, I picked Beatrice up at 16:30, and we
just managed to catch our flight to Albuquerque at 18:40.  The traffic
moved slowly.

I slept on the plane; in my dream, I was a network management system
for Cisco Wi-Fi access points.

We met my mother and sister in Albuquerque when we deplaned; they lent
us a Subaru SUV, which Beatrice drove to Santa Rosa, where we met my
aunt Susan, her husband, their daughter, Susan's father, and his
girlfriend, most of whom had remained awake to welcome us to their
adobe house there.  We slept on a fold-out couch under an electric
blanket, between a bookshelf containing monthly magazines from the
1890s (among other things) and a sculpture of a train engine sitting
on top of a cardboard canister that had once held dry cement.

We slept from 0:30 to 7:30.  We'd hoped to leave at 8:00, but Susan
wanted to make breakfast, and hadn't actually made any yet at that
point.  We breakfasted on whole-wheat waffles, topped with canned
apricots from next door, roasted green chile, raspberry jam, hot
syrup, butter, and other things.

We actually left around 9:30.  I drove east to Tucumcari, then south
to Clovis.  I rarely let the speedometer dip below 80; it usually
indicated 105 or so, although I would slow to 85 whenever a car came
the other way.  Not surprisingly, we ran low on gas by the time we
reached Grady.

Beatrice slept in the back seat during much of this drive, and she
continued to sleep as I got gas.  Grady has few people and fewer
businesses, but it does have a gas station --- no cash, no cashier,
only a credit-card machine.  

I got out.  Deep silence enveloped me.  The scratches in the gas
station's paint proclaimed: "GRADY SUX."  And: "I LOVE KARA ELWAY."
One pump sold high-sulfur red-dyed diesel. "FOR FARM USE ONLY," warned
the sign on the pump. "SEVERE PENALTIES FOR HIGHWAY USE."

I filled up on unleaded, washed the windshield, and drove on.  Tracy
Chapman and engine noise obliterated the silence I'd heard at Grady.

We reached Portales around 11:30.  My grandparents welcomed us; my
grandmother can't remember much anymore, and so our visit surprised
her, but my grandfather knew.  We caught up.  My grandmother showed me
a photo of their 50th-wedding-anniversary celebration, which I
attended in 1999.  I think she has shown it to me six times today so
far; she keeps forgetting that she has already shown it to me, and
also that it depicts me, among other people.

My uncle Darwin --- John Wayne looks a lot like him --- brought food
for Thanksgiving dinner, which commenced around 12:30, as usual.  We
chatted about politics and family matters; my brother Jay starts
school soon, my cousin Karrie just moved back to Arizona.

I sat on the couch and read a Chinese newspaper I'd picked up
yesterday, but I kept dozing off.

We met my grandparents' new cats, but they kept their distance from
us.

My mother, her husband Dick, and my sister Serafina showed up later.
We had more family time.  Dick has a cat allergy, so he couldn't stay
in the house of his parents-in-law for long.  Beatrice and I took a
long walk with him out past the cattle factory farm.  I picked a yucca
seed stalk to bring back.

Carolyn gave me a wonderful photo album of photos from my childhood.
Beatrice laughed at every page.  We chatted about future plans.

Serafina and Beatrice have gone out to watch a movie.  I thought I'd
take the opportunity to lie in bed and write a bit more email.


Today, we Americans customarily give thanks for our blessings.  I have
a lot to give thanks for.


Beatrice and I plan to marry next year.  I give thanks that such a
marvelous person finds me worthy of her love, that I have the capacity
to love her truly, and that we can celebrate our love in this way.

I have many friends and family members who love me and have not died
yet; I give thanks for their unstinting love, which I have often not
deserved.

I have enough to eat.  For this I give thanks.

Unlike some people I meet every day in San Francisco, I still have a
house, or part of one, anyway.  For this I give thanks.

While I know my capacity for dishonesty, hypocrisy, and self-interest,
I have not exercised it much.  For this I give thanks.

I have no addictions to drugs or anything else inherently harmful.
For this I give thanks.

I have a job, unlike many people I know in Silicon Valley.  It even
pays me enough to meet my physical needs and save some for the future.
For this I give thanks.

My job interests me, I like my co-workers, and our customers really
like our product.  I have never had such good fortune before, and for
this I give thanks.

I have no television.  For this I give thanks.

I have access to the Internet.  For this I give thanks.

Although its limits constantly frustrate me, I give thanks for my
capacity for thought, especially after spending the day with my
grandmother, whose poor memory puts much worse limits on her capacity
for thought.

My country has not yet gone to war against Iraq.  For this I give
thanks.

I still have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and free
software, although they look pretty wobbly in the US now.  For these I
give thanks.

For a trillion things I take for granted but couldn't live without, I
give thanks.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra died in August of 2002.  The world has lost a great
man.  See http://advogato.org/person/raph/diary.html?start=252 and
http://www.kode-fu.com/geek/2002_08_04_archive.shtml for details.