Okay, it’s not Thanksgiving–wherein I’m always grateful for family and food–and it’s not Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day–wherein I’m grateful for the members of the US military past and present–and it’s not July 4–wherein I’m grateful for our Forefathers, independence, the right to vote and bear arms and all of our other liberties. But a couple of things happened lately that made me realize that I’d taken a few other things for granted lately, too.
1. Parents. With my Dad in and out of the hospital lately, I have become even more grateful for having parents. Two of them, in fact. My mom is 76. My Dad will turn 76 in two weeks. Poor buggers have been parenting me for almost 50 years and it’s still a work in progress. Just today, Mom witnessed me say hello to two passing dogs instead of the two people walking the dogs. She apologized to the dog owners and said I’d been raised better than that.
2. A job. My program recently advertised an entry level position to manage grants and in response, we had 216 applicants. I don’t know how many people applied for the job I got with the state in 1986 but I know the job market wasn’t nearly as tough as it is now. I can also share, though, that about 150 of the people that applied for this entry level job recently didn’t follow directions and were handily eliminated from consideration.
3. Annual leave and sick leave. I got to use my sick leave to see my Dad in the hospital. I get to use my annual leave to go fishing the next three days.
4. Air conditioning in my car. It wasn’t until my fairly new, young secretary said that she was thrilled to borrow her father’s car on Friday that I realized I hadn’t appreciated having air conditioning in my car lately. My first car didn’t have air conditioning, or my second, I recall, so I well remember being in her shoes. Well, not literally. She has bigger feet than me.
5. Air conditioning in my home. Imagine having 11 hamsters, two dogs, a cat and a ferret without air conditioning. I couldn’t either.
6. Nice thunderstorms. Lucky for us, the recent storms trimmed our trees a bit but didn’t down power lines. So thankfully, the electricity kept on going. Which kept the air conditioning going. Which made all the pets happy.
7. Cooler weather. Every furry creature that’s come to our deck to get sunflower seeds the last couple of weeks has been sprawling itself out on the deck to try to cool off.
- Fox squirrel eating and chilling at the same time.
Even a duck came to our deck to cool off in the water. We’re all happy with cooler weather.
8. Vinyl siding. I’m grateful for the siding I have, but note in the photo below the tiny bits of blue foam. Apparently, there’s a place on the underside of my house that the red “‘spaz” squirrels discovered is in need of being covered in vinyl or aluminum.
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Blue insulation bits a squirrel made from the underside of my house.
9. Having a good sense of humor and being able to stretch the truth a wee bit. The former is needed just about every day; the latter will come in handy if the next three days of fishing are bad.
10. Toads. I had to have 10 things to be grateful for and I saw this little fella last night. I fed him a bug before we parted ways.
