Pleasant Surprises

As difficult as this past year has been, the one thing I've been the most thankful for is the pleasant surprises around each corner, that usually pop up when I least expect them. You think you're alone, jump online, write a heart-rending entry like you might to an offline journal, and within moments you get five - twenty replies reassuring you, commiserating. Or you dread your birthday, because in your head you haven't accomplished much, and your friends hire a limo to take you to a cool Chinese restaurant and shower you with gifts. Or you've decided you'll never get employed ever again - and voila, someone hires you. I think I was in shock for two weeks when the French Bank did for the temp job, plucking my resume literally off of the internet. And possibly for four weeks when the Health Care Company gave me a permanent job, partly because I got that French Bank one. Then of course there was kidbro who I assumed would never marry his longtime girlfriend of seventeen years or have children, yet they did it, in the middle of a swimming pool no less and then had one of the most beautiful children I've seen. And now -- thought I was going to spend the next four days all on my lonesome, watching DVD's. But guess-what? Apparently I got a social life when I wasn't paying attention. Morale? Don't make assumptions. The best thing about life is it is completely unpredictable.

Schrodiner's Cat and the Puppeteer (yes, I make up names for my non-online friends) invited me over for Thanksgiving Dinner. Which is wonderful for many reasons - one, I don't have to cook, two, I get try out someone else's Thanksgiving traditions (we all have our own). CW invited me to her B-Day splash on Sat. Cjl and I have movie plans on Friday. And Wales wants to hang out on Sunday when she returns from her family in KC. (Not sure I'm going to have any time to watch those DVD's let alone rent them.) Heh.

Here's our Thanksgiving menu for those interested:

Pumpkin pie martinis and nibbles
Squash soup
Salad with apples, toasted hazelnuts, and cheddar
cheese
Turkey with sausage and chestnut stuffing, collard
greens, biscuits, gravy, cranberry-orange sauce,
cranberry-apple chutney
Pumpkin pie and whipped cream

(my solo menue is usually - Roast Cornish Game Hen, wild rice, green beans with almonds, salad, and whatever pie I can find in my neighborhood to buy.
My mother's menu: Turkey, Cornbread Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce with ginger and a splash of orange juice, gravy, sweet potatoes and apples, green beans, green tossed salad, apple and pumpkin pie. Sometimes we have mashed potatoes, but not often.)