Thankful Thanksgiving Thursday

[mdlbear]

I like to let the Thanksgiving gratitude post cover not only the previous week but the year since last Thanksgiving. Which is why I'm starting this on Tuesday. I am grateful for...

• having been diagnosed -- hopefully soon enough -- with one of the most treatable forms of cancer. NO thanks for my prostate gland and its immediate surroundings.
• (mostly) online support groups, particularly The Healing Center. Also other support websites, like Whats your Grief. (I'm not going to list them all, partly because I don't appear to have made a canonical list. Yet.) NO thanks for recently having to broaden this category beyond grief support. I'm glad those sites are there, it's just...
• rabbit holes, which appear to be my main coping mechanism right now. Particular thanks for the axiom of choice, group theory, Evolution, Wikipedia in general, Bandcamp, YouTube, ...
• my family. Or is that families? Kids R and E, sister N and brother-in-law G, niblings m, j, and c; and nearly-niblings(?) foster-niblings k, s", and g". (It's complicated.) (What's the opposite of family of choice, anyway? None of the alternatives I've seen, like "of origin" are anything more than adequate, and some are awful.) Additional thanks to Colleen for introducing me to the concept, and welcoming me into hers.
• Mom's cranberry relish.
• being financially able to afford health care and to help other family members. And pets -- vet bills have been astronomical recently.
• our cats. Cricket, Bronx, and Brooklyn in the house; Ticia in my Lair. Thanks too for Desti, who left us far too soon, earlier this year. Special thanks to Ticia, who has been my sleeping companion since Colleen died.
• the filk community.
• electric washing machines, dishwashers, and vehicles. Particular thanks for Molly.
• lithium-ion storage bateries and USB-C.
• Dreamwidth Studios (dreamwidth.org), my blog host, and dreamhost.com, my web host. (Not related, despite the similarly of names.)
• free-to-use artwork (both public domain and CC-licensed). Particular thanks to Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, and pexels.com.
• open-source software, including Linux, Git, Make, Bash, Emacs, Audacity, WordPress, and Xmonad; also the computers I run it on, mainly my laptop, a Lenovo X230 called Sable. Additional thanks for the "spare" laptops, and Git's ability to synchronize them.

Comments

That's an impressive list.

[jesse_the_k]

...and rabbit holes are so soothing. The only drawback is they seem to use the same energy that I've previously deployed in posting.

May your cancer treatment be swift and sure.

Re: That's an impressive list.

[mdlbear]

Thanks!

[freyjaw]

I pray you heal quickly with minimal side effects.

[mdlbear]

Thanks!

[acelightning73]

I tend to refer to "family of birth" or "DNA family" or even "blood relatives". The only "blood relatives" I have left are my first cousin and my son. I had an uncle, my father's half-brother (my grandfather was a bit of a rogue), who was a career Marine, but I found out that he had died from spending too much of his career at Camp Lejeune. The obit I saw said he died of "complications of Parkinson's disease" and his last place of residence was an extended care facility in the small town in Maine where he and my dad grew up. Semper Fi, Uncle Doug.