Gracias Por Todo

Doppelgänger
noun
a ghostly double or counterpart of a living person.
Dictionary.com

I think that I found my doppelgänger in today’s Sunday New York Times, and it is the actor Charlie Hunnam. I don’t usually read articles about celebrities, but something drew me to this one.

The first thing you might notice is the obvious physical resemblance … chiseled body … devilish good looks … but here is a list of some other things he and I have in common:

Favorites in music include Tom Waits, Van Morrison, and Leonard Cohen
Loved the book Shantaram
Appalled by the nature of modern journalism
Thinks that Apple dropping the iPod from its line was a serious mistake
Admires Joseph Campbell and his writings
Prefers being out in the natural world to urban settings
Appreciates the virtues of cats

You can see why I might have been mildly stunned to learn all this at once. What with all those similarities, I can only hope that he doesn’t move to Colorado. People would be confusing us all the time.

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As we watch (unable to avoid it) the Twitter debacle, keep in mind that the man in the picture is the same guy whose company puts out the Tesla automobile and who wants a select few to accompany him to the planet Mars.

The car, perhaps. The Mars trip, fageddaboudid. Too small a craft to share it with just anyone.

Life’s Been Good, by Joe Walsh

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A Dick Guindon cartoon. It’s a Minnesota thing.

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Tomorrow is our only national holiday devoted to eating too much. Oh, there will be lip service paid to gratitude said at tables around the country, but we’re really there to stuff ourselves, aren’t we?

Hey, could you please send the turkey down this way … please?

Maybe that’s exactly how it should be. Someone like myself doesn’t respond well to being told how they should feel on just one day in November. What I need would be a smartphone app that pops up every day and says: Here’s a reason to be appreciative, you ungrateful bozo!

Would someone wake up Dad, he’s face down in the gravy boat

I’m not going to reveal my personal gratitude list, it is way too long for casual perusal. And actually, it’s not important that you read it, but it is essential that I am aware of what’s on there.

You’re kidding. We’re already out of whipped cream? Who can eat pumpkin pie without whipped cream?

Why? For one thing, to cut down on my whiny days, when I go off wishing I had more stuff, or more people liked me, or that I was taller, or that I wasn’t so creaky in the mornings. I can tell by the expressions on the faces of my disappointed listeners that my whinges are often too petty to be believed.

Does anybody hear us? We need the stuffing here. Don’t make me come over there!

I can only speak for myself, but I believe that there has never been a day that there wasn’t something that I should have/could have been grateful for, even if it was just the strength to get through a rough patch.

Look out, will you? I’ll never get that cranberry stain off this shirt. Oaf!

So thanks to all of you for your gifts to me. If I can’t pay you back directly, I do promise to pay it forward.

Everybody look at the camera … George, have a care, there’s broccoli all over your teeth … Josh, sit still or I’ll have to slap you … seriously, are those the best smiles you have? … whose feral child is this, for god’s sake? … here we go … eyes all open now … CHEESE!

Thanks For The Dance, by Leonard Cohen

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From The New Yorker

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How about a dose of pure delight. Sharing the joy of a couple of scientists in the New Guinea bush who found the bird they were looking for . The video tells its own story.

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(It is not a simple thing to find a short prayer of thanksgiving on the internet. So many of them go on and on, stanza after stanza. But I did find one that seemed modest and humble. There was no author listed.)

All that we have is a gift.
May we be thankful.
May we celebrate.
May we share.