Happy Thanksgiving. Really.

Dinner is over here in the For the Defense household.  

We are fortunate.  Lots of good food (too much, really) for the carnivores and the vegetarians. Enough good wine for those who indulge and no sneering at those who choose to abstain.  The conversation was rich and warm.  No hostility here where we all share a general set of attitudes - though with enough variation in focus and detail to keep it interesting.  

Despite the dogs' best efforts, they didn't manage to prevent the meal from being cooked.  I only cut myself once.  

Thanksgiving is actually my favorite holiday.  Family and friends and food without the trappings of one or another religion and without patriotic hoopla.  It's not that I'm inherently opposed to holidays with those things, but for once we have one that's just about the pleasure of being together and sharing in a meal.

And of course thanks.  As I said, we are fortunate.  Many are not.  Not enough food - ever. Pestilence. War.  Real, justified fear of what tomorrow, or next week, or next year will bring.   

There are children who are being abused, abandoned, trafficked.  There are kids living on the streets, grubbing meals from dumpsters, dealing meth, cooking meth, doing meth.  Some will die.  Some will kill - intentionally or accidentally.  Some will become my clients.

I have clients who are doing time.  Some who are facing death.  I get to go home at night.  I got to share this day and this dinner with family.  Some of them . . . .

And you?  

Put aside your differences for the day.  Remember why you come together.  It's not so you can fight.  It's because, at some level, you care for each other.

Argue about it tomorrow.

Over at Simple Justice, Scott posted Alice's Restaurant.

If two bloggers do it, it's a movement.  Listen and sing along.