My First New Thanksgiving...

It's my first Thanksgiving that I'm not hosting...

Because my family is 1,200 miles away...

I'm used to two large banquet tables and a circular dining table added to one end. I'm used to two large turkeys cooking overnight, both easily over 25 pounds, started on Wednesday evening. I'm used to having 20+ guests--sometimes over 30!--coming to my home, eating, drinking, laughing...

To go from that, to just now unthawing a 10 pound turkey and cooking it for two...

With 80 degree weather outside....

It's odd, to say the least. I'm unsure if I'll have that experience again, honestly. How many stars would have to align to get the 16 people of my immediate family to come to Florida for me to ever do that again? How many heavens would I have to move, how many gods would I have to sacrifice to, to ever host in that way again?

I find myself missing the most poignantly, albeit of my own doing, starting a new life so far away.

***

But for a moment I shall digress and hop on my soapbox because someone just pissed me off with this photo:

1. It is *not* something to feel guilty about to want to spend time with your family on a holiday that has been around for 200+ years
2. It is *not* the same thing to be a soldier fighting for U.S. interests overseas (or even on home soil) and selling crap made in china at a national retailer
3. It is DEFINITELY okay to be PISSED that GREED on behalf of U.S. businesses are making you work--and probably threatening you with your job if you question it--on a day that SHOULD be spent relaxing, enjoying food and family, when there are 363 OTHER days of the year that people can enter your 24 hour a day establishment and buy cheap goods that are not supporting U.S. factories, let alone paying a wage above the poverty rate...

I can only assume that a Republican who thinks his right's are violated if he can't make slaves out of other Americans made such an asinine, stupid, insensitive poster...

Assholes.

I would wish you a hellish holiday, but that's not very nice, as the B.E.D. would say, so I'll simply say to the creator of this image?
FUCK YOU.
Fuck your greed for making your employees work just so you can make an extra buck when you barely pay them shit. Fuck your inhumanity for taking away one of the few days of the year when FAMILY should take priority over all else. Fuck you for trying to equate wanting to spend time with family with "unAmercanism" and "unpatriotism", especially because the wages you pay and the fact that you ARE making people work simply for your bottom line is the MOST unpatriotic, MOST unAmerican thing I can think of.
FUCK YOU.
***
Anyway, missing my family while staring at my paltry frozen turkey...

Luckily, I have an employer who pays a decent wage, allows me time off to spend how I wish, and has no urge to try to make me feel guilty about it.