Thanksgiving

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Surely you don’t expect a full post from me today, do you?

Some things I’m very thankful for, despite the fact this has been a rocky year:

– my health seems to be improving, if not yet up to snuff

– my writing is slowly coming back (not rushing is tough.)

– Witchfinder did surprisingly well.

– The family is all healthy, and the boys are both working towards their careers/goals.

– There is indie, as well as Baen.  Baen is as always a haven and family, and indie gives me an additional outlet, as well as hope that we can turn this culture around.  (Keep working, guys.  Keep working.)

– There is still America.  Wounded, sure, and brought low, but still here and still ours.  Rebuilding is easier than inventing, and if the USA didn’t exist we’d have to invent ‘er.

– Good friends,including present company, even if most of you are probably figments of my imagination.  (You’re very nice figments.)

This link here will take you to my e-card to Hoyt’s Huns and Hoydens.  It’s a pleasure knowing you, guys.  G-d bless every argumentative one of you. You’ve got me through some rough patches and (looks at feet) I love you guys!  And for this, too, I’m thankful.

148 thoughts on “Thanksgiving”

  3. Pingback: Happy Thankgiving | T.L. Knighton

  5. I am very thankful for this spot in the net, and for your writing. Characters I can actually care about! Be well, and enjoy your holiday. Lots of folks care for you.

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        1. Unfortunately there’s no emoticon for “looking at you with my head cocked to one side and my eyebrows raised”.

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  10. Happy Thanksgiving Sarah. Likewise to the many of you who are:

    Good friends,including present company, even if most of you are probably figments of my imagination. (You’re very nice figments.)

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    1. No, you’re a figment of *my* imagination!

      BTW, I’m not the one who came to that realization. I was informed of this salient fact by a group of co-eds back when I was a college student.

      :P

      And Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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      1. Look, I’m the one eyed, one horned, elephant trunked, lime green heart shaped creature with the stick legs and robotic arms with pincers. You try typing coherently with pincers. I’d say Sarah’s imagination has proved pretty inventive.

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  14. From my house to yours and all the fractious Huns- Have a good-un. Hopefully, you have been blessed with an abundance of mead to wash down the dragon’s flame baked dinosaur and cackleberry dressing.

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  16. For the blessings of tryptophan and elastic waistbands, may we all be grateful. And for the research division of the Diner, which enables *every single one of us* to have a drumstick if we want. (Now that we’ve done it, let us all agree that the turcentipede may not have been one of our better ideas and destroy the video of it trying to fly.)

    And to conclude, PIE!!!

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    1. Yes, I’m sure there is a thin sliver of pumpkin pie hidden somewhere under this mound of calorie free whipped cream.
      And it wasn’t the turcentipede’s fault. A standard issue domestic turkey can barely walk as it is, let alone fly. But boy howdy couldn’t that critter run once it got all those legs in sync.

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        1. Here, have some Kahlua pecan pie. That’ll take your mind off the turcentipede. Here’s the real whipped cream. Mostly cream and air, with just a sprinkle of sugar. Tastes better than that fake stuff. Pumpkin, apple, cherry?
          *Note, counting the calories from Holly’s pies is prohibitive. Consuming Holly’s pies is banned in New York City. Vegetarians are warned to avoid all pies made by Holly.

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          1. Here, have some Kahlua pecan pie… Pumpkin, apple, cherry?

            Yes, please. I have a big plate so I can build my own mix and match pie…
            :D

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          2. Oh my. It sounds like your kitchen and mine share similar principles.

            (Whenever someone suggests that we should try take the healthier option of using sugar substitutes, I point out my children and I have had allergic reactions to sugar substitutes.)

            I should share to the Huns my family’s hot chocolate recipe. I’m told that even using sugar substitutes, it is wooooonderful.

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      2. Yeah, but the slightest noise or sudden movement would cause it to lose focus, with predictable results.

        Whoever put bubble wrap across its path was evil. Funny, but evil.

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    2. So THAT’s what the sirens were about this AM. *Slumps back into couch* The great question: pumpkin pie (hey, it has a vegetable in it!), apple cinnamon cake, or the bottom half of a dark-chocolate-pecan pie. (Dental work precludes nuts at the moment).

      Thank you to Sarah for the venue and all the Huns and Hoydens who make it such a fun, thoughtful, wild place. And Jeff, I put the tea back where it goes and I swear I had nothing to do with the attempt to make the cappuchino attachment dispense whipped cream instead of steam.

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      1. “The great question: pumpkin pie (hey, it has a vegetable in it!), apple cinnamon cake, or the bottom half of a dark-chocolate-pecan pie.”

        The great answer: Yes.

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        1. It’s a long day, there’s time for everything. And seconds.

          And there’s time for the gym tomorrow.

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  17. Happy Thanksgiving, folks. One of the quirks of North America is that we celebrate Thanksgiving on separate dates. I’m sure there’s a reason, but sometimes it seems that we do it to be contrary.

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    1. Hey! Those Canadians have to does things different than the US! If they could get away with it, they’d have Christmas and New Years Day on different days than the US!

      Happy Thanksgiving even to our Canadian neighbors!!!!

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            2. And there are those things which define graciousness, such as what these Maple Leafs fans did at a recent NHL game when the PA system crashed during the Star Spangled Banner:

              I doubt Nashville’s Predators fans could have completed O’ Canada:
              O Canada, O Canada,
              Your boughs can teach a lesson
              That constant faith and hope sublime
              Lend strength and comfort through all time.
              O Canada, O Canada,
              Your boughs can teach a lesson.
              ;-)

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    4. It’s a harvest festival, and harvest is at different times depending on if you live in Alberta or Texas.

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  19. *Looks at Sarah’s feet* Standard issue feet, what’s so interesting??

    Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all — nope, that ain’t right… Anyroad.

    You folks are a blessing, this community is a light, and for this I give thanks.

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    1. “Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all — “

      Pie. Because you can’t go wrong with pie. Unless it has tentacles. That might be bad. But otherwise, pie.

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      1. Guess that rules out great-great-great grandma’s baked tentacle pie.

        Too bad. That one really sticks to your ribs.

        :|

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    1. Well, that was properly nightmarish. Thank you. (really, that was fun, in a mind-bending we can’t speak of this for fear of wakening the elder gods way)

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  21. Checking the Twitter feeds of some of the Usual Suspects today, I found the usual whining about the origins of Thanksgiving and in one case, complaining bitterly about every single American holiday.

    Figures that when everybody else is busy spending time with their families and counting their blessings, the SJWs are busy counting grievances.

    To heck with them. Happy Thanksgiving.

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    1. Twitter??? Never do Twitter; especially on a Holiday. No one can handle so much dumb in one place.
      Take another sip of that fine blended Canadian water of life and thank the gods of the copybook headings that they were right all along. (and Twitter proves it) We may be a little late compared to you- but, that’s that only means you get twice the opportunity to party.

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        1. But…But it’s hard on keyboards. You have to pry the little letters off, clean the little valleys, wipe every smidgeon of coffee off each little letter, then place it back just so. Tedious my friend, tedious.

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  23. Stupid WP — no longer automatically subscribing me to email notifications. Had I wanted to change my notification settings I would have TOLD WP as much. And now WP is not properly resetting. I shall not be giving thanks for that favor, although I will be for many others which life has granted to me.

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    1. Happy Giving Thanks, Y’all — and I ain’t nobody’s figment.

      I … am that bit of undigested gruel giving you nightmares.

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  25. Happy Thanksgiving!

    Oddy enough, Jonathan got a card with a dog and cat and flying veggies, while I got a card with a barn owl, and a party in a barn. Liked both of them, but we’re a bit confused. :-D

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      1. That would explain why I got the barn. Probably everybody who has been accused of being born/raised in a barn got that one.

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      1. Ah! I assumed that the card in the Diner was the same as the one here. I’ll have to check the other one out. [Smile]

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    1. If we’re to be figments, may I request being in a different location than the figments Sarah writes about? Their lives are a lot more interesting than I care for mine to be.
      Happy Thanksgiving to you all. May your dinosaurs be neither over cooked nor require cooking until midnight, and may you all have enough pie for leftovers.

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  27. For those who toil during the day, tending the light of civilization in ways unseen; to those whose work knows no set schedule, who stand ready to shoulder the wheel from sun to sun; to all whose lives have a purpose greater than self-gratification, who lift us up with them as they climb; and lastly but far from least, for those who stand far from civilization’s light, who keep watch from the dusty wasteland to the green hell, from the river’s mouth to the oceans green and blue, we give thanks that our lives may continue, largely, miraculously, in peace.

    For all the blessings I forgot to mention or haven’t noticed yet, I give thanks as well (in blissful, but acknowledged, ignorance).

    May each of you and yours be well, eat your fill and in this know full well the fortune that we all have in this life, meek or strong, we are Odd, and that is good. Take care, folks. Appreciate ya.

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  28. I am Thankful for Sarah and this fascinating blend of people I experience as friends (save the occasional troll) that she has conjured out of the internet. I would be much lonelier without all of you.

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  30. Gratitude is good. I’m thankful for the internet which enables me to participate in the conversation occasionally and to share in the humor and wisdom. Thanks particularly to Sarah for creating and maintaining this special space, and for the fellow Odds who populate it.

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  31. Happy Thanksgiving, Sarah. To you, to yours, to all of the huns and hoydens. Thanks for the sanity and the laughs. May you all have a wonderful and blessed day.

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  35. I’m thankful for my parents, and the effort they put in.
    I’m thankful for the education system of the sixties, and that teaching critical thinking was “in” at that time.
    I’m thankful for the GI Bill
    I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve my country, and i’m thankful for having been able to separate in once piece.
    I’m thankful for having been married to a wonderful woman that helped me heal my service.
    I’m thankful for the opportunity to help raise three wonderful daughters.
    I’m thankful for the employment opportunities I had during those periods.
    I’m thankful for the opportunity to have owned and opperated {sp} a small machine shop during hard times
    I’m thankful for the friendships developed then
    I’m thankful for the opportunity to gamble my economic future and make swords
    I’m thankful for having been able to bounce back from my stroke as much as I have.
    I’m thankful for a supportive family
    I’m thankful for the opportunity to write on the “Mongoliad” series
    I’m thankful for the opportunity to use those lessons and expand on them as an indie
    I’m thankful for this community, and the opportunity to relearn conversing with others

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  36. I have an odd one; I am thankful for the good that the SJWs and GHHs do in the mainstream. Because I don’t think Disney would have made FROZEN the way they did without this (frankly deranged) subculture making so much noise. I don’t think MALEFICENT would have gotten made either. And I consider both to be improvements on the original stories. Personally, I don’t like villains who are villains just because. The Bad Fairy in the story of Sleeping Beauty always bothered me for that reason. Give me some freaking backstory, please. And I’ve hated just about every detail of the traditional version of The Snow Queen essentially forever.

    Now, I don’t want NOTHING but “EMPOWERED FEMINIST” characters all over the landscape. For one thing, they don’t pick up after their own messes. But I really think it is an effect of the SJW/GHH twits.

    Not that they probably appreciate it. I know they hate FROZEN, and I suspect they hate MALEFICENT. Sucks to be them.

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    1. I never had a problem with Maleficent. I just saw her as one of the Professionally Offended. They predate SJW’s by a wide margin…

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      1. It helps IMO to understand the original “fairy story” if you think of the “fairies” (especially the more powerful ones) as gods.

        Of course a god would be insulted if you invited his/her peers to an important event but didn’t invite him/her.

        Arrogant of her? Yep, but gods (not G*d) are arrogant.

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    2. No, no — you know how bad her typing gets at times. She didn’t mean figment.

      It’s just that she has yet to fully develop a plot or character arc for you, so what you are is a fragment — a frag-ment.

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                1. So, I have an idiot talking about the “genocide of the native people’s” in comments. Do you guys want me to let him through to shred? It’s so fricking ridiculous, it might be parody. He actually talks about the “native people in harmony with nature” — you know the ones who slaughtered and ate every animal that got domesticated in other continents — and “the capitalist monstrosity” — you know, compared to the happy go lucky socialist paradise that killed a hundred million. So, do you guys want to bat it around???

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                    4. Oh, I hear you on writing. 79% of a way through a novel, about a chapter into a new one, and working on the first chapter for the first novel in the yet-unnamed series for the Sparrowind expansion. Taking a break for a late lunch – meatpie, pink lemonade, and watching Clamps get punched around like an old cat toy on someone’s LJ after he went after her for linking back to Larry’s post about the legalities of shooting people.

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                    5. Can’t say as I’m in much of a mood to stomp cockroaches. Beloved Spouse & I spent the evening enjoying the BBC’s production of Death Comes To Pemberly and I’m feeling sort of mellow.

                      Tips a glass to the shade of Baroness James.

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                    7. We has recorded it for watching at our convenience. I’ve been rewatching the adaptations of Adam Dalgleish stories and, well, the news came through of P.D. James’ passing so The Spouse suggested we watch Death Comes to Pemberley tonight. The Spouse says Amazon does offer it as instant video.

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                    9. November 27, 2014. The opening of the NYTimes online obit from yesterday:

                      Phyllis Dorothy James White, who became Baroness James of Holland Park in 1991 but who was better known as “the Queen of Crime” for the multilayered mystery novels she wrote as P. D. James, died on Thursday at her home in Oxford, England. She was 94.

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                    2. For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel.
                      Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov’d him!
                      This was the most unkindest cut of all;
                      For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
                      Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
                      Quite vanquish’d him: then burst his mighty
                      heart. . . .

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                    4. Hmmm, is this a Dagger I see before me?

                      (Julius Caesar is one I’ve never read. But I’m afraid if it were made today, Brutus would finish him off with a Mini-gun, in slow motion.)

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  40. I’m thankful to have safely made the trip to visit family for the holiday in spite of some truly awful winter road conditions, and that we were able to gather around the table and have a wonderful feast. And to have some writing time to work on a novel I’m hoping to get up soon on KDP.

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    2. I’m thankful that our weather settled down enough to have a get together. We had a nice white Thanksgiving, but only my sister and her husband had trouble getting here, and they in fact made it for dinner. (As in they rolled up when we were putting dishes on the table.)

      Good dinner too.

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  43. Hum- I may be responsible in part for your new chew toys. I copied, with credit, Dan Lane’s blessing to my family site on Facebook. I mentioned that it came from this blog. My hope was that the family would get the blessing on Thanksgiving and you would get some publicity and maybe even sell a book or two. Unfortunately, I have two family members, one male and one female, SJWs that are blocked on my personal Facebook but not the family one. I don’t recommend letting either one in this late. Now, if it were earlier, it would be fun. I’ve stopped being nice since the last go around and flexing the mental hardware; but, it’s too late and they aren’t that exciting.

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      1. Thanks, both of ye. Missed this before, but I’d best let y’all know that’s not all mine- I ain’t that eloquent on my own. *grin*

        Be thanking Dave Drake (I think it was an epilogue somewhere, can’t remember which one), my father, and our host as well. After all, if I’m going to be cribbing, might as well steal the best lines of all (in my opinion of course)!

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  44. Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to all! We have much to be grateful for in this day and age, (even if it was provided by the efforts of predominantly western heterosexuals)
    All my love to the Huns and Hoydens. Enjoy the turcentipede! (I’ll have to look into commisioning one for next year.)

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  45. Thank you so much for this blog, and for all the Huns. I can’t comment as much as I’d like these days, but I keep up. Me and my sanity (such as it is) thank all of you.

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