Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect.
~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau ~
Thanksgiving celebrations are not exclusive to the USA. Several countries around the globe celebrate a holiday dedicated to gratitude, though dates devoted to the celebrations differ from country to country. The American Thanksgiving was not the first date given to gratitude. Canada’s Thanksgiving predates the US holiday by 40+ years, for example. Japan, Norfolk Island, Puerto Rico, and Germany are among others. Thanksgiving celebrations, based on my experience, seem to be on the decline, though my experience is colored by age differentials in my family and what I perceive as the small and shrinking size of both nuclear and extended families. People with more “normal” families (2-3 children born to relatively young parents whose own parents bore children at a young age…and the members of the extended family living within relatively close proximity to one another) may be apt to celebrate with more regularity and greater intensity. Even those whose appreciation of Thanksgiving is fairly limited, though, tend to follow at least some of the culinary customs that surround the holiday. Thanks to the generosity of friends and the great people of the cancer treatment center, within the last several days we have been given some foods that are traditionally consumed during this holiday: turkey, ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, etc., etc. Today, we are kicking back at home; chilling and treating the day as an opportunity to rest and relax. I still need that “do nothing” time to preserve or restore my energy.
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At least twice last night, I realized that, although I had been in bed for quite some time, I had not slept. Strange questions that had been on my mind before I went to bed sprang to the surface of my consciousness those two times. My questions related to humans’ evolution and the points at which we might have made the transition from herbivore to omnivore or carnivore. Another question ran through my head: at what point (and how and why) did humans start cooking their food, either flora or fauna? During those periods of thought, I pictured in my head a series of colorful illustrated drawings on a poster; the drawings included timelines that showed when humans’ diets were mostly plants and when we got our sustenance primarily from animals. I could not read the timeframe descriptions for each of the time periods; the type was too small and too far away and so blurry I could barely make it out as text. Perhaps I could read the text if I think it in closer proximity to my eyes.
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Eager astronomers hope to soon see the results of a celestial event of stunning proportion. The red supergiant star, Betelgeuse, in the constellation Orion, is the focus of attention, with expectations that its transition into a supernova will be visible from Earth. The real-time event, took place between 400 and 700 years (Earth years) ago as Betelgeuse exploded into a supernova. The light energy from the explosion is expected to reach our planet some time “relatively soon,” a euphemism for “maybe soon, maybe never.” Betelgeuse is more than 700 million miles in diameter and has a mass of ten to twenty times the size of the Sun. The supernova-in-the-making is one of the largest stars known. But, because of the distance in space and time, astronomers do not know precisely when the supernova will appear, if ever. We might be surprised to see that, in the intervening Earth years, the once-massive star has become a dense rock the size of a bowling ball, with a weight eclipsing that of the Sun (see what I did there? 😉 )
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Procrastination should not be given a regular place on the calendar. It should be required to force its way into one’s schedule; at gunpoint, if necessary.
