Thursday 24 November 2011

Thankfulness pie

Auntie A is one of my longest-serving friends. She is an exemplar of human kindness, which goes a long way to explain why she's remained my friend all these years.

But the greatest of these is pie. 
Auntie A gave me a wonderful book last summer called 14,000 Things to be Happy About. The writer, Barbara Ann Kipfer, as you may have guessed, is American.

It's a lovely book. I recommend it to anyone suffering from chronic grumpiness syndrome.

It being Thanksgiving and all, I'm going to invoke a time-honoured yankee tradition that causes at least three Britons at American tables to spontaneously combust every year. I mean that part before dinner where everyone around the table is forced to say - earnestly - what they are thankful for.

As a warning, anyone who employs irony or understatement at this juncture will be DEPRIVED OF PIE.

Barbara Ann Cheerfulness Kipfer, being an expert in such matters, may go first. Over to you Barbara:
  • Sunlight streaming through trees 
  • Dilbert
  • The whack of a bat against a baseball
  • A baby's yawn
  • Fiber optics  
Well done Barbara. You may have pie.

Me? I am thankful for love. Family. Friendship. Health.

I am thankful to have this brief moment of wakefulness, like a butterfly in wintertime. I reckon time has transfigured the words of Philip Larkin into truth: "what will survive of us is love."

Now there's your pie, and here's your bucket of water.

Stop cringing and be thankful.

13 comments:

  1. Hear hear! I'm thankfully for your posts...they never fail to make me feel happy...sorry I haven't been around much - I am reading blogs, if not commenting as much as I'd like. A barrage of illness here lately x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh no! In that case there's been a plague on both our houses :( I do hope you and Mini are feeling better soon. I haven't been around blogland much this season either - been such a hectic autumn at Chaos HQ. Here's hoping the New Year brings us both some peace and health :). Take care. x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nicely put: "I reckon time has transfigured the words of Philip Larkin into truth: "what will survive of us is love."

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks lady :) Have a lovely turkey day.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I quite like that... brief moment of wakefulness... HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks lady, hope you and yours are well :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Happy Thanksgiving! Your list is pretty comprehensive, but I am with Barbara on the baby's yawn: it truly is a wondrous thing.

    ReplyDelete
  8. The most wondrous thing about it is the desperate hope that a baby might actually, maybe, possibly one day...drift off :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm doing a grateful post every Saturday. Some weeks I really struggle. I might need to get that book... Thanks for the recommendation ;)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good for you - I should make it a weekly ritual too. Weekly gratitude is made much easier with the trusty words of Barbara Cheerfulness Kipfer by your side :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Beautiful! And thank you! I am thankful that I got to see you and meet your short people this summer. And I love guides of things to be thankful for, they are good reminders :) xoxoxo

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you for stopping by Auntie A, happy Thanksgiving to you! Hope it's not too long before you get to hang out with my short people again :)

    ReplyDelete