I have long since joined the "Buy Nothing Day" movement. Due to this abstention, Black Friday does not exist for me and I do not need news of it. Given the annual excesses of holiday madness, I can imagine in my mind's eye the local TV news reports of poor, deluded consumers shivering in the early morning hours waiting to trample their fellows to secure a bargain on the latest must-have item from the nearest big-box emporium. As for the rest of the news today, there will be speculation on the economic importance of the shoppers mood, reports on how this years shopping compares to last years shopping and what impact the expected levels of holiday consumption will have on the retail community's bottom line.
I feel a certain compunction to rail about how hard it was to get through the day without sneaking off to the loo with the recycle bin in my arms so that I could peruse the pilfered newspaper in peace.
"What are you doing in there Honey?"
"Nothing (rustle, rustle), be out in a minute..."
That is just not, however, the case. Today was an almost Rockwellian wallow in good family time without the benefit of either heading off to gather legal tender, spend said tender on stuff, or make use of the news media to see what other families are up to. To be honest, I did not miss the news at all. I feel like such a failure in the obsession department. It is a good thing there are still motos and guitars to redeem my compulsive credentials.
After a rousing round of "left-over brekkie" and a good turkey flaying were behind us, the morning was spent with The Kid helping me get a huge pot of soup going. A teen-aged son willingly tending to soup making is a thing to be treasured because by all accounts, it won't last. Soup on, there was a family walk to the beach and back, followed by pie and a rousing game of Scrabble. While I should be struggling with the anxiety of not knowing exactly what is going on in the world, I am frittering away my time with counting word scores and then retiring with the little tribe to eat soup and watch "Breaker Morant" because hey, the TBG and Kid had not seen it and its one of my favorites. We followed up the movie with a Scrabble rematch which I won and now The Kid is reading Christoper Moore whilst I blog.
Days of contentment are rare for me, so excuse me if I gush the littlest bit. I think I may be more flawed than the average human when it comes to the contentment thing. Constant hungering for input or information, looking for answers to problems or solutions to puzzles, these things I understand. I do not like to admit it, but just being alive in my own small world is not my strongest skill set. I profess a desire to live in the moment, but more often this manifests as a desire to be in the world's moment, often at the expense of my own.
So maybe I got it a little right today or perhaps I am just taking a slow cruise on the river denial. Regardless of which is more true, the day had a bit of an old Saturday Evening Post cover art air about it. I know that things will change, as is their wont. The Kid will fly back to Tucson, as he does every month. I will miss him terribly, as I always do. Someone will mention a development or happening in the world and I will feel like an idiot for not being up to the minute on whatever it might be.
But not today. There are rumblings of a final scrabble winner-take-all match. Gotta go.
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