Loosen the belts and pass the mashed potatoes, for as sure as retail outlets all over the world are itching to press the Christmas button, Thanksgiving Day is here.

I saw a snippet of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this morning. The Mary Poppins number hypnotized me a bit, so I had to turn away quickly before it sucked away the rest of my day. I've never liked parades (or "rolling rallies", as our mayor Mumbles Menino likes to call them). I'm also amazed that for being 61, Dolly Parton sure looks.... what does she look like? Eh, I'll stop picking on ol' Dolly. I'm sure she's a really nice, sweet lady.

Anyway, before this gets too long (as my blogs tend to be), some of you may have had a rough time of it all this year; maybe you're telling yourself you have little to be thankful for. So to those of you who are feeling down about the state of the world, the state of your mind, or both... if nothing else I submit to you the last thing the late great Joe Strummer utters in The Future Is Unwritten (because other people say things more betterer than I):

"...Don't forget you're alive... You know sometimes when you walk around the city or when you yourself are in a bad mood, you can think hey wait a minute we're alive, you know? We don't know what the next second will bring, and what a fantastic thing this is. And this can get easily forgotten in the routine of life and something I try to bring to my attention at all times.
Don't forget that you're alive... that we're not dead... This is the greatest thing."

Happy Thanksgiving,
Henry, Jen, Roy, and Ross.