5 things: Thanksgiving

1. As today is my birthday, I observe that the true and valuable purpose of Facebook is birthday greetings. I'm not being sarcastic. I'm very grateful and very touched at how many people are wishing me a happy birthday, and I'm very grateful that Facebook makes it so easy for them.

2. Amazing photographs (1): Astronaut Douglas H. Wheelock's pictures from the ISS. My particular favorite is No. 17. (Link via papersky.)

3. Amazing photographs (2): This picture of an ornithopter is going to turn into a story someday. The rest of the ornithopter pictures (just keep scrolling down until you run out of ornithopters) are also fantastic. (Link via jaylake.)

4. mirrorthaw is playing weird covers for me again. Ska "Crazy Train," bossanova "November Rain," the weirdest-assed weird-ass cover of "King of the Road" I have EVER heard.

5. Tobias Buckell has a smart post about the American Thanksgiving, and how its origins and cultural mythology are kind of problematic and off-putting, but the idea, of taking a day to think about the things you're grateful for, is a good one. And, yeah. What he said.

This is probably a good place to mention, btw, that Pat Rothfuss is doing his Worldbuilders fundraiser for Heifer International again this year. I don't even know what awesome stuff Pat has in his hat this year. But Thanksgiving seems like a good day to think about giving to others.

Our plans for today involve staying in and not doing much, except for the food. (Love is the plan, the plan is food.) Given how exciting/hellish things have been for us recently, this feels like the right thing to do. I'm grateful we can do this, and I'm grateful my life has put me here to do it.

I hope all of you Americans have a very happy Thanksgiving with people you love. And I hope all you non-Americans have a very good November 25th. Which, you know, is a perfectly cromulent day to have a good one of.