thank you notes 8/19

i'm thankful that yesterday work was hectic but ended pretty well. i'm thankful that when our chat app went down for a while, the customers who had to wait for a response were mostly very helpful. i'm thankful to have felt like a l33t h@xx0r using terminal to start up a local server to use a backend utility one of my coworkers built. i'm thankful to have gotten along really well with the new team member who was shadowing me and thankful to have been able to teach him a lot of helpful things. i'm thankful that he is thoughtful and nice and committed and that i think he'll be a really great addition to our team.

i'm thankful for chocolate cake batter flavored protein powder. i'm thankful for pepper jack cheese sticks. i'm thankful that d reseasoned our leftovers last night and made them even better than they had been the night before (i'm thankful to have them again tonight). i'm thankful for the cherry tomatoes for her garden, which are so flavorful. i'm thankful that while a lot of the summer fruits are already gone, nectarines are still plentiful and delicious. i'm thankful to have found some decaf chai tea i had brewed a while ago in the back of the fridge and to have drunk it after dinner. i'm thankful for cold drinks on hot days. i'm thankful i made more tea before bed last night and thankful that after i finish writing these notes, i'll put it in the fridge to chill. i'm thankful for glass bottles.

i'm thankful to have facetimed with my parents and my brother and his girlfriend, who are visiting them for a few days. i'm thankful my brother's girlfriend is a lovely person and that she had the remnants of purple hair dye in her ice blonde hair, which added a cool sheen. i'm thankful to have talked about video games with my brother, about how he's playing majora's mask for the nth time but has never actually beat it. i'm thankful that my brother's dog, who they thought was going to die soon, seems to be doing well; i'm thankful that our family dog has cancer and is going to die soon, but doesn't seem to be in pain right now and is getting spoiled by my parents with delicious treats and love. i'm thankful to have listened to them all trying to agree on what takeout to order for dinner and to have heard that my dad's optometrist told him that he should not look at a computer screen as much as he does and that he seems like he may take her advice seriously.

i'm thankful for my mom's subtle (and not so subtle) pressure for me to come home and visit them is just an example of how much she loves me and d and loves spending time with us. i'm thankful for that. i'm thankful to remember a very striking moment in one of the up series documentaries that has stuck with me, where someone describes how it feels like such a trial, with a career and a family, to be able to take a trip to visit her parents once or twice a year, but how as her parents get older, she's struck by how paltry that number feels, that if she does her very best to arrange her schedule see them twice a year, that still might mean she only sees them twenty or thirty times more before they die. i'm thankful to remind myself of that, that time's a goon, and thankful also for how technology helps to bridge distances. i'm thankful for "telephone line" by ELO (i know i've been thankful for it before, but i'm still thankful for it, the heavenly falsetto chorus, the walking bass line, strings that touch the clouds).