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323 Thanksgiving 2025

11/26/2025

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If I get this post up as planned, Thanksgiving will be TOMORROW! Of course, the Fall season is, for many people, all about Thanksgiving (and Pumpkin Spice, of which I am NOT particularly fond). That is to say that I’m actually QUITE FOND of it as an ingredient in pumpkin PIE filling, or that sort of item, but the idea of using it in/on EVERYTHING edible and/or drinkable for the entirety of the Fall season, does NOT excite me. So, while I do intend to touch on the Thanksgiving holiday itself, I also feel a need to comment on the overabundant use of this concoction of spices in/on just about EVERYTHING during this season! If you are one of those people who just can’t wait for “Pumpkin Spice Season,” that’s your right, but I am NOT one of those. After all, it’s MY blog, and I’ll complain if I want to.

I suppose that I should note that I, apparently, am NOT the only person who gets a bit put out by the constant and overabundant use of “pumpkin spice” (which is NOT, actually A spice, but a blend of spices originally prepared for use ON/IN pumpkin dishes). Note this cartoon from Between Friends.

My suspicion is that the over-use of this spice blend may well be a plot, as suggested in this Pearls Before Swine strip.

Surely this is a time for all “right-thinking” people to gather their forces and help each other resist the forces which are trying to dominate (and destroy) us. The perfect place to try to find assistance in this battle should be the home. But, sometimes one can even find others within one’s own home who will join against you in this battle, as this from Zits suggests.

It’s even possible that the “pumpkin spice” forces MIGHT have gone beyond just infiltrating your family, and gotten to your friends(?) who will then make efforts to undermine your determination to survive their insidious influence, as this from Luann suggests.

Personally, I say, “ICK! However, I am led to believe that it’s highly possible that the “Let’s keep the pumpkin spice for use on/with PUMPKIN movement” may well be fighting a losing battle. I don’t think I am ever likely to understand the obsession which far too many people seem to have with this quite pleasant blend of (usually) cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and (sometimes) allspice. It IS good on/with pumpkin, but to make it the dominant flavor of EVERYTHING once the fall season begins just seems excessive. It leads to what can only be described as a form of insanity (see below).

But enough about that. I just can’t stand any more of it! So, let’s move on to something else, like (as I promised) Thanksgiving itself.

Thanksgiving is, of course, intended to be a “holy day” designed to give thanks to a Deity for our having survived the year successfully. It’s said that it was made into a national holiday to honor the Separatist (Pilgrim) settlers of what came to be Plymouth, Mass. They, of course, were unhappy with the official (Anglican) Church of England, so they left England to establish themselves in a place where they could practice their version of religion as they wished without the Monarch telling them what they were required to believe and practice.

They, of course, believing themselves to be the “TRUE people of God,” weren’t about to worry much about what happened to the people who already lived on/in the land that they got “permission to settle on” from the King of England. After all, THOSE pagan/native/creatures were just “heathens,” who couldn’t really be considered actual “people,” after all. So, the indigenous folk have often been largely ignored in the Thanksgiving story, when it’s pretty well established that the colony at Plymouth might very well not have survived that first year without the assistance of those “savages.” The “savages,” of course, were eventually repaid by the settlers by being exposed to European diseases and by having what they had always considered to be “their” land occupied by and under the forcible control of those settlers whom they had assisted. However, that’s NOT how the story has come down to us, so it’s not what we are supposed to believe.

Actually, that’s probably okay because, at least for a lot of people, Thanksgiving often is really just an occasion when they feel they have to put up with (be polite to) too many relatives of whom they are NOT necessarily all that fond. This, of course, CAN lead to humor, as in this strip from The Wizard of Id because it portrays this attitude/situation quite amusingly, I think.

For many of us (Yes, me, too.), such gatherings are also occasions for the preparation of TOO MUCH food which, obviously, can (and often does) lead to too many “leftovers.” Now, I am actually quite fond of sandwiches made from leftover turkey meat, with Swiss cheese, some lettuce, and a bit of mustard and mayo, especially on good Rye bread. However, I have found that it is often the case that there are also considerable “leftover” supplies of everything else which had been prepared for the Thanksgiving feast. Most of these items I enjoy, but I confess that I do, eventually, get tired of them. Apparently, I am not the only one to notice this phenomenon, as is suggested from this cartoon from The Born Loser.

So, I guess what I’m trying to suggest is that while I, personally, am fairly fond of Thanksgiving, it sometimes seems to fade into the “Holiday” season which starts around the Autumnal Equinox, continues through Halloween/All Saints Day, lasting until well after the Winter Solstice and start of the New Year.. This season has considerable significance in MANY spiritual traditions. At the moment (in the US, at least), however, it tends to be dominated by COMMERCIAL aspects! I confess that I have wished that it was possible to have a little better control relating to the sequencing of holidays, rather than having them all jumbled on top of each other, as seems to be the current case. Each seems to crowd in on and (therefore) diminish the significance of the others. Hence, I would strongly support the idea expressed below by The Wizard of Id.

Still, the “holidays” (whichever ones YOU celebrate) SHOULD be a time for family, friends, peace, and happiness. AS they approach, I hope that your celebrations are (at least mostly) of that nature.

I’ll probably touch on other aspects of the season in posts in the immediate future, as it IS that time of year, and they are on my mind, but we’ll all know more about that when I put up my next post in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I hope that y’all have a pleasant Thanksgiving!

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322 Some Thoughts About Family

11/12/2025

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It’s getting close to a very “Family” sort of time of year, with several religious holidays and times which many folks associate with the concept of FAMILY. It also CAN be (and too often is) a time which leads to intra-family stresses what with lots of folks coming together for big “family” dinners, lots of visiting with family members who don’t get together too often, too many grumpy “political” discussions which can lead to unhappy feelings, etc.

Anyway, I thought I’d try to alleviate at least a bit of the stress which can arise from these situations, with some (hopefully) humorous thoughts relating to everyday family situations and relationships. So, in that light, I hope that this post helps.

Obviously, the most important relationship in ANY family is between the Husband and the Wife, so it follows that THAT relationship should be considered as primary. Of course, for many of us men, that relationship is always a bit of a mystery, leading to many comments of this sort.

It’s almost certainly correct to note that husband’s are notoriously clueless about some things which tends to drive their wives to distraction, which leads to automatic guilt feelings on the part of husbands and so on. For example, consider this version of every husband’s nightmare from Dustin:

This thought brings to mind an extremely important principle which I believe that every husband should keep in mind on a constant basis.

As a case in point, I offer this from For Better or For Worse:

I guess that means that a smart man knows what to say when he is backed into an emotional corner. Of course, many of us either forget how to do that, or simply can’t think fast enough to avoid the trap. Here’s an example of a REALLY smart husband trying to avoid this trap from Dustin.

There are many, many folks who try to offer advice to the clueless (husbands in general), most of whom know that whatever they say won’t be remembered for more than a few minutes, but they DO keep trying, as shown in this from Non Sequitur.

Now, in defense of husbands, I will suggest that MANY of us probably DO improve with age and experience. It’s the beginners who are likely to have the most difficulty, as demonstrated by these pictures I found somewhere.

I will admit that one of the more traumatic experiences of most husbands (I suspect) IS becoming a FATHER for the first time. That DOES get a BIT easier with repetition (practice), but it’s still likely to be more than slightly disquieting. That MAY be a result of the fact that the trauma of childbirth continues (at least for the husband) for quite some time after the actual birth. For example, unless you have lived through this, NOBODY truly understands this warning from That a Baby.

Now, any husband, if he is smart, needs to be careful in developing his relationship with his wife regarding children. Wives DO have a tricky way of maintaining a certain degree of control in THAT part of the relationship. After all, while few men would admit it, without some sort of DNA test, they really CAN’T BE SURE that they actually FATHERED “their” children, witness the “joke(?)” below:

I suspect that any woman who would actually USE this against her husband might end up with a severely stressed relationship, but it remains true that, without testing, it IS hard to actually KNOW.

It IS true, however, that a fairly large number of folks do manage (somehow) to remain married for a good while. In Bonnie and my case, we’re pushing up close to 60 years shortly after Christmas. Exactly HOW we’ve accomplished that is something I would be hard pressed to explain, but I suspect that it has something to do with just taking it one day at a time, and having figured out that we really were “Besties” BEFORE we got married. I’m not sure that this from Pickles helps to explain how we’ve done it, but it might….

Of course, it’s unlikely that this actually explains EVERYTHING about how we’ve made things work for this long. I suspect, that in ours, as in every marriage, there’s a deal of what’s shown in this strip from For Better or For Worse in our relationship.

Actually, I strongly suspect that, in many cases (mine included), it MIGHT just be as simple as the case that the WIFE (in this next case, Opal Pickles) has it more correct than her husband, Earl, does. After all, as she frequently demonstrates, the wife often gets the last word, and usually the last laugh.

Well, I’ve probably said more than enough about family “situations” to get myself in more hot water than I set out to do. So, I should probably just quit before I do something REALLY stupid! I hope this holiday season brings happiness to everyone’s family, that all the “family” dinners are delicious (and happy) and the season is full of joy.

I expect to be back in a couple of weeks with some thoughts which, I anticipate, MAY focus more specifically on the occasion of Thanksgiving. But those ideas can wait. They are for that time, this is sufficient unto this one.

See you in a couple of weeks,

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B

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323 Thanksgiving 2025

​My suspicion is that the over-use of this spice blend may well be a plot, as suggested in this Pearls Before Swine strip.

​It’s even possible that the “pumpkin spice” forces MIGHT have gone beyond just infiltrating your family, and gotten to your friends(?) who will then make efforts to undermine your determination to survive their insidious influence, as this from Luann suggests.

322 Some Thoughts About Family

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My suspicion is that the over-use of this spice blend may well be a plot, as suggested in this Pearls Before Swine strip.

It’s even possible that the “pumpkin spice” forces MIGHT have gone beyond just infiltrating your family, and gotten to your friends(?) who will then make efforts to undermine your determination to survive their insidious influence, as this from Luann suggests.