We have a winner!!

A Gold Kudo, for Mike. Yes indeed it was ABBA!
It's Thanksgiving afternoon and I'm sitting here writing to all of you, my wife is on her computer in the next room trying to figure out the Web cam I just installed for her. (Damned if I know how it works!)
Thanks to Rebeka for your really sincere and honest note, can't wait for you guys to get back, even if it's only for a visit. (P.S. I bought Barb the web cam last Christmas and being the KING of procrastinators on some things, forgot all about installing it until I read your e-mail, soooo, I installed it and she can figure out how to make it work. Drop her a line if you know how, or tell me and I'll try and look like the hero!)

Usually my Wife cooks a HUGE meal, we have friends over, I get yellow cards and always an eventual red card as I insure all the beer and wine is adequately "tested" so as not to risk any of our guests being "poisoned". But this year we decided to just go out to dinner for the holiday. (For my Aussie friends Thanksgiving is a celebration of the bounties of our lives based around an old tradition that when the "pilgrims" (oppressed religious types not welcomed any longer in England around 1620 a.d.) set sail and landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA aboard a DAMN small little boat called the "Mayflower". One story goes that they lived in peace and harmony with the Native American Indians of the area, another goes that they not only brought new customs and other "stuff", but smallpox, which decimated the Indians. But anyhow they supposedly sat down together and ate together, and thus was born Thanksgiving. (That is the deeply abridged version)
Anyhow, we crazy Americans eat lots of Turkey, 'taters, cranberry sauce, turnips, squash, desserts, and mandatory "snacks" and liquid replenishments. Then we all collapse and watch a couple football games on TV, fall asleep about 8pm, and look forward to three more days off if you are lucky.
If you are in retail,...well another whole ball of wax. Not only do you have to go to work for the next three days, including Sunday, but it is the closest thing to a human feeding frenzy at 5a.m. and earlier as these stupid people all descend on the retail stores for what is knownas "Black Friday". Retailers have always made a big deal of it as it signals the Christmas buying season and they all want all your money TOMORROW! They open at 3, 4, 5 a.m., they offer insane "early bird" deals (80% off for the first 300 people, three for one pricing, etc.) All manner of civility disappears, people push, yell, run, swear at each other, drag kids around like rag dolls for fifteen hours,....all in pursuit of "the deal" for Christmas shopping. Most retailers, being so "employee sensitive" (excuse me I just choked!!) won't even let thier people off for lunch, they have "junk food" brought in to keep them working! Thank God I got out of that rat race last year!!
Yes my pretty, this year I am off thursday, friday, saturday and sunday. And I'm not doing SHIT!! (probably not true as I will get bored as hell by Friday afternoon, I guarantee!)
Well it's getting close to dinner time and I'm getting hungry, time to get appetite going with a little glass of Merlot or Shiraz, you know ...prime the pump.
Happy day to all, I think I'll do a few more blogs before the Weekend is over. (Just realized this is number 92! Coming up on 100 blog articles in a week or two, and the thought police have not showed up yet!!
-30-