Maybe it’s the election, but I’m tired of whining and negativity about how bad everything is. Most of us are tremendously fortunate. There’s much that’s wrong in our world, and trying to make things better is the American way. But so is pausing to appreciate how good we have it. As Thanksgiving draws near, here are a few things I’m thankful for, large and small.
• The health of my children
• Watching Otis read the “Ivy and Bean” series, and then recording each 100-plus-page book on his kindergarten reading log
• Rosey singing Beatles songs she’s learning from “Beat Bugs,” an animated TV show about talking bugs
• Mabel toddling around, holding a little doll, while singing and bobbing her head to the song “Baby, baby” from Yo Gabba Gabba
• Sundays, watching football with my son. Go Broncos!
• Farmers markets, Whole Foods and Mother’s Market
• That most of our children don’t go to bed hungry, and for those too many who do, organizations like Second Harvest Food Bank, Chef Bill Bracken’s Kitchen and Chef Bruno Serato’s Caterina’s Club offer help
• Water. Too many people on earth lack access to clean water. Despite the drought, we don’t
• While we’re at it, flush toilets and showers. It’s the little things that, if taken away, we’d miss miserably
• Print, all of it. Newspapers, magazines, books and maybe even political season mailers
• The hours between 8 and 10 p.m., when everyone is asleep (including me), and the house is quiet
• The odd bedtime rituals we’ve developed, including a growing “Good night, dada and mama” recitation that must be repeated exactly, and which currently has 14 stanzas
• Hug … kiss … hug and kiss. In that order, every time I say goodbye
• Vaccines
• Freedom, including the freedom to fight to right wrongs
• First responders, the vast majority of whom take the job to protect and serve
• Empathy
• “Between the World and Me,” for helping this old dad learn and try to understand how it is for too many fathers and sons
• Carrying a kid on my shoulders after a long morning at Disneyland
• FastPasses
• Waze. I resisted GPS directional apps, and I still trust my dead reckoning and map-reading skills. But nothing beats the alternate routes around traffic that Waze suggests.
• Maps and cool cartographic books and websites
• Stick shifts
• “How much you work, how much you’re silly, and you play princesses with me,” is what Rosey says she’s thankful for. “And I just love you so much.”
• “Video games, and how much you play Mario with me,” Otis says. “And I like having running races with you.”
• “Mr. Robot,” “Stranger Things” and other binge-worthy shows we can still stream after unplugging from the tyranny of cable and satellite TV
• Knowing that the word “tyranny” doesn’t really apply to anything we complain about in our fortunate lives
• My wife’s talent as a photographer, emerging and evolving and making me so proud (elainafrancisphoto.com)
• Watching a Latina mom and her young daughter beaming with pride at the Disney Store while the girl tries on Elena of Avalor dresses. Finally, a princess that looks like her
• Learning from a store cast member that the dresses are wildly popular with Middle Eastern and other girls of color, too
• Open space
• Orange County Great Park. I just took a tour of the next Sports Park phase, and it’s going to be, well, great.
• Treating South Coast Plaza, Segerstrom Center for the Arts and Noguchi’s California Scenario as a cosmopolitan center of culture, learning and play for our kids
• Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com analytical prediction website, where I go to find calm in the stress of this electoral season. And he gives the Broncos a good chance to repeat as NFL champions.
• Fighting back against schoolyard bullies, whatever their age
• Voting, and having a say in who will lead our community and country
• O.C.’s coast and coves
• Working hard and coming home to excited kids and their happy, if exhausted, mom
• My family
