Giving Thanks

Top 3.5 Things I am Thankful For

1. A roof over my head
2. Having Reggie as a friend
3. School vacations
3.5 Nice hair

At dinner on Thursday, Reggie’s mom asked us to all name one thing we were thankful for before we said grace. Reggie said her family. Billy said his Xbox. Lucie said plenty of delicious food. And I sort of mumbled, good friends or something stupid like that.

This was a hard category for me. Not because I don’t have things to be grateful for but because mine are not the traditional home/hearth/family type things. I suppose if Lucie and I were closer or if we were just sisters and not the only family we’ve ever had to rely on (that’s a lot of pressure, believe me), I might be able to say “a nice house,” or “a family who loves me,” or some nonsense like that. Instead, I have things more like this to appreciate:

A roof over my head…this I am sincerely grateful for. There have been times in our lives, dark times, when Lucie and I have been very close to not having a place to live. We have made it from one cheapo apartment to another by the skin of our teeth, just a couple hours from sleeping in our car. I can remember Lucie near tears when we were trying to get into a single in Lancaster and the landlord was out of town for the weekend and couldn’t formally approve our lease. She pleaded with the building manager to make an exception for us. We had money for the rent but not to spend on two nights in a hotel. She told her we wouldn’t move in officially, we’d just throw down pillows and blankets - just until the landlord got back and the lease could be final. The woman relented after she saw me (I was about 6 at the time) and we had a camp-out for a couple of days. We ate out of paper cartons and sat on the floor and told stories until we fell asleep. It was a lot of fun, actually. When the landlord came back on Monday morning, he told us Lucie didn’t have enough income to qualify for the apartment so we had to leave but the building manager felt sorry for us and gave us the name of another building we could go where we did get a place. So it all worked out in the end.

Having Reggie as a friend…I have never had many of these. Friends are hard to keep when you move all the time. Reggie has been a godsend, someone who immediately accepted me as a friend when I met her after school one day when I was thinking, foolishly, that I might try out for the basketball team. I was pretty tall, I thought, and figured basketball could be fun. I could meet people and learn some team skills, blah, blah, blah. Reggie, who actually IS tall, helped me with my lay-up but I could never get the timing right. I was cut the very first day. And rightfully so. I sucked. I have absolutely no sports skills at all. But I got to meet Reggie who became my friend so that worked out, too.

School vacations…what can I say? Some schools in other countries, like Japan, have school all year round. Here we have a whole 3 months in the summer and 2 weeks at Christmas and another week in Spring and lots of holidays in between. Not that Lucie and I go anywhere but it’s good to not have to go to school for a little while.

And honorable mention goes to my hair. I think I have pretty nice hair. It’s blonde and has strawberry highlights and it’s naturally straight., like Lucie’s, so I don’t have to use a flat iron or anything. I like to keep it long, past my shoulders, and all one length, no layers, no bangs. I had bangs when I was a kid and I hated it. They kept getting in my eyes and I had to use bobby pins or barrettes to clip them out of my face. Lucie has great hair too: a really pretty light red. People would kill to have her hair. It’s shiny and smooth and longer than mine and it looks good in a ponytail or in a braid or whatever.

We have nice hair, I have to say. Shanley hair.