Giving thanks for the letter "N," among other things

So I didn't make good on my promise to update with a new recipe last weekend. I'm terrible. But in the interest of wallowing in excuses, there are plenty of good ones.

For starters, Whole Foods didn't have the mushrooms I needed for the soup I planned to make from Poland. Then it occurred to me I was going out of town and wasn't going to be around to eat much of it anyway.

And then of course there were the holidays, those times of relaxation and joy that somehow suck so much energy from us. Why exactly is that? With the first of the spate looming in front of me - and since I shortened my weekend by agreeing to pick up a Sunday shift - I already felt drained just thinking of sitting for hours in an airport and decided Saturday would be best spent mentally bracing and physically detoxing for the upcoming indulgences ahead of me.

But aside from all of that, perhaps my best excuse of all is that the letter "n" on my keyboard is not working (I am at home now in Buffalo using my mom's computer).

Yes one morning I woke up and it was gone. Push the button, and nothing. I've been getting by until I have time to get it fixed copying and pasting the letter into e-mails and Facebook messages, but for some reason I can't paste things into this blog program.

Have you ever thought about how many times you use a simple letter in your daily communication?

I'm sure I'll be able to figure that one out. But for now, it's just there. Something to struggle with. Something to figure out, keeping me from doing things I enjoy. A nagging inconvenience.

Yesterday my 9-year-old cousin asked my mother why I just don't stay in Buffalo in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. She thought it seemed like a lot of trouble to have to fly back and forth in such a short time span, and didn't get why I can't just write my stories and e-mail them to my editors. Fair point, but when you're nine I guess it's hard to grasp only getting four weeks of vacation.

So how does all of this tie together? Perhaps it provides pause this Thanksgiving to reflect on all of the simple, little things in life we take for granted and that can be taken away from us in an instant.

The endless weeks of vacation we enjoyed as children thanks to an underachieving and heavily unionized American school system. The babkah kuchen they no longer sell at Wegman's. Judgment free zones. The carefree daily texts and phone calls from one of your best friends that just stop one morning. The relationships we have that change and morph as we do, whether or not we like it.

The letter "n" on the keyboard.

Yes of course there are the big things too, but day by day there are so many little things we rely on to get by. What happens when they disappear?

I guess things come and go over time and all we can do is try not to dwell on them. We can redirect our energy to the little things we still have that we rely on to make us happy before they're gone too and we miss them.

The new friends we have who bring us dinner and wine when we are having a bad week. A ticket home for the holidays. Hugs. Judgment free zones. Bourbon turkey and green bean casserole. Brunch with an old friend, one of your very favorites. Fitting into that dress you wore in high school.

A slice of pie, delivered by someone who might turn out to suck but at least for now is feeding your sweet tooth. A Thanksgiving buffet with free mimosas. The Whole Foods rosemary Christmas tree with little kitchen-themed Sur La Table ornaments.

And work out some of the other things. I'll figure that whole "n" situation when I get back next week, and get back on that mushroom soup from Poland.

In the meantime... Happy Thanksgiving!