Thanksgiving, which marks a fictitious moment in American history but nonetheless provides an excuse for family get-togethers, came and went. Greg and Kat joined us for dinner, although their train was a little late due to the train ahead of theirs hitting a car. This ended up turning the waiting area at the local station into what is crudely known as a clusterfuck. Still, we emerged victorious and a nice dinner followed.
Yesterday was the anti-holiday known as Black Friday, during which hordes of consumers battle amongst themselves in the aisles of big box stores over crap that nobody really needs. See the damage here. A commenter pointed out on Facebook that a thorough documentation of day to day shopping incidents might put this into perspective, so more study might be needed. Maybe this sick trend isn't as confined to Black Friday as one might think. I usually don't buy anything on Black Friday, just out of sheer disgust at the depraved antics of my fellow citizens, but I ended up going to the local Harvest Festival with Jeanine (which, counter-intuitively, is held inside a convention center) and bought a few things from the booths of independent artists and crafts-people, including yummy peanut brittle from one of Jeanine's friends, some soy-based candles, and a Woodrow Old Time. If I'm going to buy things, it's going to be from small businesses and individuals, not from big corporations that whip consumers into violent frenzies over piles of poorly-made crap. It has also been pointed out that this kind of insanity is just a reaction to being stuck in an insane society, and my gut (as well as my sociological training) tells me that there is more than a grain of truth to this observation.
Speaking of this, Willow is done with soccer for the season now. Her team played well, winning some and losing some. During the final tournament, they played especially well. Sometime during the season, I overheard one of the other parents mentioning that he paid his daughter for each goal she made. I think she got $20.00 for each goal, or something like that. In my opinion, this is almost like training your child to become one of those frenzied idiots battling it out in parking lots and big box aisles across the country during the holiday season. It's like saying that, no matter what else you're doing, money and winning are the two most important things in life. I hope these little girls don't grow up to die in a Black Friday fight because they're determined to win in a battle over a parking space or or come out on top during a tense confrontation over a deeply discounted Blu-Ray player. Parenting fail. If enough parents fail, then we're heading for full-blown society failure. From the looks of things, we may be there already.
But enough about our sick society. Here are a few photos of Autumn, which is perhaps my favorite season:
Partially enabled by the fact that I've had the week off work, Jeanine and I have been walking a lot over the past week. We've found seventeen letterboxes in a couple of different parks. It's good to get out.
Finally, we've had one rain storm so far this season (not counting the one back in September during our camping trip), and as always, it brought out the salamanders:
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