I got a preview of Friday today and it wasn't pretty...

and it made up my mind that I'm not going anywhere near any store on Friday that isn't a supermarket.

I went to the Westfield Century City Mall to see a movie.  Normally there is somewhere fairly close to the escalator is closest to the theater.  Not today.  There was nowhere even relatively close.  I had to park on the far side of the structure in the next to last row.  At first I thought the movie theater was crowded and I was worried I might not get a good seat for "Red Dawn".  But the theater was empty.  The mall however, was packed with shoppers.  Apparently prior to Black Friday is Green Wednesday when a lot of green goes into store cash registers. 

So I got a good seat for the film, and while it was disappointing as a film, seeing a movie is always a good thing.  Always a mood lifter.  Always a couple of hours of pleasure.  Afterward I came home and found my Thanksgiving meal waiting in my room.  It was very, very good. 

It's been a long, long time since there was a family Thanksgiving in my family.  A few years back my mother and step-father started spending their Thanksgiving volunteering to work on a serving line.  I lauded that decision as I hadn't been going to the family Thanksgivings in the years prior to that anyway.  This year my step-dad isn't up to the task and I doubt my mother will go, but either way there isn't any family gathering that I'm aware of.  I did note that my brother, sister and sister-in-law were running in the "Turkey Trot" race near where they live in Texas.

I'm thankful for a lot of things today.  Chiefly that I'm above ground.  I'm thankful I have FB to keep track of some of what goes on in the lives of my brother and sister, since we don't talk much.  It's as much my fault, maybe more so.  Perhaps there's tension I'm not aware of.  There's at least one person in my extended family who chose to refuse my "friend" request on FB and I haven't said anything about it until now.  But that was a bit disconcerting.

I am actually thankful that two people who I'd been friends with for a long time "unfriended" me on FB this year.  If they could misconstrue or misunderstand my words to that degree, clearly I didn't know them and they didn't know me as well as I thought.  One of my goals for my future is to focus on the relationships that are positive for me and the other person and let go of those that aren't positive for both of us.  To me, friendship is mostly about being there when needed, but there is more to it than that.  I am very thankful for those friends who are still a part of my life and I look forward to those friendships continuing in the future.

Today is not a day for fun with classifieds.  But it is definitely a day for This Date in History, because of one event in particular.  So important in our lives in fact, it will go first.

On this date in 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, TX.

Also on this date in history:

On this date in 1858, the city of Denver, CO was founded.
On this date in 1869, the Cutty Sark was launched, the only "clipper" ship that survives today.
On this date in 1928, Ravel's "Bolero" was performed for the first time.
On this date in 1935, the first "China Clipper", transpacific mail and passenger service took off.
On this date in 1942, a pivotal moment in the Battle of Stalingrad, as General Paulus sends a telegram to Adolf Hitler announcing that the German 6th Army has been surrounded.
On this date in 1954, the Humane Society was founded.
On this date in 1967, the UN Security Council passed resolution 242, establishing principles to guide the negotiations in an Arab-Israeli peace process.
On this date in 1969, Ohio State University was upset by the University of Michigan, 24-12 in Bo Schembechler's first season as coach, setting off the "war" between Schembechler and Woody Hayes.
On this date in 1975, Juan Carlos is declared King of Spain after Generalissimo Francisco Franco dies.  This provided fodder for "Saturday Night Live's" Weekend Update for years, when they would say "our top story tonight, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."
On this date in 1986, Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight boxing champion ever.
On this date in 1988, the first prototype of the B-2 "Stealth" bomber was unveiled.
On this date in 1995, "Toy Story" was released, the first ever animated film entirely computer generated.
And on this date in 2005, Angela Merkel became the first female Chancellor of Germany.