Thankful

Posted by Jen Biasi November 11, 2011

Thankful

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind, he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him ~ Buddha

Thanks, Buddha. I'm on it. It's been a rough week, and I can't help but think of those poor boys when I close my eyes. I dream of life before I knew of the name Sandusky. My lips turn up at the sides with fond memories of Penn State, and of JoePa, before my mind instructs the smile to cease all activity. But, to be in any way a productive and positive mom to my children, wife to Ang, friend, daughter, sister, cousin, co-worker... I've got to move on. Thanks to Lila and AJ's pleas to dance and tell jokes, I'm forcing myself to stop my Google news searches for "Mike McQueary fired" (hopeful) and "Penn State scandal just a hoax" (delusional). I'm putting down my computer, turning off the news, and I plan to dance. And to laugh.

I've been blessed with a 4-year-old sense of humor. Thank God for that, because I am barraged by AJ's jokes every day, throughout the day. And they all have pretty much the same theme:

Knock-knock
Who's there?
Green.
Green who?
Green poo-poo pants on your head!!

Why did the kitty cross the road?
Why?
Because he had green poo-poo pants on his head!!

Gets me every single time. Seriously. To use comedian-speak, AJ kills with these jokes, albeit directed toward an audience made up solely of one: Me. I might have issues.

So, as per Buddha's instruction to control my mind, I'm focusing on the things I'm thankful for. I'm giving myself a limit of a dozen items. Here goes (ahem)...

I am thankful for:

Penn State lovin'. The overwhelming outpouring of love and support from Penn Staters for each other during this mess (including support from some students and alumni hailing from PSU "rivals") is uplifting. Good stuff. Oh, and Penn Staters getting together to donate to RAINN is pretty damn wonderful, too...
"Bored to Death" on HBO. (This scene always makes me smile.)
Ang's sandwiches. My husband seriously makes the best sandwiches this side of the Mississippi.
Marcel the Shell. Ang just informed me of the new book that's already hit stores and I'm on it. Picking up a copy tonight for me, I mean for the kids.
Wine. Enough said.
Downtown Brown nail polish by Essie. I have endured a lifelong love-hate relationship with my feet. An ex-boyfriend once told me over 20 years ago, "You're not a happy person until you love your feet." Oddly, I took him quite seriously, and have been checking myself over the years, asking Me: "Do I love my feet?" "Do I now love my feet?" The day I met Ang and the birth of my babies have made me completely embrace my feet. I do love them now. And Downtown Brown acts as a group hug.
This pretty little song. Fitting that it was discovered by a beautiful friend of mine...
Music, in general. I'm on a mission to expose the monkeys to as much different music as possible and have just scratched the surface of the myriad musical genres. I'm not a huge fan of The Beatles, but bought a best-of-The-Beatles CD last month and the three of us jam out to it on our car rides to school. The kids' tastes vary, with AJ lovin' him some Jack Johnson, and Lila belting out Katy Perry's "I want to see your peacock-cock-cock, your peacock-cock!" Loud. In Target. But there's one group they can agree on, and it's the Black Eyed Peas. We have regular BEP dance parties in the living room which kick. ass. And I gotta feeling they're going to continue for months, even years to come. These monkeys love to cut a rug.
Florida weather, of late. It's 65 degrees, sunny, with no humidity. I can proudly wear a sweater and scarf today without a visor-clad octogenarian in his Tommy Bahama cocktails-in-paradise shirt shaking his head and likely muttering "moron" as I walk by, which is usually the case.
The movies. One of my great loves in life is going to the movies. I love everything about it, from the popcorn, to the darkened theatre, to the previews, and then getting lost in someone else's story. When I was single, I went at least twice a month, my friends and I losing ourselves in dramas and thrillers, following it all up with Amstels and Coronas. These days, it's more like dolphin tales and matinees followed up by ice cream and car naps, but it's all still good.