Things for whch I'm thankful

If you, like us at Casa la Brilliant, are avid Dexter fans, last week's episode was enough to make us never want to do a "What I'm Thankful For" post ever again.

For the uninitiated, the show is about a Miami blood-spatter analyst and sociopathic serial killer (played to harrowing and complex perfection by the great Michael C. Hall) who has been able to play-act at being normal and has eluded capture by adhering to a "code" that requires him to only kill those who have committed heinous crimes and gotten away with it.

Last week the show brought us fifty minutes of some of the most uncomfortable television I have ever watched, highlighted by this scene of Thanksgiving dinner with this season's Dexter nemesis, "the Trinity killer" (an absolutely perfectly creepy John Lithgow), so called because he kills in threes. "Trinity" is, like Dexter, hiding behind a normal family life, but unlike Dexter so far, he's starting to crack, as we see here, in the most deliciously twisted Thanksgiving dinner scene ever shown on television:

So. Now that we've gotten THAT out of the way...

I'm thankful for Mr. Brilliant and that we still get along after 26 years together.

I'm thankful for my job. (And yes, I know, that's what they WANT us to think.)

I'm thankful for my friends both virtual and in meat world.

I'm thankful for the contracting company that is finishing up redoing the basement and whose workers actually show up, do quality work, and clean up afterwards.

I'm thankful for my health.

I'm thankful to be able to donate to help others this season.

I'm thankful to have enough gray matter in my brain to be able to distinguish between facts and utter horseshit.

I'm thankful for my far-flung family, which even at its most dysfunctional, was never anywhere near as bad as what you just watched above. Because garden-variety dysfunction can be overcome with sufficient good will, understanding, and communication.

I'm thankful for Bertram Nussbaum, my 8th grade English teacher back in 1968, who taught me never to send a sentence with a preposition, hence the configuration of the title of this post. He also taught me that "have to" has no place in formal writing, and neither does "get", unless it's referring to a Jewish divorce.

And I'm thankful for YOU, who for some reason decided somewhere along the line that what I have to say is worth reading.