Welcome back! Or are you still taking it slow? As you can see, I've given you something of a link dump today.

Personally, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It strikes me as fairly low pressure as long as you're not the one doing the cooking, and/or you have a small family and/or a family that all gets along. And I like the food. All good: Turkey (slightly overcooked, on the dry side), cranberry sauce (the canned jelly stuff is fine, though now that I'm older I do like it with the berries in), gravy optional. Mashed potatoes (not over-whipped, a little chunky is good), stuffing (nothing fancy, yes, Stove Top is perfect), candied yams (yes!), some green beans to round it out if necessary (or just chug a glass of V8), dinner rolls with lots of butter...and plenty of wine or other booze. Once finished it's official "don't bug me" time. Perfect.

I always wonder how those turkeys I see wandering through my backyard from time to time would taste compared to the Butterball I ate, but I'm not so curious I'm going to run outside and choke one to find out.

Oh, and the whole "being thankful" thing is cool, as is getting along with Indians (the Native American kind). I saw Fort Apache recently and there's no need to repeat that sort of thing. We need to commemorate better times.

Here, have some aurora, courtesy of APOD: