And the thankfulness continues ...

I'm playing along on this meme for Max, whose wise and witty spirit seemed to have vanished from blogland for a while, but who is back and has tagged me. Also, because as I have said before, gratitude is a wonderful spiritual discipline and one can never be too thankful. Really. So here goes.

Write down five things that you're thankful for.

Tag five friends who you'd like to see participate in this meme. (Optional) Include a link to the original at SmuloSpace in your post, and then visit the post yourself and place a link to your completed meme in the comments section so John can keep track of the thankfulness running around the blogosphere.

1. My son. It is impossible to imagine my life had he not been born. That I get to be his mother every day for the rest of my life is an amazing and wondrous thing. May I have enough wisdom to not screw him up too badly.

2. Tea, coffee, wine and whiskey shared with friends. Each of these things is gift enough on its own, but when consumed in the company of someone interesting and thoughtful and funny and kind, the value increases exponentially. I am thankful that this has happened repeatedly in my life over the last three weeks, with several people. An embarrassment of riches, really.

3. DVDs, popped in at just the needed moment, to get all those fussy children away from the dinner table and properly sedated.

4. Music. The sound of the soul.

5. Almost winning the trivia game at the local pub last night. I never win things like raffles, door prizes, slots. Never. Now, I do win at many board games, because I am one competitive b*t#h, but never at Trivial Pursuit. Never. So imagine the thrill, if you can, of ending round two of the weekly trivia game tied for first place. The last question is final jeopardy style, where you have to decide on a wager. If our team had wagered more we would have won the big kahuna. I wanted to wager more, but got talked out of it by team members. Had we wagered my amount, we would have walked away CHAMPIONS, because we answered correctly. But I'm not blaming my teammates, because they were troopers and, as it was, we walked away with second prize, which was, I kid you not, a thrill. We would not have ended where we did had I not challenged the game leader on one of his responses. Here was the trivia question: What denomination uses the Book of Common Prayer? In the comments, tell me what you think I said and what you think he said was the correct answer. For a bonus challenge, here was the final jeopardy question: Put the following cities in order of distance from NYC, as the crow flies: Moscow, Madrid, Honolulu, Los Angeles. (No peeking at a globe or map or using any electronic cheater toys.)

I have bad luck getting my blog friends to play along on these things, but if you feel like being thankful, in the comments or on your own blog, please join in.