A moment's grace

Have been thinking of thankfulness in the last couple of weeks as a friend has been posting daily gratitudes onto Facebook, and it occurred to me that I've had a lot to be grateful for lately:

• A long walk with an old friend who'd briefly dropped in to Ottawa and had about a bazillion other people to see.
  
  
• Lunch (twice!) with another old friend.
  
  
• An awesome outdoor party with dozens of people invited where the weather threatened to spoil everything - and then didn't.
  
  
• An awesome indoor party with four adults and eight kids and four cats, one of which was a kitten. The kitten (Apollo) was a huge hit - and a huge scratch, and bite, and claw. Memo to myself: kittens are painful when excited.
  
  
• Taken out for a lovely lunch by my boss and coworkers, as my articles are nearly done. I'm going to miss them.
  
  
• Lovely time spent chatting with two couples in the lineup to pay our respects to Jack Layton. One couple Anglo-Quebecois, the other retired from Edmonton, husband originally from Montana, never learned their names, had little in common with them. Lovely people to meet anyway.
  
  
• Lots of food for thought regarding Jack Layton. Among the goodies, two things I'm grateful for:
  
  
  1. I live in a country where a man who fought for working people and social justice will be missed, and will be honoured with a State funeral despite not being a head of State.
     
     
  2. I live in a country where a man who died at age 61 has been repeatedly called "too young to die."
  
  
  
• Apparently, Cyclists, walkers are happiest commuters, survey finds.
  
  
• Beautiful plaque to hang in my office wherever I get one. I even brought my car today, first time all summer, because it looked like it was going to rain, so I don't have to worry about balancing it on my bike ;D :D