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A pleasant, mostly sunny day set for Thanksgiving

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Brian Setzer Orchestra swings into Wilkes-Barre with Christmas Rocks! Tour

<p>Here we go again: time to pretend to be thankful for stuff. This year, I thought I&#8217;d try a different tact and take it seriously. I can&#8217;t swear it worked throughout the column, but in the words of my 18-year-old son when I questioned his less-than-stellar grade in Ceramics class: I tried my best.</p><p>I&#8217;m so thankful, every day, that I have a job that&#8217;s more fun than the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese&#8217;s, and a hell of a lot more sanitary. I awaken daily, excited to arrive at Playtime, masquerading as work. It took 30 years for me to find this job. Patience, apparently, is a virtue. And sometimes it pays off. Sometimes it doesn&#8217;t - like in the event of watching eggs boil or waiting for the blue line to appear on a pregnancy test.</p><p>This job has resulted in a crop of the best friends I&#8217;ll have forever and ever. When you laugh until your tri-belly hurts and your knees buckle, you&#8217;ve either had one too many ginger ale and vodkas, or you are at Maria&#8217;s place of employment. Really, all we need is a sandbox and a game of Twister. I trust my work peeps with my life. But not my &#8220;People&#8221; or &#8220;Us Weekly&#8221; magazines.</p><p>I&#8217;m so grateful I have a father, who&#8217;s never in his life seen a glass as half empty, unless it&#8217;s a Manhattan. His long-standing positive energy has always counteracted my own negative nuggets that I fling around me like cow manure. His life has been turned upside down and inside out and yet he stays in the light of optimism, while I want to curl up in the dark and cry. I love my father.</p><p>I&#8217;m thankful for melatonin. And Benadryl.</p><p>I&#8217;m thankful for CVS, where I can basically grocery, prescription and sleazy magazine shop - all under one roof. I think they should begin selling alcoholic products. Then it would truly be Nirvana for Seniors.</p><p>I&#8217;m thankful for Darlene, my Pilates instructor, for not making me feel like an uncoordinated baby hippopotamus among a class of gazelles. She doesn&#8217;t realize how much she has made my life better. As well as my pelvic floor.</p><p>As much as I gripe about the offspring, I&#8217;m forever thankful they sprouted from my loins.</p><p>I&#8217;m thankful for: The most beloved and level-headed daughter ever to grace this world. She&#8217;s everything I&#8217;m not: refined, honest and rational.</p><p>For my middle child, whom I cannot refer to as Betty White any longer because he finally cut that stupid hair. I&#8217;m so blessed to have this easygoing, charismatic, compassionate human being in my life. He&#8217;s everything I&#8217;m not: kind and forgiving with the ability to effortlessly use a fake ID with a smile on his face, a song in his heart and a beer in his hand. (Relax, he&#8217;s now 21).</p><p>For my youngest, who was so premature we feared he would not stay in our world for long. He not only stayed, but flourished. He&#8217;s calm, respectful, smart and loving. He&#8217;s everything I am not: fearless, athletic and sweet.</p><p>I&#8217;m grateful that every time I call my husband Nancy, either in print or Dolby Surround Sound, he laughs and never wants to punch me in the throat. So far. And he still sort of has a crush on me. I hope he asks me to the prom!</p><p>I should say something about being thankful every day I am alive and breathing, and not just on this day of technical thanks. But, let&#8217;s be honest, it&#8217;s exhausting. So I&#8217;ll end with one more declaration of gratitude: I&#8217;m so thankful for my readers who take the time every Thursday to peruse my drivel and not use this page to line your parakeet&#8217;s cage. You are everything I&#8217;m not: loyal, dedicated and nonjudgmental.</p><p>Thank you.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Maria Jiunta Heck</p><p>Life Deconstructed</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Maria Jiunta Heck of West Pittston is a mother of three, a librarian and a business owner who lives to dissect the minutiae of life.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Thanks to everyone who is everything I am not