Speaking of Thanksgiving ......

[DFW]

40. And a happy Thanksgiving to all of you that can celebrate it (and want to). Here, it's just Thursday

I woke up in my hotel room in Brussels, went downstairs, got breakfast (at least greeted with "mangandang omagá po!" from the bellman, who knows me). I got in late last night from Paris, and two 30-ish, elegantly dressed German businessmen pushed ahead of me to be in front of me for the check in line, which was getting a little long. Germans are sometimes like that, and have their own word for it: "vordrängeln." I said nothing, and was rewarded when another hotel check-in worker came out and opened a new counter. She is Portuguese of pure African ancestry, and the two Germans probably didn't know if she had the same status to work the check-in counter. She knows me, of course, so I was invited to be the first in her line, and the two businessmen grumbled as they switched lines to stand behind me as the check-in employee and wait impatiently as she and I exchanged pleasantries in Portuguese, which they obviously didn't understand.

This morning, the two omelet chefs in the breakfast restaurant are two African guys I have known forever. One is Algerian and the other is from Cameroun. I talk with the Algerian in Italian, as he spent 15 years in Rome. He addresses me as "dottore (doctor)," which I am not. His colleague speaks to me in French. The hotel guests wonder who the f*** I am that the omelet chefs both come up and shake my hand. I want to shout, "I'm nobody, just a guy who knows the omelet chefs!" I stay quiet.

The guy at the checkout counter this morning was from Spain (I know him, too), and I was outta there in a flash. The weather sucked. It was damp-cold and raining, but there's not a taxi driver in Brussels that will take you if you tell them that where you're going is 400 meters from where you are. So, I dragged my stuff across the cobblestones to my first appointment. Got done there, dragged my gear back outside to the Metro, down the steps, and grabbed the first Metro to Gare du Midi, from which I got a commuter train out to my next appointment. I called ahead, as this station is out in the middle of nowhere. No taxi, no phone, no nothing. One of their guys came to get me, and in 10 minutes I was in the warm office, speaking Dutch with the Flemish-speakers, French with the Walloons, and took it easy until closing time. I still had nearly two hours to kill in Brussels South until my train left for Germany, so I got some couscous, set up the laptop, and nibbled for an hour and a half. I am now on the train from Brussels back to Köln, where I will switch for a train to Düsseldorf, where I will switch to a train back to the town I live in. My wife will pick me up, and I can finally get some rest.t
The guests for tomorrow, when we do our American-style Thanksgiving dinner, are starting to trickle in. One young woman flew in from Madrid. She will be our token American (we usally have none). A German woman her age, a former classmate of my NYC-based daughter, will train in from Berlin. She has lived in the USA and speaks perfect American English. My daughter, boyfriend, and baby daughter will come up from Frankfurt tomorrow, and our Dutch friend will drive over from his small town near Arnhem. The Austrians and Germans will assemble throughout the afternoon, with one major exception.

One friend who will be absent for the first time in many years is a doctor we have known for over 40 years. He donated several weeks of his time every year in Africa with Doctors Without Borders. He was in the hospital for an angiogram when he suffered two strokes. At first, he was a vegetable. He then regained the ability to speak, if not well enough to be a TV news anchor. But he has regained almost no motor control, and he can't even feed himself. He is in a rehab clinic and is miserable. As a doctor, he knows full well that after such strokes, it is 50-50 if he will recover enough motor skills to again live without assistance again or not. He has spurned all offers of a visit, and is not in good spirits. We will think of him, but we can't help.

So, voilà, a Thanksgiving report from another perspective. I hope all have a holiday that is to their satisfaction, if not entirely to their liking. A fictional character I liked once said you can either try to raise what you have to meet your desires, or you can lower your desires to meet what you already have. I say, good on ya if you manage the one or the other.