February 14, 2021: Thank-You Valentines -

Way back on Thanksgiving, 2016, only a few weeks after that depressing election, I was afraid our annual big dinner would turn into a political gloom-fest. I wasn't afraid of our guests locking horns, because our table was going to be entirely peopled with like-minded folks; I was just afraid we'd all sink into despair and ranting. 

I didn't want to spend the afternoon in my own back yard, avoiding all my friends and relations, nor did I want to spend it weeping with them about what the next four years might bring. We only host one party a year, and I wanted to enjoy it.

So I decided I needed some sort of Plan B, if things went dark. I bought some nice Thank You cards, and I addressed them to various public figures who had done good things, behaved honorably, or fought the good fight, folks like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And I put stamps on all of them, and I put them in a bag, and I put in a couple dozen pens, and I decided if people started ranting, I was going to leap up and say NO, not today, not at my Thanksgiving, PICK A CARD and send one of these people a thank-you (or go out in the back yard, if you must). I'm not usually a bossy hostess. I don't make everybody say what they are thankful for. But I know my pals, and when some of them get started, they can depress anybody. 

In the event, nobody brought the party down, and I ended up with a bag full of already-addressed-and-stamped thank-you cards. So I wrote them and mailed them, a few at a time, and it cheered me up.

In the years since, when something big goes down, I try to think of those who fought the good fight, or did something brave or honorable, and to send them a note. I figure they get plenty of No-Thanks notes. 

I just wrote to some of the folks who spoke or voted as I would have hoped they would in the Second Impeachment Trial. I tried to make the notes into Valentines, but my printer was going all streaky on colors, so the recipients will get just plain old notes. Or, undoubtedly, their staffers will get them. But that's okay. I just like mailing them.