Thursday, November 28, 2013

A Thanksgiving Tale of Wall Street Interference

My oldest nephew was married in May of this year. He is married to a very nice young lady. The couple decided they wanted to have all the family to their new home for Thanksgiving. So, they planned a menu and purchased all that was necessary.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving my youngest nephew received a work schedule that included Thanksgiving. He isn't married and has two men roommates that share a house. They have shared that house since college. Now that they have finished college they are waiting for life to happen and in the mean time they take employment where they can find it.

With the younger nephew, the brother of the older one, unable to attend Thanksgiving dinner which would be two hours from his home, the family decided to move the dinner invitation to where everyone could attend. So, the newly married bride called her mother and explained the circumstances. So, her mother said, "Well, bring everything here and we'll all have dinner together."

So, the night before Thanksgiving my nephew and his wife pack all their preparations in the car and drive two hours to her mother's home to stay overnight and start cooking in the morning. 

Now, usually Thanksgiving Dinner happens about 2:00 PM, but, because one family member wouldn't be there until 5:00 PM because of work, dinner was moved to 6:00 PM. 

The turkey is in the oven and all the preparations are underway when the phone rings at 2:00 PM. It is my youngest nephew. He stated he would not be there for dinner because someone had called out and his supervisor told him he would have to stay. 

With that reality, the dinner went on at 6:00 PM without my youngest nephew. He didn't just miss dinner. He miss THE ENTIRE DAY. His work ruined the time he would have spent with family. Instead, he was obligated to work without any compensation other than his regular pay. 

Now, if this is the New USA; this society has lost it's rudder and is in moral decline.
I don't know about anyone else's Thanksgiving, but, the conversation today was not about politics. It was however about how people had to work today and how it is breaking up family time.

I refuse to shop at any store that was open on Thanksgiving Day.

The Monarch Butterfly is divided by the Rocky Mountains; Eastern and Western.

The Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count is a yearly effort of volunteer citizen monitors to collect data on the status of monarch populations overwintering along the California coast. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of a cadre of volunteers, we have over a decade of data demonstrating that monarchs have undergone a dramatic decline in the western U.S. This effort is coordinated by Dennis Frey, Shawna Stevens and Mia Monroe.
Would you like to participate in the Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count? We are looking for volunteers in California who can commit to visiting the same overwintering sites year after year. If this interests you, please contact Candace Fallon for more information.
We encourage Thanksgiving Count monitors to also fill out a brief, one-page habitat assessment so that we can understand more about what monarchs need and begin to track changes that occur at overwintering sites. Please consider using this form in addition to your count data sheet so that we can collect this invaluable information!
Habitat Assessment
Please remember that we are most interested in counts of monarch groves conducted during the week around Thanksgiving and the week around New Years day. You can download survey instructions and data sheets below.