 Good morning, Hickets Tuesday. It's Thanksgiving week here in the United States, so today I thought I would share with you a story of gratitude. So several months ago, Sarah got me tickets to see the musical Hamilton in New York City, and I should say that Sarah and I are both huge fans of Hamilton. Like, we've listened to the cast recording hundreds of times, and now we were gonna have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the show with the original cast, and we were gonna go to some art galleries and visit all our favorite places from back when we were first married and lived in New York. So we got to the airport a little early, and hooray, our flight was on time, so we settled into an airport bar for some snacks, and we were debating whether I should direct message Lin-Manuel Miranda, who'd not to brag, follows me on Twitter, and generally just feeling sort of giddy, and then I took a bite of my sandwich and more or less immediately knew that we were not going to see Hamilton after all. A bit of relevant background, I have this weird disease called eosinophilic esophagitis. Basically, I have this mildish inflammation of myosophagus, which usually is not a problem, but then very occasionally food will get stuck part of the way down myosophagus, and that's a real bummer because when it happens, I can't even successfully swallow my own spit, so I just sort of throw up every two or three minutes for several hours until a doctor sticks a tube down my throat and clears the blockage. So, okay, I can't even peel away all the layers of luck and privilege that led to this moment of misfortune in the Indianapolis airport. The ability to afford a Broadway show in a trip to New York City, the joy of a spouse who loves you enough to get you Hamilton tickets, access to excellent medical care so your esophageal blockage is an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe, the list goes on and on. But still, I was pretty bummed out when we had to leave the airport and go to the hospital. Now, of course, it wasn't hard to find a happy home for our Hamilton tickets, and the airline, Thank You Delta, was amazingly cool about refunding our tickets, but yeah, I was still in a pretty foul mood, partly because I was vomiting every two minutes, and partly because I don't love being reminded that what I think of as myself is in fact wholly dependent upon an unreliable and unpredictable machine called my body. Okay, so after several hours at the hospital, a woman named Carmen came by to transport my hospital bed and me to the endoscopy room. Along the way, she asked if I had kids and I said, yeah, and she said, it's nice that your wife can stay with you as you go through this. And I was like, well, we're supposed to be on vacation together. And then she said, maybe after you guys get home tonight, you can watch a movie together. And I was like, maybe. And then she said, so you're married and you have kids, do you like your job? And I said, yeah. And then she says, well, you've got the basics covered. And then I was in the OR and then I was unconscious and then I could swallow again. And I woke up thinking, well, I've got the basics covered. That night, Sarah and I went home and watched a movie. It was a pretty good movie actually. Since then, I've thought about that day and Carmen many times. I love my friends and family and I am loved by them. I've got the basics covered. Okay, so flash forward six months to last week. We've just started filming our new health and fitness show, 100 Days. Starting January 1st, you can watch my best friend, Chris, and I try to have a healthy midwife crisis over at youtube.com. Anyway, as part of the show, we have to exercise six days a week, often at very odd hours because of our work schedule. So last Wednesday, I had to wake up at 5, 10 in the morning to go to a spin class. And I was not psyched about it, so I walk into this spin class and there's Carmen. And she says, hey, John, remember me? And I say, yeah. And she says, I'm your spin instructor. This is what I do before work. And of course, it turned out to be an excellent spin class. So this Thanksgiving, I am grateful to Carmen. When you are kind to strangers, you never know what it's going to mean to them. But sometimes it means a great deal. So thank you, Carmen. Happy Thanksgiving. And the screen. Here you'll find some old Thanksgiving's Eve Vlogbrothers videos, as well as a self-care bunny from Rosiana, who is here to remind you that Carmen thinks you're awesome, and she knows from awesome.