Truth be told, at any given moment I’m a festering mass of gripes and discontent. I nurse grudges, I take offense easily, I wish life were better than it is.

Hard to believe, I know. You thought I was Father Teresa.

During one particularly dispiriting moment last week, I came close to condemning the entire human race to global broiling.

Then I caught myself. What a misanthrope you are, I said. On the eve of Thanksgiving no less.

I willed myself to come up with stuff to be thankful about. I really put my mind to it.

At first I came up with clichés. At least I’m alive, I said. And everyone I currently know is alive. And I have two cats who don’t demand much of me.

Immediately I felt better. And so I continued.

Not only am I alive but I’m not sick ... not knowingly, anyway. And I can jog and I’ll be running Turkey Trot with my daughter this weekend and man, it doesn’t get any better than that.

The prospect of running this race had me tingling all over. Closing my eyes, I could feel myself gliding through the streets of Davis in sync with a pack of fellow humans.

Love it, love it, love it.

And speaking of love, didn’t I have it in abundance from my spouse? Not to be taken for granted, this. Using my brain’s amazing ability to reprioritize, I bumped this love to the top of my list, right up there with being alive.

And what about my house? I have one. The roof repels rain. No foreclosure notices have arrived in the mail.

Love you, house. You’re a great house. You’re so much better than the no-house alternative. I promise to maintain you better.

I was on a roll. Loving my house led to loving my car to loving my  mechanic to loving my dentist (if only I didn’t have so many dental issues upon which to forge this great dentist-patient relationship).

That’s when I caught myself. “Love” is too slurpy a word. I decided to ratchet down my verbal mushiness. I went back to “thankful.”

I am thankful for autumn leaves and pumpkin bread and cranberry muffins, particularly the low-fat, high-fiber varieties that have become my new norm.

And because I have been following a reformed diet these past several months, I am thankful that my bad cholesterol has plummeted to close to normal. Just in time for the holidays when nearly everything good to eat is suspect.

I am thankful too for having a great editor, an entertaining bunch of co-workers and readers — even cantankerous ones — without whom this whole enterprise would be for naught.

And then there is my younger brother Joe in Indiana. Joe who was diagnosed last spring with multiple myeloma, a life-threatening bone cancer.

A half year later, Joe is hanging in there. Maybe more than hanging in there. He just finished a grueling three-week treatment at a hospital in Indianapolis where they extracted stem cells from his blood, flooded his body with cancer-killing chemicals, then restored the stem cells which brought him back to life.

All so very miraculous. Joe now has a chance to get back into the swing of things, his cancer in remission. My thankfulness for this possibility overwhelms me.

It brings front and center the fragility of this life we live. It can end in a blink, yet we take it for granted. We get distracted by problems, big and small, while our limited time on this earth dribbles away.

I hope to carry this heightened consciousness into the new week. If I work at it, I may be able to keep my ain’t-life-grand attitude alive until Thursday when I will feast on a bird. A sacrificial bird.

I vow to toast all the wonderful things that make life worth living. And  my brother Joe, may we meet again soon.

Kevin can be reached at 256-2217 or Napa Valley Register,  P.O. Box 150, Napa 94559 or kcourtney@napanews.com