thanksgave

I didn't want to write about Thanksgiving until after it was over. We came home, fed the cats, skipped dinner. Then I took the nap I'd managed to avoid during the festivities. Then I placed the weekly online grocery order and extensively cuddled a cat at his insistence: he's probably anxious because I'd been away all day. And now, if he doesn't come back again and occupy both my hands to hold him up, I can write this post.

We were a little nervous about going to niece T.'s house for a gathering of relatives and T.'s friends, some of whom had flown in to be there and weren't too enthusiastic about getting covid tested, and one of whom was anti-vax. (I tried as inconspicuously as possible to stay far away from her.) B. and I were the only people there wearing masks, and of course at a meal we couldn't wear them all the time.

Well, it was a good occasion. T. set out a fine spread, her husband brined the turkey before smoking it and that came out well, though the prime rib was vastly underdone. This time I brought a large casserole dish full of simply plain steamed broccoli, about the only vegetable that wasn't salad, and most of it was taken.

Among the more welcome seldom-seen visitors were T.'s youngest brother and his wife, who've just moved back here from Texas, which they'd decided they'd had quite enough of, and are now living in a house tucked up in a small fog-bound valley on the coast, which is exactly where B. and I would want to live if we were buying a house. We'd need one that didn't require stairs to get in, though.

My own out-of-town brother and his lady were there also, and I'd seen them earlier in the week when we'd taken an outing to the narrow-gauge railroad through the redwoods up in the mountains.

Hiding in the background at the party was the background music, which was Christmas songs. They're coming! But this was a greater variety than usual which made for a refreshing selection: I recognized a song from A Charlie Brown Christmas and a cover version of "You're a Mean One, Mr Grinch."