Thanksgiving is getting beyond strange. Our county (Larimer) is begging people not to gather in person for Thanksgiving. Our county is under a directive to limit gatherings to ten persons and two households.
I fudged last weekend. I drove to my daughter Michele's house. One household--she and her husband Harry also live in Fort Collins. However much to my delight, my granddaughter, Audrey, and her husband Pete were also there. Two households right off the bat. I stayed anyway. Three households. But what the heck? It was just five people. Not so bad. But I felt sneaky. I'm freakily law-abiding.
So what to do about Thanksgiving? Everyone was going to come. Michele volunteered (sort of) to hold the annual celebration. Her dispassionate wording (as I recall) went something like "we'll be here. Anyone can come who wants to." The truth is no one in this family really wants anyone to come to their house for Thanksgiving in this county this year. And no one wants to visit relatives either.
The simple truth is Larimer County's medical facilities are overloaded. We are dangerously close to filling all our ICU beds.
So being the senior member of this highly dysfunctional family (don't blame me, I tried) I generously decided to stay home and have a Marie Callendar's Turkey Pot Pie for dinner. I would let someone else be the the lucky ducky who got to be the second household at the Crockett's.
Then Michele had a splendid idea. She called last night and said she and Harry and Audrey and Pete had decided to go on a float trip for Thanksgiving. She magnanimously invited me to tag along. It would not be a dangerous white water adventure. No, no, no. Not the gleeful adventures they were famous for. Also they had plenty of warm sleeping bags. I would be quite comfortable camping out for the first time. Warm, even. They would do all the cooking.
I considered my rather fragile bones, my precarious sense of balance, my sensible aversion to any sort of discomfort, but disregarded all my liabilities and immediately said yes, I would love to go. Michele did not expect this.
I hope they are well and truly frightened at the thought of trying to keep an old lady alive on a cold river.
Got to give the kid credit. While living in Kansas with vast swarms of people descending on our little house on the prairie--usually to hunt pheasants-- it never once occurred to me to suggest they all go on a river trip instead.
Possibly because we had no rivers.
4 comments:
Oh, the joys of trying to do the right thing during this pandemic! Camping outside, however, would not be on my list. I wish you a joyful holiday (with no chills and no spills).
Have a friend who chose to have a funeral for the turkey. You see, in our state you can have gatherings (inside or out) of 10 people. B U T if you are attending a funeral 30 are allowed. I'm not sure if the deceased is counted in that number but in her case the deceased will also be thanksgiving dinner.
Patricia--I'm still debating. I have a work in progress. Seems like a chicken way out of actually doing work because I suspect I would be laid up for a l-o-n-g time.
Anonymous. I absolutely love it. What a splendid idea.
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