Thanks is Most Fervently Given

 Eve came home! We had Thanksgiving dinner! Then Davis came home, and Jackson came over, and then I took Eve and Davis and Jackson to the pumpkin patch for the annual Pumpkin Patch Photo Shoot and Pumpkin Selection for Painting (missing Marianna and Alison, but we do what we can). Then we had a second Thanksgiving dinner at Davis's! This stream of days has bestowed gift after gift.

Friday while Eve was en route home on the train I went to a massage therapy appointment with a woman recommended highly by Collette (HI COLLETTE). I have left side neck pain that's been an issue for over a year now, and veers between bad and agonizing. Sometimes I kind of forget about it and then realize that I am extra cranky or feeling depressed, and then I realize I'm just in pain. I've done physio, I've done yoga, I've tried various painkillers, I stretch every night, and nothing makes a dent. I have started trying to settle into just living with it, but Ruth is adamant that we will achieve significant improvement if not complete cure, and I am cautiously optimistic.

Generally with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, Matt cooks the turkey, I do biscuits and roasted Brussels sprouts or something and my parents do stuffing and potatoes and bring them over. I am responsible for ninety percent of the cooking in our house, but I've just never done turkey. A few years ago things were super busy and we ordered the Farm Boy ready-to-cook Thanksgiving dinner and it was perfect - delicious and easy. This year Matt was going to be away, so we ordered it again. Then we realized Matt would be home for two days between Spain and Arizona, and if we ate on Saturday he would be here, so we switched the pick-up date to Saturday. We could technically have cooked, but this way Matt had a nap while I put in the turkey (upside-down - I'm serious when I say I just don't do turkey), the kitchen was completely clean with a neat line of dishes ready to go in the oven at their assigned times, and then my parents came over and it was perfect - good food, some wine, some Poetry for Neanderthals. We missed Angus but he texted and was tired from going out with work friends, so he is doing well - is it weird to be happy that your son is slightly hung over? Probably.

Sunday Matt left early and Eve and I slept in. It was grey and we were moving slowly. I read more Don Quixote (66% done), and Eve worked on a graphical abstract for her virology class. Then the sun came out and I offered to induct her into the Cool Bloggers Walking Club, and we took Lucy out. I took a shower and read a bit more, then felt kind of headachey and sleepy. I laid down on my bed with a fuzzy blanket over me and Lucy came and snuggled up and it was one of those perfect half-naps where it was finally cold enough that I enjoyed being warm, and I was sort of asleep and sort of not, and I heard Eve leave and then come back with Jackson, and I didn't have to get up yet because I had gotten all the taco stuff ready for them in the afternoon. Then I got up to hang out with them.

Monday I did some cleaning and organizing and then we picked up Davis and Jackson for the pumpkin patch. We started this tradition a few years before they graduated. We did it distanced and masked during Covid. We did it in the pouring rain last year. 

This year was sunny

And windy

We take a million pictures (forthcoming) and then they pick pumpkins to decorate and we buy fruit and vegetables and candy apples - there was one year where it looked like there were only enough candy apples left for us, and they took them even though the kid behind them in line wanted one. It turned out there were more in the back, but now they invariably bring up that time they stole candy apples from children. All's fair in love and candy apples, I guess.

We usually come back to our house to paint the pumpkins after the pumpkin patch, but Jody was doing Thanksgiving dinner Monday night because Davis just got home Sunday night, so she invited us for dinner and we brought the pumpkins back here for them to paint tonight. This dinner was a cooking-all-the-things, chaotic, bumping into each other in the kitchen kind of dinner, and it was really nice to experience both. Jody's dad was there, and at one point after I told her husband that his apple cheesecake loaf was fucking delicious, I checked myself and said "how does your dad feel about swearing?" and she said "well he raised me", so whew.

Somehow they had ended up with no dessert, which was fine, but I had to get gas anyway so we went into the Quickie to see if there was anything not-quite-appropriate. 

Score.

Davis grabbed a couple bottles of wine, and then when we were back in the car we realized the red wine was zero sugar wine for diabetics, so we swung by our house to grab the Chianti we had just opened the day before. 

I think if my sister and her family don't come for Christmas (my niece is in the UK so it makes sense that she won't want to get in the car and drive six hours when she's home) I will invite friends over for Christmas dinner. I like the noise and warmth of a big crowd at the table. 

Eve and Davis are at a cafe doing schoolwork. I just walked Lucy and am about to do some somatic yoga for chronic pain. Happy Tuesday!