Risk balancing at the Holiday season

 

Meet Prance (the tiger cat) and Kinley, the shiny-hoofed reindeer.  They are my birthday buddies.  Y'all know that Beanie Babies have their own birthdays, as listed on the tags, right?  Well, several years ago (in 2012), my elder sister presented me with Prance, because his grey and tabby stripes reminded her of my cat, The Prisoner, and because once she read the birthday on the little tag, knew Prance was meant to live at my house.

Kinley is a new acquisition, a birthday gift from a younger sister (who seemed to be unaware of Prance.)

In any case, they are now together, brightening up the bookshelf.

Here is Prisoner when Prance first joined the household, welcoming him.  Or suspicious of him.  You be the judge.

This morning's hot headline is that just after I got home from medicating and feeding my sister's kitties (she's celebrating Thanksgiving in Kansas), my phone rang.  It was my son.  He started out the phone call with "I have some rather bad news."  "How bad?" I asked.

You see the last time someone started out a call to me with "I have bad news", it was my niece telling me her father had died.  My thoughts went to a very dark place, concerned for the health of my ex, my son's father.  Now comes the chuckle part... I was relieved to hear that son had been in close contact with a co-worker who just came up positive for Covid 19.  His sleep was interrupted in the night by a text to that effect.

But of course the next part of the conversation was whether we would be on for Thanksgiving, since it was planned to be at his home.  We are a small party, but three of us are either over 65 or have those ominous "underlying conditions".  However, we are all five of us fully vaccinated and up to date on our boosters... and vaccinated against flu, too.  Son and his fiancé were leaving it up to the three elders whether we wanted to risk gathering.

He wanted to let me know before I started baking the pie for the gather, in case I wanted to skip doing that.  Nonsense, said I, I'm baking that pie regardless.  How about this?  We all take those at home Covid tests, and depending on the results, we could decide.

Bottom line, all five of us tested negative.  All five of us have decided it is worth the level of risk, as we are all pretty careful.  The feast in on!

The pies are baked and cooling.  I'm patting myself on the back as I did not break my fast until they were out of the oven.  (Just don't break your arm in the process, Barb!)

Now I'm about to head up to shower and dress, and find appropriate cardboard boxes in which to transport said pies.  I made two because the pumpkin measured out to 2 cups.  I adjust the recipe based on how much pumpkin I have to work with.  But part of the decision was based on wanting to leave one with the host and hostess.  A comfort pie for a tough week.

That's about it from here.  Sending warm thoughts of gratitude out across the world with wishes for peace and harmony.

And withes of health to all, too.

Life is good.  Spark on!

🔥💖🦃🍽