Thanksgiving drama

Today was a depressing stinker of a day.  It actually started yesterday when I looked outside around mid-afternoon to see poofs of feathers in the yard. Something had been killing my chickens again, the ones small enough and dumb enough to hop over the fence and go roaming in the yard.  About half an hour later the guilty party came back: a big brown and white hound dog I'd never seen before. But here it was, running through our yard with a chicken in its mouth. Damn it. I like dogs well enough, in theory.  But when it comes down to it I really can't stand 90% of them. And it's not the dogs fault. It's the owners fault. But, whatever.  We used to have a dog and I understand that occasionally they slip a collar or run off, ok fine. Until I looked out the kitchen window at 8 a.m. this morning. and it was in our yard again.  It ran off when I tried to catch it.  I had figured out who the owner was, texted politely when they didn't answer my phone call. When they didn't respond to that either I doubled down with a blistering message about setting up cameras and calling the dog warden every single time their animal was on our property.  They live down the street and we've never met them but I was absolutely livid and boy was it apparent.  So this is how the day started. Yes, I wish I had handled that differently.  I also wish they had kept their dog on their own property. 

I did some baking.  Made tiny versions of the family rum cake and delivered them to a couple of houses.  It was nice. 

Rum cake delivery!

I miss friends. I miss people. 

We tried to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is something to normally look forward to. But this year, between the empty New York City streets and trying to explain to the oldest what the parade would usually look like: thousands of spectators, the noise and the crowds, it had me tearing up. 

This week the oldest had talked about the parade at school, they even made little parade balloons. His was The Grinch.  I told him that it had always been a dream of mine to be a balloon handler in the Macy's Parade. He told me that he would let me hold his balloon. 

Thanksgiving was small, just us at my in-laws. I made this Allrecipes sweet potato dish with onions, bacon and a maple glaze. It was ok but not great. We did have a wonderful,  delicious  dinner where we all ate too much. Afterwards we had a zoom party with my husband's brothers and their families. 

The big deal of the day? When I called to wish my dad a Happy Thanksgiving I was told some Big Family News. My dad proposed to his lady friend and is engaged.  I am a grown middle aged woman who has spent most of her life not having to tease out the nuances of "my mother" versus "my father's partner" . And while I am very happy for him I still hung up the phone and got weepy. In front of my mother in law.

So Thanksgiving 2020 has been memorable. Like, currently drinking rum out of a wine glass memorable.