42+ years ago, when I was a teacher in Wisconsin, Thanksgiving meant deer-hunting. It’s still deer-hunting season, but living in a big city, I don’t observe many deer tied to trunks or tossed into truck beds like when I lived in a small town. This Thanksgiving, because of the move, and because of the pandemic, Thanksgiving was about family…and eating.

We moved to Wisconsin at Jeff’s retirement to be near the grandkids. Thanksgiving for the grandkids meant traveling out to South Dakota to see the other grandparents, but this year, COVID-19 put a delay on that. Because family are the only people they or we see here (outside of repairmen or getting WI certified), we have become our own safe bubble.

Thanksgiving morning, it was all about playing together, food (appetizers), a birthday call from Arizona son, and watching “Garfield’s Thanksgiving”.

Thursday afternoon, we drove to the lakefront and took a walk among thousands of Canada geese. (You really want to say Canadian, don’t you? And don’t you remember the day when birds flew south for the winter? And why aren’t more people interested in geese-hunting?) We’d driven there to see Lake Michigan and the skyline. Most of what we saw were green-black tubes of geese feces on the sidewalks, and trying to to find a clear spot to avoid them at each step. The 9-year-old thought it was disgusting. The 5-year-old girl thought they needed a litter box. The five-year-old boy, once in motion (e.g., raising a foot to move forward), finds it difficult to stop any said motion. “Ut-oh” was a commonly heard exclamation from him, with a simultaneous “Oh-no” from his parents.

Once when we stopped long enough to look around, our son discovered an abandoned kite flapping in a tree. Then another. Then another. Without the leaves blocking them, we looked up to see dozens of trapped kites. It was a kite graveyard! One tree had five caught in it. Only at the end of the walk did I finally decide take a picture of the next kite-tree.

Later afternoon was more food prep, including an organic turkey from Michigan, and a Thanksgiving video chat from AZ son (as the grands ran around, yelling, laughing, screaming). So much food! The evening capped off with birthday pumpkin pie and a retirement celebration sip of port.

A grand birthday. A great Thanksgiving.