Table Decor

I ran into Dana the other day as she was gathering leaves, twigs and berries for her table decor. They had two beautifully set tables with four of these natural arrangements on each. The matching 'vases' were recycled pudding containers from Costco. I was so taken with them that Dana gave me four of them, and here they are on our table.

It's been a quiet day recovering from yesterday's festivities. Tim texted me in the morning to say that Eden had had Covid the previous week. She felt fine and had no fever but was still testing positive. Should he come? After a flurry of consultations we all decided that he met the CDC recommendations and should join us. When they arrived, Joni was wearing a mask because she wasn't 'feeling great'. Tim was wearing a splint on one wrist saying it was 'sprained' Joni questioned the self-diagnosis. We were all standing in the driveway looking at a baby California King Snake that had been stuck underneath the garage door. It didn't move and we feared it was dead but with the sun on it it began to revive and wriggle around. John transferred it to the garden.

Everyone, including little Sage, tucked into the sandwich fixings we had put out. The older kids had a few games of cornhole, then came in to watch a football game. Football has come to be a Thanksgiving tradition to which I strenuously object, but soon all the men had repaired to the television room.

By the time the traveling circus moved to Dana and Jim's for dinner, I had had an interesting conversation with Adisa about life on a houseboat and Lindsay had fixed the light over our sink which hasn't worked in months. Dana entertained the little girls with my stash of toys some dating back to her and her siblings. Joni brought a wonderful toy piano which kept sage entertained for ages and provided background music of sorts for those of us still in the living room.

Jim had been home all day smoking a turkey in the driveway, Dana had been making a salad and posole and many, many corn muffins. Thanksgiving is always a bit of a moving target so there were dueling containers of mac&cheese and three desserts, but nobody was complaining. I had an interesting talk with Will about an online course he is taking to become a sommelier.  Peter sat on the other side of me making snide remarks and pertinent asides. Eden sat across from me telling me about his first semester at UC Davis with Dana and Tim, who both went there as well chiming in. Owen, sitting across from me, took it all in but didn't have much to say. He sneezed a couple of times and Joni who somehow managed to eat, taking her mask off only long enough to insert a bite of food, wondered if he was getting sick.

All in all a lovely time was had...toasts were given to the chefs, gratitude for family was expressed, spice cake, lemon squares and another cake I didn't have room for, were eaten and we all began to take our leave, another crazy, fun, boring, active busy  (depending on who you talked to) slowly wound down.

It was a good grand day.