Expert advice for Thanksgiving was to stay home. But I've been ignoring most experts' health advice for ten years and enjoyed good health for it; we'll see in a few weeks if this latest decision was sublime or ridiculous. I drove 500 miles to Cleveland. I hugged my cousin and finally met her husband. I ate food I shouldn't have. The three of us went to restaurants and attractions. We didn't do anything ridiculous or illegal--we all wore masks in public places and none of us were sick. Nobody I encountered seemed ill and nobody formed a crowd. I hung out with people for the first time in almost a year, relaxed and slept nine hours a night. It was health food for the soul and I'd do it again. Sublime? Ridiculous? It can be hard to tell. Photo from Amazon . The day before I left, I made vegetarian collards from the garden and low-carb pumpkin pie. My cousin is a vegetarian, but she cooks meat for me when I'm there and I bring vegetarian food when I visit. I al
What Gov. Newsom & top doctors really think of California's COVID restrictions. Thanksgiving alone is too much even for someone like me. I'm secular, I'm a loner, I don't keep in touch with many family members. But a family holiday alone ( alone together is nonsense) is too strange even for me. A month and a half in quarantine last spring was tolerable because I was ill and too tired to do much after work. Summer and fall, I rehabbed my garage. Now? I ruminate over the sort of things that get worse when they're picked at. I spent my first Thanksgiving in Indiana with a friend and her family and subsequent ones with a few members from my meetup group. This year, I'll be at a cousin's house. The weather in Cleveland, where she lives, is supposed to dry--something of a Thanksgiving miracle. Risks? I'm about as likely to die of COVID as I am to get shot in Indianapolis: a few chances in ten thousand, at most. I don't have risk factors like diabetes