The Kids Are Not OK

"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted." ----Garrison Keillor 

 It's good to know that even on my worst parenting days, what I do for my children isn't a waste. The days of toddler tantrums, middle school mood swings, and high school hijinks are behind me, and all three of mine seem to be doing well, so I guess that means I can put my feet up, and chill, since the hard work is all done? Nope. Not even close. While right now my children are all young adults, and they do most of what they need to do on their own, they do sometimes still need me, just in different ways. 

Recently, the big issue in town has been about children and the school system, but just because none of my children are still in public school here, doesn't mean the decisions being made don't impact me. A good educational system benefits all of us, and not just here in town. The children we educate will go out into the wider world and make their way. As a town, it's important that we do whatever we can to avoid releasing a generation of young people into the world who haven't had a decent education. Lately, the issue we've all heard the most about doesn't concern the nuts and bolts of funding our schools, hiring teachers, purchasing the right equipment and books, but rather it's about naming the newest school in town. It's to be expected that there are a gazillion opinions, and it's to their credit that the School Committee narrowed it down to just a few choices. Then the debates began. On social media and websites set up for information, the thoughts were flying around. Comments, concerns, and more than a few arguments over this, that, or the other thing. Finally, the decision was made, and the new school will be named the Lucretia and Joseph Brown Elementary School. Naming it that was my first choice, so I'm happy they picked it, and now that debate can end, and we can continue swinging at each other on social media on other topics.

 At the Zoom meeting of the School Committee, there were other items on the agenda that were being considered, the main one being a plan to get schools reopened, safely, but soon. There are a ton of moving parts involved in a decision like this, and once again, kudos to the parents, educators, volunteers, and staff that have been trying to make it work. During the portion of the meeting that invited public comment, I was trying to cook dinner, while finishing up some research on an article about vintage kitchen appliances, and annoying my daughter with TikTok videos. I glanced over and noticed a student was speaking, and he wasn't mentioning infection rates, or six-foot distancing, or union contracts. He was speaking about his friends, about himself, and the very real mental health struggles that are happening with high school students. He was firm in his conviction that there is a crisis happening and it's about more than budgets, masks, and disinfectants. 

He spoke eloquently about missing his friends, about having to hear over and over how miserable many of them are, how hopeless some of them feel, and he wanted the adults to know, that, well, the kids are not okay. All of the back and forth about the name of the school, hybrid or remote learning, cohorts, vaccinations, pool testing, and the rest have taken up endless hours of debate and yet, guess what many of us, the adults that are supposed to be looking out for them, didn't know? We didn't know how many kids are really up against it, mentally. We didn't know how hard this has been, how lost some of these kids have become, and how desperate they are to be heard. They're sad, they're scared, and many of them don't know where to go with it all. Thank goodness this young man spoke up. Now it's our job to listen, and to act. The school has been named, and I'm hopeful that means that there will be more education about the Browns, their contributions, who they were, and what they meant to our community. Since that is now settled, what's next? 

I think it has to be our kids, our students, our future. They're it; they will be running this world before too long, how can we not prioritize their issues, and get them the support and help they need? As adults charged with running a school system and as parents and caregivers who are raising children, we kind of have one job: don't screw up the kids. I believe most of us are doing the best we can, but now that we know there is more that is needed? Let's do it and do it fast. Yes, it's easier to say that here, than it is to jump in and do the work, but at least now we have heard, from the real stakeholders in our public education system, the students. Thank you Niall Kearney, for speaking up. I hope we can help. The video below is the School Committee meeting from 2/4/21. If you'd like to hear Niall for yourself, fast forward to about the 24:00 minute mark. Also, please note, the video settings do not allow for the video to play here. When it comes up unavailable, please click where it says "Watch on YouTube" Here is the direct link for anyone who wants it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlTdkfhwlHg

Home Repair or Kitchen Fail?

“I watch HGTV like a maniac, and when it’s bad it’s like some crazy college guy watching a football game.” 

--- Melissa McCarthy 

 HGTV is like some kind of alternate universe, where everyone is thin, rich, and knows how to swing a hammer without winding up in an ambulance with a gaping head wound. Even so, it’s on a lot at my house. Mostly, it’s my innate nosiness. I want to see everyone’s living room and kitchen, I want to check out their pantry shelves, and see what they have and how they put it away. Most people watch these shows to get ideas on what they might want to do with a renovation or a redecorating project. Somehow that piece is missing with me. 

Sure, there’s a ton of inspiration, and some of the ideas would really help me fix up my own space, but let’s face it: that’s never happening. We’re still in this pandemic and while it’s not a full lockdown, it’s winter and wicked cold, so regardless of the ‘Rona, this is my season to cocoon inside and wait for the Spring thaw. One would think that means there is time for little DIY projects, and home improvements. Not so much. I know my limits, and nothing in my skillset would get me through a renovation or remodel with all my fingers still attached.

 I mopped a floor once and wound up with a concussion. Candles and open flames are not allowed near me, because you accidentally start one small fire and your family is all, “Something is wrong with you, you’re gonna kill us all someday.” To be fair, they say the same thing every time I try to cook Thanksgiving dinner, which is why we wound up with Chinese takeout this year, since we couldn’t gather with friends and family who can cook without needing a fire extinguisher. 

 Nails and hammers and drills, oh my! Not everyone is talented with tools; at least I know that about myself and act accordingly. So imagine the dilemma at our house this past week, when, all of a sudden, the oven door was stuck shut. It wouldn’t budge, honestly, the nuclear codes could have been safe in there. Now, I know that oven doors lock when the self-clean feature is turned on, but that’s the only time. One look inside the oven and it was clear that the cleaning cycle had not been run recently, if ever. Sure, I’ve wiped out the odd pizza cheese spill or burnt cookie dough, but clean an oven? That’s a hospital trip for me, and this is no time to be in an ER. 

So how did the door get locked? It’s not like anything you put in an oven needs to be secured. That turkey or roast beast is long past it’s running days. I started to get worried that somewhere in the hinges or the door assembly, some scary little cheese-eating rodent was stuck. We had an unwelcome visitor last fall, and the little beast was quickly dispatched with a nice piece of cheese and a loaded spring mechanism. Hopefully none of his little friends were back to exact their revenge. 

 After a day of peering behind it with a flashlight and taking the pans out of the bottom drawer, I could tell nothing was dead or dying, but the door remained stuck fast. There are probably stove people you can call, that come out and fix things, but they probably charge an arm and a leg just to pull into your driveway, so that’s when I turned to my old faithful Internet, specifically, YouTube. 

There are videos on there about every kind of home repair you could imagine, from leaky sinks to fixing a broken window. Everything I watched about oven doors pointed to the self-clean feature and that’s where I got stuck. There are about twenty-seven buttons, knobs and dials on my stove, and that’s about twenty-five too many. Was there some random oven cleaning karmic ghost in my kitchen, just messing with me, holding my oven hostage until I Easy-Offed it? Well, sort of. After about the 10th video, one of the home repair experts said that if there had been a recent power outage or even just a blown fuse, the electronic panel of the oven could kick it into lock mode, as a safety feature. 

Safety? Sorry Samsung, you’re late to the game, if you wanted me to be safe around an oven, you’d have sent me a helmet and a hazmat suit. Since it seemed the problem might be tech-related vs. structural, I decided to use the “Tech support two-step” method. Unplug it and then plug it back in. Honest to Dog, you’d think I was Moses and had parted the Red Sea when it sprang back on with a couple of beeps and the door opened like magic. I had fixed a home appliance. In a kitchen no less! No ambulance, no hammer-bashed thumbs, no broken glass or stitches, just success. I still won’t be turning out gourmet meals, and certainly HGTV isn’t going to come along and offer me my own show, but for one brief moment, I had conquered a home repair. It feels good to do something you thought you couldn’t so that’s the lesson I’m taking from this: try it, what’s the worst that could happen? Stay tuned, the washer has been making a funny noise, maybe I’ll look that up next.

The Myth of Multitasking

 "There's a temptation to multitask everything, but you can't multitask presence"

---Cindy Crawford

I love it when a supermodel can also speak coherently and wisely. It keeps me from hating them and their perfect bodies, great hair, and cute boyfriends. Multitasking seems to be this standard that has been set as if it's the goal, the brass ring, the one talent we all need. It will solve every problem and allow us to overcome any obstacle. We just have to do more, all at once if possible, and there you have it, success on every level.

OK, are we done laughing yet?

No one can pay attention to everything around them; some things are going to get ignored. Not a problem for me; I can ignore stuff better than most. One look at my kitchen sink and the disorderly bookshelves in my living room will tell you that. Multitasking is how many people cope with a very busy schedule. Sometimes, there simply isn't time to get everything done if they only work on one thing at a time. To a certain extent, we all multitask. Lots of people walk around the house straightening up the clutter while talking on the phone and getting dinner ready, right? I mean, I've never done that, but I hear it happens. So, sure, it's possible. But is it really what we should be doing, in all areas of our lives?

Say you're driving down the street, the radio in your car is on, maybe a kid is singing "Baby Shark" or some other vocal torture is happening. There's traffic because other people have the nerve to be out when you're out. Your GPS is pinging because you missed a turn, and you decide that this is a good time to answer a text from your boss about the cover sheets on your TPS reports. Why would anyone do this? What is the benefit? If you text and drive, it's eventually going to go very badly for you, and perhaps others as well. Why is it that multitasking is so prevalent in cars? Everyone is in their car like it's some bubble of safety, where nothing bad can happen. Right. What could possibly go wrong in a 3,000-pound piece of machinery, hurtling down the road at 35 mph, while the driver sends a text, takes a call, drinks coffee, and touches up their lipstick in the rearview?

So OK, we shouldn't multitask while driving, got it. What about while working? Honestly, I know lots of highly productive people, and they are the ones that have 57 tabs open on their computer, while in a meeting, delivering a PowerPoint presentation, and probably knitting hats for babies while they're at it. I envy this ability. It just seems so efficient, but, neurologically, it's really not.

There's research, once again, we need to believe the science. Most people are not actually multitasking, at least as far as what's happening in their brains. When you do one thing, that you know how to do, it's learned memory, and your brain recalls it. We all know how to put the key in the ignition and start the car, followed by snapping on the seatbelt and looking in the rearview mirror. Our brains have learned that, but it needs to be recalled each time. This takes mere nanoseconds, but it has to happen.

The work we have to do to learn something new, however, is also a drain on brain function, so while you're getting ready to back out of the driveway, you really cannot be processing the news on the radio or the latest school drama from your kid. There's only so much that can happen at the same time inside your noggin. When you multitask, your brain isn't doing double duty. It's switching back and forth, from one task to another, this to that and back again, like a rabbit on Red Bull. Neither task gets the full bandwidth though; something will always be lost.

The same is true about being present for important moments, it's just way less scientific. If you're at your kid's school play, that you've never seen, but you're shooting a few emails to your boss, making a shopping list, and scoring some points on Words With Friends, you will miss the dialogue, miss your kid's entrance, and so what if it's on video, it's not the same. Why even go, if you're not soaking up and enjoying what you came for? How do I know this? I have, at times, been that phone-addicted person, been that multitasking hot mess wannabe who just needs to get this one last text sent, check on that one email. Guess what? I missed out. The fun moments, silly kid comments, the last three steps at the train station, all big misses. Trust me, all of that hurts. Stay present, stay engaged, because multitasking is about quantity, and right now, quality matters more. The to-do list will keep. The one-of-a-kind moments will not.

Photographs and Memories

 “There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.”

— Robert Frank

I have a love hate relationship with photography. In high school and college, I practically went broke on film, cameras, and darkroom equipment. The garage in our house was turned into a photo lab and I spent hours developing film, hanging negatives, “dodging” black and white prints under my enlarger, and framing shots that I thought were artistic, but were mostly tree branches with snow and trees with no leaves. All without a computer. There was no PhotoShop, no Instagram filters, and definitely no retakes of forty or fifty shots to get the perfect “selfie.” It was an accomplishment if I managed to set the self-timer on my beloved Canon AE-1, and then make it into the frame before it went off. There are more than a few family pictures where my parents and brother are smiling and posed, but off to the side is a random blur of red hair and an arm or shoulder racing to be included. 

My father was the original amateur photographer, but to hear him tell it, he was the next Ansel Adams. He bought a Polaroid Land 100, the very week it came out and he was almost never without it. That his Bell and Howell Super8 movie camera documented my childhood. Back then, I wanted to be in every picture, but that changed when I hit the awkward years, which, to be honest, continue to this day. My comfort level was behind the camera, never in front of it. 

These days I rarely want to be the one in the picture, and will try to find any way possible to stand behind someone else, or at least suck in all my bits, and place a book or an unsuspecting pet over anything that can’t be contained. Recently, however, I met local photographer Fred Marco and we got to talking about photos, self-esteem, and how it should be about capturing moments and memories, rather than causing an existential hair crisis. Fred had photographed my daughter, for her senior pictures, so I knew he was proficient, but of course, Devin is eighteen and gorgeous, and I am…older and not. Fred said it didn’t matter, that his approach was to bring out what is unique and wonderful about all of his subjects. I couldn’t imagine how he was going to capture sarcasm and a snarky attitude on film, but another friend offered us the use of his beautiful Edsel (I will never understand how those cars didn’t catch on) and the fall colors were blooming, so why not? Besides, the tail fins on an Edsel can hide anything. A date was set, the weather cooperated and in the high school parking lot, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, it was like a shoot for Vogue. Well, not really, since I am no cover girl, but still, it was quite something.

Here’s the thing about good photographers. They know their cameras and equipment. They understand about lighting, about posing and how to get the best results. They understand f stops and apertures. A good photographer has all that down pat. There is a technical part of talent, but the most important part of photographing people is about understanding who the subject is, aside from appearances and size and, in my case, an inside voice that is screaming, “Jeeez, he’s gonna need a wide angle lens and boat tarp for this unless he shoots me from the nose up!” Fred was nothing short of amazing, considering he was dealing with a fifty-something neurotic mess who had to borrow clothes from a much more stylish friend (thank you Katy, you’re a lifesaver, as always.) I couldn’t tell you what kind of camera he had, or what lens he used, or how he decided which shots to take from where, but I will never forget how he managed to make me laugh, smile, pose, and actually have fun. That, my friends, is talent. Getting me, an expert in the art of gut sucking and hiding behind furniture, to perch precariously on the bumper of a classic car, in heels, without looking like something was stuck up my nose, is an accomplishment that only the best and the bravest of photographers can achieve, and Fred managed it, while cracking jokes and putting me at ease. 

Fred showed me that posing for a photo doesn’t have to trigger an urge to pull a bag over my head or duck behind a tree. He figured out what would work, and while some of it was technical, most of it was artistic talent and an understanding that, for some of us, being in front of a lens can be way harder than being behind one. If photographs are supposed to be about moments and memories, these photos did that and more. It’s a new year, and while it might not mean there is a new me, working with Fred Marco gave me a new attitude. For one sunny afternoon, I felt like a super model instead of merely supersized. Check him out at https://www.fredmarcophotography.com/ 

Basic Vs. Extra

 “Desire, burning desire, is basic to achieving anything beyond the ordinary.”

---Joseph B. Wirthlin

Remember when “beyond the ordinary” was exciting? This has not been an ordinary year. We flew past ordinary back in April, but as it turns out that’s not always a positive accomplishment. Nothing about 2020 has been basic, but in talking about it with some friends, I found that the word “basic” has a different meaning with younger people, and the opposite of it, is “extra.” These are two very distinct conditions and it was eye opening to see what they mean. 

In a nutshell, I learned that basic is a term often applied to people and the clothing and accessories they have. It’s a look, sort of, and somewhat of an attitude as well. It’s also mostly applied to young women, usually by other young women. Yes, mean girl catty drama is still around, in some places. It might have changed since my high school days, but the cool table is still very much a thing, and there are those who would say no basic girl is ever going to sit at it. That’s rubbish of course, but it was fascinating to hear what the concepts of basic and extra involve for some of us.

Basic can mean that someone has a rather generic look. Jeans, sheepskin short boots, long sweaters, and a coffee card that’s always loaded with enough cash to get a pumpkin spiced latte. In the summer it’s jean shorts, sheepskin boots (Ya I don’t get it either), a hair scrunchy and an iced acai tea. The opposite of basic is called being “extra.” Normally, you’d think extra is good, right? It’s about being above and beyond the baseline, so who doesn’t want to shoot for that? Who wouldn’t want to be more than basic? As it turns out, being extra has a downside as well. 

Extra has the connotation of being over the top. Too much, too loud, too big, too…something. Remember a few years ago when wearing an arm load of jingling charm bracelets was a thing? From what I learned, it’s not a good look anymore. Wearing more than one or two bracelets makes you extra. Brand names are an indicator as well. We all know what the trendy brands are in clothing; the right winter parka with the little patch, the designer purse, the plain, white, flat sneakers that must always stay perfectly white. Those are hot items, but if you have all of them on at once? You risk being extra. Therein lies the problem. No one seems to want to be basic, and yet, taken too far, trends can put you into the dreaded extra category. What about in between though? What’s in the middle? Is there a magic zone of just enough extra to keep from being basic?

I have no idea. Which is a trend in itself, especially this year. At my age, and in this time, basic and extra are far too complex to worry about. Not just in a fashion sense; that ship has sailed, if my shirt is clean and my jeans fit, it’s a look that works. Honestly, that’s how it should be at any age, right? Why are these two ends of the spectrum so important? We’re slowly limping to the end of a year that has been way too extra. Too much drama, too many arguments, too much heartache, and not nearly enough compassion, laughter, and understanding. Before this year, we all thought that going to a movie on a Friday night, or having a cookout with friends were all just regular events that were part of our ordinary, basic lives. 

And then it all went away. 

As we come back from that (in a two steps forward one step back kind of way) we can start to see that having a drink with a friend, or seeing a movie in a theater would be the best kind of extra ever. That a pair of winter boots, or the right kind of beverage, are not the indicators some think they are, but are rather just boots and a coffee. What is extra now is getting to see family and friends around a holiday table. Extra is a meal brought to your tableside, not the curbside. Scoring a mega roll package of the good toilet paper is extra. It’s a whole other debate now between being extra or basic. If there is one part of the pandemic that’s a positive, it’s that we’ve all (ok, most of us) come to appreciate some of what we previously thought was just, well, kind of ho-hum. Who cares what kind of boots or jeans you have on, if you get to sit with a friend over meal, you win. We’re almost at the end of this very extra year, but in the meantime, the basics are what I’m betting will carry me through to whatever comes next. Happy almost New Year. 

(YouTube video of the 2012 Ball Drop, it was a good year :) )

Moments, Not Days...

 “We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

---Cesare Pavese

Are we there yet? This column will publish on December 17^th, which is the 352^nd day of 2020. It might feel more like the 4, 352^nd day, but that’s a pandemic for you. The days blend together because so much of our structure is gone. Friday night used to be date night, maybe dinner and a movie; now it’s takeout and Netflix. Thursdays were often “thirsty,” and it was common to meet someone for a beer after work. Now, more than a few of us are drinking alone, and that’s problematic in a lot of ways. For many, Sunday mornings meant church services and brunch. Now it’s another Zoom log on, a little web worship and a bowl of cereal.

For so many this year, the memories might be more about small moments, rather than big days. This pandemic didn’t last just a day, or even a week. It’s still here. It’s not like Pearl Harbor; there is no one date that will live in infamy, but rather several moments over the course of several months, and each person will have a different set of memories of this time. When major world events happen, everyone seems to remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard about it. My father would tell me often about his mother calling him in from a backyard game of kickball on a Sunday afternoon after hearing a bulletin on the radio that the war had begun. My mother remembers getting laundry ready to hang on the line while an emotional and almost speechless Walter Cronkite announced the assassination of the President on live television. I remember being 8 ½ months pregnant, running errands and chasing after an active three-year-old on September 11, 2001 when the first of four planes attacked the United States. 

These were all days that we remember, but the pandemic doesn’t really have a day. It’s been an ongoing event, stretched out over months and months of uncertainty. Much like the virus itself, pinning it down is difficult. Do we use the date the first US case was diagnosed? The date we surpassed 10,000 cases? The date with the highest death toll? Unlike a bombing or an assassination, a pandemic isn’t just one action, on one day, in one place. It’s so much more, and it’s still happening. So much for the “Just watch, after November 3^rd it will just go away” theory, right? We don’t seem to define the passage of time by days anymore, it’s about which step of which phase we are in, and whether we are moving into the next one or falling back to a previous one. It’s like a game of Chutes and Ladders but we’re all losing in very individual ways. Jobs, loved ones, homes, family vacations, and holiday get-togethers have all been lost these past months; that’s a lot of moments and not all of them are ones we will treasure.

As many do at this time of year, I’m thinking back to all that’s happened and while no particular day stands out, there are moments that will stay with me forever, but I have no idea of the dates any of them occurred. There was the time I spent 45 minutes in line outside the supermarket, chatting with a nurse from Salem hospital who was telling me about the shortages of masks, gowns and gloves and how she feared what could happen if cases continued to go up. Another moment happened when I heard a friend had passed away from the virus, and how chilling it was to realize it wasn’t just other people; my people were in danger too. There was the day my daughter learned that her high school track career was over and there would never be another meet, another team dinner or another chance at getting to states. Thankfully, not all of the moments of this past year are awful. I celebrated when friends who had trouble getting home from Italy finally got back safely. When we stepped on the field, safely distanced, for a high school commencement ceremony it seemed the first time that there was a teeny bit of hope for a return to normal. When I sat at a newly-created sidewalk café and had a glass of wine while listening to the ocean waves on the beach across the street it was a small moment of joy after several difficult days of lines and shortages.

It’s been, for the most part, an awful year. Everyone has had their mini-meltdowns, cranky times, and frustrations. For most of us though, if we really think about it, woven in among those times there have been a few small victories, a couple of moments that had us stopping, for just a second, to revel in them. Perhaps the pandemic has shown us that nailing something down to a specific day isn’t the point? If we step away from the calendar, and just reach back in our memory, we may find moments that lifted us up and carried us through dark days. Ive spent more nights than I can remember curled up with my pug Penny, and those moments have carried me through. The pandemic will pass, but these moments will always be here. We shouldn’t ever forget them. 

Small Cheer and Great Welcomes

 “Small cheer and a great welcome makes a merry feast.”

---William Shakespeare

It’s Thanksgiving, but no one is cranking up a chorus of “We gather together…” Gatherings this year will be much smaller. There’s no high school rivalry football game, no Powderpuff game, and probably no honking horns racing around town. Wait, can we still have the honking horns and kids in cars? Please? Windows open, masks on, can we at least have one tradition remain a little bit the same? 

Traditions comfort us because they’re familiar. A tradition is an anchor to our past and a harbinger of hope for the future. We need to know that a holiday with family and friends, or a celebration of faith, or even just a birthday or anniversary party, will be a constant. The problem is that the only constant is change, and while many of us will still have a nice dinner, and maybe see a few loved ones, this year is going to be unlike any other year. 

There is so much that won’t be happening in the same way this year. Families that are used to having 25 people around a table are likely not going to be able to do that. Going “over the river and through the woods” might be more like going over the Internet and through the Zoom. One friend of mine normally cooks for about thirty people on the holiday, and her numbers are down to six. She said it’s been hard to scale back, because she’s just used to picking out the fattest Butterball birdzilla she can find in the grocery store. Her list in the past has included a dozen loaves of stuffing bread, fifteen pounds of potatoes, a vat of gravy that a small child could swim in, and more pies than should be allowed. 

Travel isn’t happening much this year either. The TSA numbers show that at this time last year there were between 2 and 3 million passengers in airports across the country. This year? It’s less than a million. That means that there are more than likely a few of our neighbors that are looking at  empty chairs around the table. It’s not just about the logistics of scaling back grocery trips and meal prep; what’s missing is more than a couple of pies and some extra gravy. 

There’s no way to change it, no way to make this virus just disappear, so we can carry on with serving mass quantities of food and crowding around the kitchen for clean-up duty. This is the hand that’s been dealt this year. Nothing has been traditional, nothing has been the same and there’s no way around it. So, since we cannot change the way this holiday is going to go, what can we do? Here are a few suggestions I’ve heard from friends.

1. Go rogue. Do something you’d never have thought to do because it wasn’t part of your tradition. Ever wanted to have a prime rib roast on Thanksgiving instead of turkey? Do it. Also, I have a great recipe for one, so call me if you want to try it. If your tradition is to go to a game as a family, take a walk on the beach instead. Not enough people for a touch football in the yard? Get out last summer’s cornhole set and start tossing. Is there a more perfect game for social distancing? The boards are supposed to be placed 27 feet apart, front to front. The only real danger is getting beaned in the head with a bag.
2. Give someone else a bit of “small cheer.” Bake the three dozen cupcakes or cookies you would have had on your table and drop them around to the neighbors. A little Tupper full of cookies, with a nice note just might make someone’s day. For the record, I like chocolate chip and snickerdoodles, but I’m not picky and surprise treats are always welcome.
3. Reach out and touch someone. No, not with your gooby snoogery hands, but with that little thing we all carry around or have in the house. You know, a phone? Cousin Edna couldn’t come dinner? Giver her a ring. You miss your grandparents? Well, unless you are trapped under something heavy, or you live off the grid, pick up the phone. It doesn’t have to be FaceTime, or a video chat, or some live streamed event, just hit the digits and tell someone you’re thinking of them. 

Nothing will be the same this year, and that cannot be helped. So, like the song says, “Love the ones you’re with.” 

It’s a business theory, but if something is in very short supply (loved ones nearby) and in very high demand (our traditions) it becomes very valuable. The small cheer we offer each other is that much more precious because it’s so limited. Thanksgiving isn’t cancelled, it’s just downsized, but welcomes can still be great, and the feast will still be merry. Happy Thanksgiving

 to you all.