Pandemic Thanksgiving

The measure of Thanksgiving came this morning when I took my blood pressure and stepped on the scale.

My systolic blood pressure was normal and the diastolic slightly elevated. It was elevated to the same point where my medical practitioner and I had a conversation about medication a couple of visits ago. We decided I wouldn’t take meds and I expect my blood pressure to return to normal by tomorrow.

My weight was the same as 24 hours ago, meaning the huge plates of food consumed in the celebration, which made me feel stuffed and drowsy, won’t likely be added to my waistline.

The two of us were alone for the holiday as we’ve been for many years. Our family is small and no one makes a big deal of the holiday. We do all have some kind of feast. Phone calls, text messages, emails and social media posts were made. It was all reassuring. It all felt like normal.

The coronavirus pandemic is here and the incidence of cases elevated to the highest level since it began in March. Keeping the gathering small was easy for us: we just had to be ourselves. The Centers for Disease Control recommended Americans not travel. Americans are not good listeners. “In a pandemic-era record, 1,070,967 people passed through security at America’s airports on the day before Thanksgiving,” CNN reported. I expect the numbers on this chart to soar higher in the next couple of weeks.

We are lucky to have enough to eat. CNN reported yesterday some 50 million Americans didn’t on Thanksgiving. Food pantries were swamped and some ran out of food. The toll of the coronavirus pandemic on health, on employment, and on income is tangible. In graduate school, during interviews with survivors of the great depression, they told me having a garden was a big part of how they put food on the table. Because so much of what was on our plate was produced locally or from our garden, food insecurity was not a direct issue here. For that we are thankful.

I did most of the cooking beginning at 11 a.m., continuing for six hours. Over the years we developed recipes for baked beans and wild rice which are the two most complicated dishes and take the most cooking time. Beans and rice are the center of a vegetarian meal. For sides we had steamed broccoli, cooked carrots, butternut squash and sweet potato. I ate a few home made pickles while I was cooking. For beverage it was fresh apple cider and for dessert a take and bake peach pie, both from the local orchard. Everything in the main meal was low fat. Except for the peach pie there was little refined sugar. Eating an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet has its advantages.

Part of my Thanksgiving is politics and I spent time reading Barack Obama’s presidential memoir, A Promised Land. He wrote about the 2006 Tom Harkin Steak Fry where he spoke and my friends and I had a chance to shake his hand in the rope line. While others have written about the campaign, notably David Plouffe in The Audacity to Win, it was good to read familiar stories of that campaign. There may not be another like it because of changes in American society since then.

The president took press questions for the first time since the election while I was cooking dinner. He made what were described as “stunning claims” about the election, without evidence. We are a nation of laws. Mr. President, either show us evidence the election was rigged or shut up. He did say he will plan to leave the White House after the electoral college votes on Dec. 14. There is no doubt Joe Biden won the election. President Trump really has no say in the matter of his leaving by Jan. 20, 2021.

In normal times I would be scheduled for work at the home, farm and auto supply store this morning for Black Friday sales. I left retail work because of the pandemic. I’m not sure I will return to it. We’ve discovered how to get by on our pensions.

During my regular end of year planning it appears our budget for next year is sustainable. My best hope is 2021 does not bring another pandemic Thanksgiving.