Unmasked anxieties

I haven't seen my students in more than a week but I saw them last night--in my dreams. A nightmare, I guess it was, involving a student who refused to mask up in class and also refused to leave so I called Campus Police, but instead of a uniformed officer, the entire force crowded into my classroom wearing matching yellow T-shirts and proceeded to sing karaoke.

None of them were wearing masks. 

You'd think my pandemic teaching anxieties would be cured by the prospect of six student-free weeks, but no: belligerent virus-spreaders now crowd into my dreams singing bad 80s rock songs. What does this portend?

Ohio is in the middle of a massive Covid spike and we've been getting bulletins almost daily about new campus Covid cases, both students and employees being diagnosed with the virus or placed in quarantine due to close contact with those who test positive. Around 70 students will have something extra to be thankful for this week when they're cleared from quarantine just in time for Thanksgiving.

I'm thankful that we're healthy and safe and planning a quiet Thanksgiving at home, just the two of us. It seems wrong to cook a turkey and all the trimmings for two people, especially when I'm still struggling to figure out how this fancy convection oven works. The knobs have tons of tiny icons that all look like blurs to my old eyes, but even under a magnifying glass they're still incomprehensible. I swear one of the icons looks like a mushroom cloud, exactly the sort of thing that's not welcome at Thanksgiving dinner.

I made my beloved cranberry chutney yesterday, making the house smell like a holiday. I'm not baking pie--my husband made a couple of green tomato pies a few weeks ago and there's still one in the freezer, and it feels right to celebrate Thanksgiving with produce from our own garden so we'll enjoy green tomato pie and I'll also bake a couple of our butternut squashes instead of sweet potatoes. Today I'll thaw some of our frozen pumpkin puree from previous gardens and bake some pumpkin cookies to share with the neighbors. We've downsized the bird to a turkey breast, and I'll make some green beans with almonds and stuffing on the side.

So it won't be normal Thanksgiving but it'll be something. We'll be thankful for surviving the semester, finding a great place to live in Jackson, making progress on the painting, our son's new job, and the prospect of a Zoom call with the grandkids. 

No guests, no masks, no police officers singing karaoke, but we'll do the best with what we have and be thankful for it.