Our current Thanksgiving plan involves a very small group of us who are all being very careful. We are lucky that in Los Angeles the testing sites are giving results within 24 hours. So the plan is for everyone that is attending to get a test on Tuesday and then essentially quarantine. We will all get results on Wednesday and then have Thanksgiving on Thursday. Everyone attending will have had a negative test result within 24 hours of the dinner, on top of them being trusted careful folks, and they will be quarantined between taking the test and coming to dinner. It's not perfect, but I think it is a fairly robust plan.

Pretty darn near perfect, ND. If I could have that kind of set-up, I'd consider the family Thanksgiving. But they're not doing anything like that.

Yeah, there is a testing site about 5 minutes from my home and we get results the next day. I've been testing every other week, and Pix is testing on the alternate weeks, so between the two of us we are never farther out that 7 days on a test. I've also had a worksite that is operating under the filming rules for Covid, so we need to be tested once a week on that site to be able to enter. I think I've had around a dozen tests at this point.

Timelies all!

Gary's mom was talking about Skyping with us for T'Giving, rather than us going to her house, so we'll have to figure out what we're making for ourselves.

That sounds pretty darn safe, ND. Nice.

Agreed, -t.

Sounds sensible, Sheryl.

M and I are about to go for a walk... it's a lovely 64 degrees here.

I don't think I'll ever have a real family Christmas ever again -- my brothers aren't stepping up to host, and my remaining cousin is in St. Louis, so it doesn't seem like I'll have a place to go.

I want Teppy's nun drama as a limited TV series.

The only reason this is possible is that the prospective hosts just moved this summer, so it's not that garage-y yet...

I thought it was you who mentioned it Jesse, but I was too lazy to go back and check.

We've lived here 17 years. It's a 1-car garage under the house and we've never parked the car in it. You can walk through it, but even if we cleaned it out, it would be so grey and grim.

I was going to add we don't have a big table we could use in the garage, but that's a baldfaced lie. It's just that the clean laundry pile has lived on it so long, I'd forgotten it was actually a folding banquet table.

Intellectually I've acknowledged that the family Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings aren't happening this year, but I'm repressing that knowledge on the emotional side, because I run the ragged edge of crying a couple days a week already, and I don't need to add to that.

I'm sorry Atropa. That stinks. I think I cry every day now over something. It's not all sorrow. I'm also angry crier, and an "I'm so touched" crier.

I don't think I'll ever have a real family Christmas ever again -- my brothers aren't stepping up to host, and my remaining cousin is in St. Louis, so it doesn't seem like I'll have a place to go.

Theo, did your brothers start not stepping up this year, or is it a thing that predates the pandemic?

Relatedly, how do you spell the sound you make when you kind of puff out your cheeks and slowly blow all the air out of your body, so you don't cry?

I want to say "phew" but I am not totally happy with that because out of context it looks like a "that's a relief" noise and it isn't exactly that but spelling is ambiguous like that.

Yeah, I tried to sound it out, and came up with "Whew" but it has the same relief connotation, -t. I've been sitting here like a loon, trying to figure it out. I think I'm going with Hhwhew.

Yeah, there is a testing site about 5 minutes from my home and we get results the next day. I've been testing every other week, and Pix is testing on the alternate weeks, so between the two of us we are never farther out that 7 days on a test. I've also had a worksite that is operating under the filming rules for Covid, so we need to be tested once a week on that site to be able to enter. I think I've had around a dozen tests at this point.

Tests have been relatively easy to get in MA, too. That's part of our plan for my oldest son and my mom, depending on what her doc says.

We got them done before we went to Maine in August, but they weren't cheap, and then Maine exempted MA from testing a couple of weeks later. With Covid rates rising almost everywhere, I don't know if they'll remain so easy to get, but MA is a good state for it.

I want Teppy's nun drama as a limited TV series.

It would be much less action filled than Warrior Nun.

Thankfully tests are free in California, and in Los Angeles we are consistently getting results in 24 hours and they guarantee results in 48 hours.