The Thanksgiving cactus Aaron’s grandmother gave me over 20 years ago tends to bloom at odd times. This year, it’s actually in full bloom on Thanksgiving Day. These sparrows are thankful that I haven’t gotten around to stowing the birdbath yet. We usually do Thanksgiving out at a buffet, but not this year.We usually have my Mom and Aaron’s brother over, too, but not this year. This year, it was just the three of us.
I tried something new and prepared the turkey sous vide, which made for THE most flavorful and moist turkey I’ve ever eaten. Outside of the candied sweet potatoes, though, everything else was store-bought: the Meijer cranberry relish, the Stove Top stuffing, the King’s Hawaiian rolls, even the Meijer pumpkin pie.
The rest of the day was pretty chill. The guys played Dave Mirra on Dreamcast while I sewed Connor a new pair of pajama pants, we had Thanksgiving leftovers for dinner, and we called my Mom to wish her a Happy Thanksgiving.
As with so many other things this year, it was different, we dealt with it the best we could, and it actually didn’t turn out so bad.
Last night, I slept with my hair in braids for the first time in years.
This morning, my new hairdo made me feel so retro-cute that I even did my makeup.
Shout-out to Rachel Maksy, one of my new favorite vintage sewing YouTubers, for the inspiration to try something different.
Also? The red hair and bolder lip makes me look even more like my late Memaw. Although, since I’m not a natural redhead, I don’t have to draw my eyebrows on like she did. 🙂
Being a non-religious sort, and not having many local family members to gather together, we rarely do anything special for Easter Sunday. We decorate eggs, and the Easter Bunny shows up and leaves Connor some sort of something, but this socially-distanced Easter wasn’t much different from other years, except that we didn’t go out to lunch with my brother-in-law.
Connor and I decorated some eggs on Saturday. He was proud of his basketball egg, and was aghast when he learned that the decorated eggs get eaten eventually, just like normal hard-boiled eggs. Contemplating getting some non-edible craft eggs for decorating next year.
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When Connor saw this photo on my phone after the fact, I had to admit that I had snuck downstairs after the Easter Bunny came so that I could snap a picture.
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Connor has been wanting Metroid Prime for a Very Long Time; now that he has it and has gotten used to the first-person thing, his favorite part is the multiplayer Deathmatch.
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One of Connor’s other favorite video game franchises is Kirby. He’s been drawing likenesses of the round pink title character since he was in preschool. So, he was pretty stoked about this Waddle-Dee character from the Kirby games in a super-soft bunny costume.
Connor seemed genuinely impressed and surprised that I knew enough Japanese to read part of Waddle-Dee’s tag. I got through “a-ni-ma-ru” before I threw in the towel and fired up Google Translate:
Those who can read katakana will note (as I did) that it actually says “wa-do-ru-ji” and not “wa-di-ji” as Google seems to think. Honestly, though, that’s pretty darn close, and I wish we’d had this kind of real-time almost-translation when we visited Tokyo over a decade ago.
As Easters go, this one may end up being more memorable than most, just because of the circumstances surrounding it. Connor certainly enjoyed his presents from the Easter Bunny, and has been enjoying his jellybeans and robin’s eggs and peanut butter eggs (and still has some left!), and that’s really what matters to us.
I first met Aaron’s cousin Caitlin at Christmas in 2002, before Aaron and I were married. We were all milling around the door, saying our goodbyes, when she decided to try on my Converse and walk around in them, clown-shoe-style.
