Thanksgiving, with guests

We hosted thanksgiving this year, and we even had in-person guests. I think it was the first time we've had non-family people in the house for an extended period of time. (We've had some people come in for service calls, and our house cleaners have been coming, but we hadn't had guests for a meal or anything like that.) My parents came, but also a few of my wife's colleagues who had no family in the area.

We took a lot of precautions - everyone had been vaccinated and boosted, and everyone took a covid test beforehand, so it felt like the risk was pretty low. The kids haven't had their second shots yet, but we felt that with one shot under their belts, and with negative tests from everyone else it was probably ok.

It was also the first time I've done any meaningful cooking since my knee replacement. It was a little tough standing for so long, but I managed ok. My knee is still sore and sometimes stiff, but it is getting better every day.

Anyway it was really nice. It was very weird having so many unmasked people in the house, but at the same time it felt oddly normal. I had really missed being able to host celebrations like this.

Sadly it feels like it may have been the eye of the hurricane. We've started hearing about the omicron variant, which sounds ominous both in name (it sounds like an evil transformer or something like that) and in reality (might evade vaccines, as transmissible as delta...) and although known cases of omicron are pretty low at the moment, it feels like a major, scary, surge is probably imminent.