This was, without a doubt, the most unusual Thanksgiving I’ve ever experienced. Because of the pandemic, our dining room remained empty and chilly, with no table settings and no extra chairs for the dozen or more folks who usually gather. Christmas decorations were around, though, which is at least two weeks earlier than we’ve ever put them on display before. The dozen folks (sometimes it’s been over 20!) were reduced to just my husband and me.

               It was a sunny day, here, and brisk and we enjoyed a couple of walks in the woods with our dogs. We played MarioKart and had a celebratory and thankful glass of wine. We carved up the humungous turkey, served the potatoes and gravy (and all the sides) and enjoyed a large feast. Just the two of us, watching an episode of Schitt$ Creek on Netflix.

               Then, we loaded up two sectioned platters with the array of Thanksgiving food, added side containers of cranberry sauce and gravy and pumpkin custard, and wrapped them all in foil. We gloved and masked ourselves for battle, then delivered one set to our son’s porch. The other set went to a friend of ours, who was in her home with her little 3-month old. We set her goodies on her back steps.

               Both my son and our friend were quarantined with the virus. They have since recovered well, and the baby is fine. We are also fine, having spent 15 days in isolation (except for those trips, of course).

               Yes, definitely the strangest Thanksgiving ever for us. Yet not as strange as folks who spent them in war-torn countries, away from family and friends and without pumpkin pie. Not as strange as astronauts who are adrift in the universe, enjoying Tang and packets of dried ice cream.  Not as strange as the thousands who had to work in hospitals and nursing homes, away from their families, watching people struggle with illness and holding hands of those who died. And certainly not as strange as those who were patients there, some of whom are not alive on the planet today.

               So I spent that unique Thanksgiving praising God and the heavens that my family was all still on the planet. I’m grateful for the loved ones who texted, emailed or called us on Thanksgiving to check in and let us know they were okay and still loved us. I’m blessed with food to share, with gas for the car to deliver dinners, and with all my parts still working well enough to cook, drive, read, and enjoy walks. I’m honored and appreciative of the folks who continue to provide necessary services in the face of risk to themselves – nurses, doctors, therapists, grocery store employees, police, firefighters, and so many others. I’m so thankful that we are smart enough to take the measures necessary to survive and beat this invisible enemy that has already claimed far too many lives.

               I’m thankful for masks, too. We all wear a mask, anyway. We put on happy faces when we’re sad, we don’t share our innermost thoughts if they would hurt, we act like we’re fine when we’re not, we wear makeup and dye our hair to conceal…so this one is just one more. The difference is this mask – the one we wear to protect ourselves and others from COVID-19 – this mask can save lives.

               I’m thankful we have the opportunity to wear them.

During the week of Thanksgiving, I became convinced that my dog is smarter than I am. At least, he seems to grasp the concept of generalizing skills faster than I do.

               We rescued this amazing guy about 12 years ago. He is a 100-pound, black Lab –Great Dane mix. The vet who found him as an injured stray named him “Forest,” and Forest has been a central part of our family ever since we first saw him.

               We brought him home on December 27 and immediately enrolled him in obedience school. About that same time, I began to learn how to use Facebook, Twitter, and set up work files on the computer our son built for me.

               While Forest was learning to sit, stay, come, and lay down, I was learning – or trying to learn – how to wait for the computer to process. Our son would patiently give me instructions, saying, “Just click once,” while my little nervous fingers clicked frantically on the space bar or the mouse. No matter how many times he repeated the instruction to click once, and pointed out the little circle indicating that the computer was processing, I would forget and automatically click another time or ten.

               Meanwhile, Forest was moving from commands to fancy tricks without forgetting anything. It wasn’t long before he didn’t even need treats to perform!  He’d do what we said just to hear us call him a handsome boy or say “good dog.”

               Years passed and I eventually learned not to be an incessant clicker on the computer, although I do forget occasionally. Forest learned some really cool tricks in those years. He learned to roll over on his back and pump his four legs when we said, “bicycle!”  He learned to play a version of hide and seek called “where are you?” And he learned to ring a bell that hung from our back doorknob whenever he needed to go out. This was important, because before that trick, he’d just quietly go near the door and lay down. He wouldn’t bark, whine or make any noise and sometimes it took us a while to realize he was by the door!  So teaching him to ring the bell made it quicker for us to respond to his needs.

               About the time he learned to ring the bell (and by the way, he managed to teach the cat to do this as well), we were purchasing a new television. Our new television not only showed us the cable channels, but also has the ability to hook into Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and a number of other things that I have never heard of before.  I was so excited to watch Netflix the first time. After we set up the TV, I immediately scrolled over to the Netflix icon and began clicking. No matter how many times I clicked, it seemed to only bring up the choices at a set rate.  Clearly, my skills still need a lot of development and generalization.

               That night, we ate dinner very late due to our shopping trip and television install. Forest is used to eating about the time we eat and we hadn’t put any food in his bowl. We were eating and laughing and taking our good old time and apparently Forest was hungry. He went to the door and rang the bell. When my husband got up to let him out, he ran back to the table, lay down, and looked up at our plates. Matt shrugged and came back to the table.

               Forest went back to the door, rang the bell, and then returned to the floor near us. He looked sorrowful and that’s when we realized – he was ringing the bell to get us to feed him.

               So. It appears my dog is smarter than me. Than I. Whatever.

I’ve often heard the expression “no good deed goes unpunished,” but never really understood it. How do good deeds actually get punished?  I’ve had a lot of people do very nice things for me over the years, and I never knew any of them to get punished for it.

               This week I found out firsthand what the expression is all about.   

               It all began because I married a morning person.  Morning people are great, and obviously I love one in particular very much. I think it’s wonderful that he wakes up without the aid of an alarm clock and in a good humor. I really admire this. The only problem is that I am not a morning person. I am a night owl. So when he’s ready for bed (about an hour after he’s been snoozing in his recliner) at 9:30, I’m ready for a game of scrabble.  Conversely, when he hops out of bed and whispers a cheery, “good morning,” I merely roll over and bury my head under the pillow.

               After several decades of marriage, we’ve fine-tuned this small difference in our biorhythms so that it actually helps both of us. In the early morning, he gets up and watches the news and works out. Both of these are activities I loathe and so he gets them out of the way without me having to be involved in any way. After he retires for the night, I watch a Hallmark movie or two that have been recorded. Since he thinks these are the least interesting movies in the world, I get them out of our queue without forcing him to nap through, I mean watch, them.

               Each of us takes some care to be quiet when the other is asleep. Last week, I noticed that the bathroom door next to our bedroom have hinges that squeak very loudly. I noticed it because it was midnight when I opened the door and created this awful noise while hubby was several feet away, sleeping.

               The next day, I used the WD40 to oil those pesky hinges. The door moved back and forth soundlessly and I felt pretty good about my good deed.

               Fast forward to that evening. We were getting ready for bed (because I always put on my jammies when he does – again so as to be quiet as a little mouse when I do climb into bed). He was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and I came in to get my cold cream. I hugged him around the waist and he jumped, exclaiming, “Gosh, your hands are cold!”  I followed that up in the way of any good wife, and immediately put my hands on his back and then on his tummy. He turned around, toothbrush in mouth, and tried to reach to tickle me.

               This went on for a few exchanges until I realized that he is much bigger and stronger than I, so I turned and began to race out of the bathroom.

               This is when I discovered that by oiling the hinges, I had created an easily-moving door. It moved so easily that when you opened it, it gradually began to swing shut. I discovered this when my forehead smacked into the edge of the door very hard.

               Ouch. I had a red mark (now a bruise) and a tiny little knot. My husband immediately grabbed me and held me tight and asked if I was okay. Of course, I’m totally okay physically. Even better, now I fully understand the meaning of “no good deed goes unpunished.” 

               I should have just let the squeaky door alone.

I had an incident with my card table this week that brought back a whoosh of memories. I was taking down the table to vacuum and one of the legs pinched the pad of my palm. It pinched it so quickly and so hard, that an immediate bruise popped up. Plus, it broke the skin, so it started to bleed.

               I put some ice in a napkin and held it on there and soon it felt better. The napkin also soaked up the dots of blood. After a while, I felt good enough to go about my business.  I finished putting away the card table and decided it was a good time to take a shower.

               I was innocently beginning to wash my hair when the shampoo got onto my palm. It stung a bit and I decided when I got dried, I would borrow my husband’s instant-skin product. Since he’s so handy around the house – fixing, painting, gardening, and building – he frequently comes into the bathroom and brushes on this little liquid to a cut or scrape on his fingers, arms, or legs. It seems to work quite well.

               So I took the little brush from the bottle and plopped it onto the little gouge of my own. YIKES! Immediately a jolt of agony ran from my hand to my brain!  It felt like I’d jabbed an ice pick into my hand!  I screamed and ran outside to confront my husband. Why had he never even blinked an eye when he used this stuff?  He smiled at me and said, “Oh, yeah, that stuff hurts,” and went on tinkering with the lawn mower.

               As I walked back into the house, my mind flooded with memories of childhood scrapes and bumps. My own mother used a couple of different products on these kinds of injuries. The first one was merthiolate (which we pronounced “ma-thy-o-laid”). In October 1929, Eli Lilly and Company developed and registered thimerosal under the trade name Merthiolate.  Merthiolate was used to kill bacteria and prevent contamination in antiseptic ointments, cremes, jellies, and sprays used by consumers and in hospitals. It also hurt like the devil when applied to any open wound.  As it turns out, it contained mercury, which can be harmful to humans if left on the skin too long. So in the late 1990’s, the product was banned. You can see what the little bottle looked like, below.

The second product my mom used was mercurochrome. This little bottle, seen below, was also a staple in our medicine cabinet.    Mercurochrome is a trade name for merbromin, which was the first antiseptic to contain mercury. The medicinal uses for this chemical were first recognized by Hugh H. Young in 1918, a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was also used to treat scrapes and cuts and it should come as no surprise that it stung   Even though Mercurochrome had just a small amount of mercury, mercury poisoning was a consideration. Ultimately, in 1998 the FDA forbade the sale of Mercurochrome across state lines, which effectively killed the product.

My husband’s family didn’t use either of the above products. He tells me his grandmother had a great love of something called Absorbine Jr.  He claims that even if he cut off a toe, he would not go to grandma’s house, because she’d whip out the Absorbine and dab it on – and the pain was more than any cut he ever had.

Absorbine was originally created in 1892 by Wilbur F. Young and his wife, Mary Ida, to relieve the muscle pain of their hardworking horses that pulled heavy cargo. The popularity of the formula grew among farmers, who soon realized it quickly relieved their own aches and pains, too.  This medication is used to treat minor aches and pains of the muscles/joints, so it’s somewhat a mystery why Grandma put it on scrapes, but those were the good old days.  In 2013, Absorbine Jr. was discontinued, though we might still be able to get generic products that have the same ingredients. 

My guess?  These are the ingredients in that stuff I used on my hand wound. Because it really hurt more than the pinch in the first place!