Sort of a bittersweet Thanksgiving thing

 There we are again, at a traditional time of the year for giving thanks. For lots of people 2020 has been a crappy year, one of the crappiest on record. However, for us, given our particular circumstances, it's actually been mostly pretty good.

Why do I say that? The year started awesome with a trip to Nanaimo to visit my buddy Susi, and then spending a month in New Zealand. It's an amazing place, and we had an amazing time, enjoying every minute while wandering 44 different beaches. The weather was beautiful, the people are friendly, the scenery is amazing. I'd go back in a heartbeat. If I could convince them to let us live there full time, I'd probably do it.

We came home on the second last flight before New Zealand closed it's borders. It was surreal walking through a nearly empty Vancouver and Calgary airports. Our 2 week isolation was a snap. We had stuff to catch up on, and I had thousands of photos to edit. 

Many people going through the lockdown were stressed, worried about getting sick themselves, or someone in their family getting sick, worried about their jobs, their kids schooling, keeping up with various payments, the list goes on and on. For us, as retired people (or so I was then) those things are not as important. We did our thing day to day.

I did get lured out of retirement yet again. It's a recurring thing. Maybe I need to get better at saying no. Still, it's been fun, mostly, aside from excel developers getting altogether too cute for their own good, or anyone else's good. There's been lots of swearing at excel, but then again, I'm getting well paid to struggle with it and other stuff. It's a 6 month contract, and hard as it is to believe, I have only 11 weeks to go. 

The kitties had their annual vet visit last week. We've been a bit worried about Curtis. He's been off his food for a little while. This happens with cats sometimes. They get bored with food and don't want to eat it. It's one way of manipulating their humans. That and recreational vomiting. We got a different version of their canned, and he seemed to enjoy the change.

However, we were out for a walk in Fish Creek when we got the lab test results. Curtis has stage 3 (of 4) kidney disease. There is little that can be done about it. We're doing what we can to encourage him to eat and drink, but this road pretty well goes only one way. We got them June 14, 2012, and that time has passed so quickly. We thought we've have them longer. Oh, and Celina needs to get a tooth pulled.

Linda battled the hordes yesterday to get the supplies for Thanksgiving dinner. That was today, and it was amazing as always. Couldn't be beat. Between yesterday and today I've made a point of editing 27 colour glossy photos, though no circles and arrows, and no arial photography. If you don't start singing, and don't get the reference, go here. I first heard that in 1979 or so, and love to play it at Thanksgiving.

All in all, we're doing well, so far so good, and all. Hope you are too.

So today, I think the only photo I want to post is a recent one of Curtis. Enjoy.