Will there be Thanksgiving?

All my Thanksgiving plans are threatening to unravel. Most of my family does not know this yet, but I can already see it happening.

First there are the fleas. Are they gone? I think so but I’m not sure. Lalo-cat has been treated twice. I’ve cleansed, vacuumed, put clothes in the freezer or dryer, sprayed cedar oil, and banned the cat from all upstairs bedrooms. I’ve done as much of that as possible downstairs and draped the living room furniture in sheets, to keep any stray fleas out of the upholstery and reveal telltale creatures.

Every time I think they’re gone I see one, just one, but it sends me on another round of all of the above.

Every time the cat seems flealess I brush him and one or two dead ones fall off. They’re still coming from somewhere. He is banned from the garage when he goes outside, and it’s 30 degrees at night, and still. Every time he goes for a day without scratching and biting I dare to hope—and then, like just now, he sits in front of the woodstove and bites and scratches.

This would not be so touchy if there weren’t babies coming for Thanksgiving. One is a 6-month-old who is learning to crawl. She was here a few weeks ago, the first time I thought I’d eradicated the fleas. We put her on a blanket on the living room floor for 15 minutes and a flea found her pale, warm, fuzzy head. AAARGH. She was here for a few days but got no floor time after that. (And apparently no more fleas, thank God.)

The cat had made himself scarce during her visit. I’m thinking that any fleas would have made the cat first choice if he’d been around, so keeping him penned in the basement is no solution—his treatment makes him a flea-killing machine. But he also apparently sheds some live ones. AAARGH.

But like I say, no visible live fleas for days now. Less scratching. Cold temperatures outside at least. I’m not ready to call off TG because of fleas.

Another problem is that the other baby who is coming, granddaughter Hazel, is low-grade sick. She’s been coughing for three weeks. She and her parents won’t come if the cough isn’t better, not with the other baby, who is our daughter-in-law’s niece and whose parents are in Bloomington, IN, for a few months, in the house for four days. The whole point of this gathering was to get the Ann Arbor family, the Oak Park couple, and the Bloomington family together for a few days for some good times while everybody is temporarily, more or less in the neighborhood--the Midwest.

Scratch that (indeed!) if Hazel is still sick.

Beyond that, there could be a whole layer of tensions around child-rearing and illness-treating philosophy if everybody does come. Suffice it to say that our son is a radiologist and our daughter is way into alternative everything.

But hey. Whatever happens, there will be enough turkey. I had ordered a fresh, organic, free-range turkey from the Amish CSA. Then yesterday my local farmer friend offered me one of her fresh, organic, free-range turkeys in exchange for helping her write a grant proposal. I couldn’t say no to that. So I’ll have an extra turkey to go into the freezer for the next family gathering.

Or maybe two.