Pandemic, Week 37 (Thanksgiving)

This week Trump pardoned turkeys Corn and Cob, as well as his former national security advisor, General Michael Flynn, who had previously pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Michigan certified their election results. The GSA finally acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden's win and allowed the formal transition process to begin. Biden announced his national security team, including Anthony Blinken for Secretary of State, Alejandro Mayorkas for Secretary of Homeland Security, Avril Haines for National Intelligence Director, Jake Sullivan for National Security Advisor, Linda Thomas-Greenfield for U.N. Ambassador, and John Kerry for Presidential Envoy for Climate. Iran's top nuclear scientist was killed in an ambush outside of Tehran. Eric Clapton and Van Morrison have teamed up to record an anti-lockdown song. A 10-foot metal monolith was found in the Utah desert.

The world hit 62.6 million cases of COVID-19 and 1.5 million deaths this week while the U.S. reached 13.5 million cases and 272,000 deaths. The University of Oxford's released news of its COVID vaccine, who's 70 percent average effective rate was lower than both Pfizer and Moderna, but also unlike them is stable at refrigerator temperatures, and doesn't need to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius.

We continued our visit with Grandpa and Grandma Z, eschewing everyone else as the COVID rate in Iowa got even more intense. The kids attended school, we worked and Grandma Z started prepping for a scaled down Thanksgiving – which in Zimmerman terms means just two pies (one of which was very tired), four dozen rolls, and only a twelve pound turkey (without the side of ham). There was snow, and puzzling and even an afternoon walk through mud in order to see the Buda close up. The day itself included a lovely walk at the pond, a delicious meal, turkey cookie painting, and a post-dinner "Zoomerman" (complete with a performance of Simple Gifts by Owen and Nora). The festivities were immediately followed by Allen and I furiously packing everything so that we could leave at 5:30 am the next morning to pick up Grandpa Fawcett – because nothing says, "Happy Birthday, Grandpa" like a 14-hour drive back to DC.

The drive itself was uneventful and we arrived in DC around 8:30 pm Friday night. We quickly crashed and then spent the next day unpacking, doing laundry, and looking into scheduling COVID tests...

(To see all of this week's pictures, click here.)