Life of Wry

One learns the best things by scrolling through Instagram. I learned today that the John Peterson kids got a new dog! I’m imagining, since Alexis posted it, that the dog lives at the Alexis house, not the John apartment. Complicated these days. But glad they got a dog! Can’t wait to meet him.

Here are Juniper, Magnolia, new dog, River.

Paul brought us some liqueur from the Yucatan. It is good.

Peter’s last day in Davis before heading back to Ann Arbor.. glad it was a champ of a weather day.

We got up early and walked to breakfast with Paul, a nice Thanksgiving tradition. He’s already looking forward to next year’s Thanksgiving dinner with a good percentage of the Peterson clan. Nice. Here we are after returning home, talkin’ domestic politics, media, communism.. as you do.

After Paul left (bound for Eugene), we more or less hung out. Peter absorbing as much home vibe as possible before getting on a plane tonight. Late this afternoon, we mobilized for a final neighborhood loop, this time heading north for a 4-ish mile walk. So nice!!

Some sights along the way:

That new workout structure at the Senior Center. Excited it’s there RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET; I can imagine using quite a number of these things:

I’d not seen this sculpture.. it’s cool. Woman on a beam.. nice to catch it when the sun’s low in the sky. We were also stunned to see an entire row of tennis courts had been removed and in their place construction for a new high school building.

Then saw where the new Cathy Speck (and Mazie) memorial bench was installed. It’s lovely!

Lots and lots of turkeys were out on the greenbelt…

The pond’s amazing right now as they are substantially cutting back the vegetation and aerating it. You can, once again, see the pond! They have a ways to go before the entire perimeter is cleared, but it’s a good start.

And a beautiful full moon rise..

Peter was really digging the warm weather, commenting over and over that if he lived here (or generally in California), he could continue to do stuff outside as the winter comes. He’s quite bummed to be returning to 5 months of cold and grey, though he’s eager to get back to Maya (and his work). He took a few pics like these as we passed through Community Park as evidence to make his case to Maya that living in California is a good thing …

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After dinner (more leftovers!), we took Peter to the airport. Safe travels, honey. See you in a month.

I’m sure I’ve titled a blog post “Exhale” before… it’s that day after a big holiday when the work’s behind you and what remains is the afterglow — the satisfaction of a job well done. Family came, ate, had a good time, enjoyed one another, everyone was duly thankful. Now everyone’s gone (except Peter) and today was quiet, easy time doing mostly nothing but being together. Here, I’ll show you.. I’ll take a pic right now ….

See? Nice moment, ya?

We’re about to head out to dinner at Burma, his choice. Three days of turkey and leftovers is enough (I had pie for breakfast). In fact, here’s that pie…

So we needed a change o’ pace.

Earlier in the day, Peter went off to play golf (with Dylan and Sebastian) and Jim and I figured out how to watch the last quarter of the Michigan-Ohio State game (Fubo comes to the rescue)… which was extremely exciting. UMich was on top, but it was close (24-17). We saw each team score (Ohio scored a touchdown, and UM scored two field goals) and the game grew even closer and we grew increasingly nervous. This is hilarious of course, because we are not football people, but, honestly, within seconds of tuning in we were devoted, highly-invested fans and totally chewing our nails when Ohio got the ball with a minute left (a touchdown would have tied the game and, based on the power and efficiency of the Buckeye’s last drive, that looked like a real possibility) and we were so stressed out! When UM intercepted a pass in the final minute, effectively bringing Ohio’s threat to an end, we — and the 110,000+ people in the stands — went nuts. How goofy are we?

Final score Michigan 30, Ohio State 24.

Here’s a pic of the madness (happy Wolverines pouring onto the field after the game)….

THAT is a Big House.

I think, even as a non-football fan kid, I knew about the Michigan – Ohio State rivalry. It’s a fact of American life. It’s fun to have a dog in this fight. Sorta.

Another nice thing on a do-nothing day with my favorite people: Peter and I went for a long walk around the arb… very pretty and pretty chilly.

Four and a half miles of fall colors and great conversation…. def my happy place. See?

The day after Thanksgiving, we get Matt, Chris and Pam for one more day. Pam actually went to visit her dad’s cousin in Sacramento, Chris chilled for a good portion of the day, Peter went to breakfast with Ray and Dylan… then hung out with us elders for awhile..

Matt and I took a nice walk…

Everyone’s favorite ginkgo was in fine yellow form..

Eventually Chris and Pam made it over..

And we all had a big leftover dinner..

Then went downtown to see Napoleon. I enjoyed the movie a lot, critiques seem less impressed.

Some Thanksgiving Day highlights.

The John Frames dropped by around 2:00 and hung out for about an hour. John, Maita and Dean had driven up from Arcadia in the morning (and had lunch in Davis before coming over!), picked up Matthew, and were on their way to Oakland to join the Dean Frame kids (minus Mark) at Monica and Dror’s. Nice to see them!

Pam handled all the appetizers. She’s fast in the kitchen, churning out lots of dishes, one right after the other. Impressive. She made a pizza dip, an artichoke dip, a goat cheese dish and some deviled eggs:

Me in the kitchen, with a visitor:

Matt and Janet… (she seems a bit uncomfortable).

Peter and Walter..

Janet and Pam..

Chris and Pam…

Matt making gravy..

All of us just before dinner (Janet’s taking the pic)…

Serving it up! Turkey breast that Jim made (excellent, will take it out sooner next time), Honeybaked ham, dressing (I made, but didn’t turn out); mashed potatoes (Matt, solid!), sweet potatoes (Pam, very tasty); ambrosia (Pam again); Harvard beets (me, only Petersons eat them); cranberry sauce (me again, the usual); green beans (me, ready for a new version, less tart); Upper Crust bread (fantastic).

Eating took about 5 minutes. Ha.. not really, but seemingly so. Days of prep, days of cooking.. consumed in a fraction of that! LOL.

Then came dessert… Jim’s whipped cream, my pecan pie and a giant pumpkin and dutch apple that Janet brought..

And we finished with Balderdash.. somewhat of a tradition at this point and quite hilarious as usual. This pic doesn’t capture the hilarity, but it’s what I have. And funnily, Matt actually won in a rout.

And, as usual, a full, rich day.

I am not doing a very good job of moment-capturing these days. We’ve had a houseful of family.. but, damn, not much in the way of photos today.

Baked a cake for Chris’s birthday (our current standby: the Ritz Carlton’s lemon poundcake), baked a pecan pie, did a bunch of prep for some cooking tomorrow, took the gang to dinner tonight and scored respectably well in the Sudwerk pub quiz, came back for cake and ice cream, then ended the night with a call to Jay in Thailand.

At least a couple of pics.. the birthday celebration:

Cool that Matthew Frame could join us. Sure he’ll have stories for his parents about the raucous evening with the Petersons.

And a screen shot of the call with Jay:

Re: that call… it was a near disaster, averted by the skin of our teeth. We’d forgotten that I’d set up the zoom for 10pm and Chris/Pam and Matt had all returned to their hotels. I’d just sat down to clear out some emails before dragging myself to bed and noticed Jay’s, asking if he’d missed the call or messed up on the time calculation. I freaked, texted C and M, launched the call, emailed Jay back, resent zoom links, and w/in about 5 minutes we were all online (minus Matt). Whew. Jay sounded good! He’s got a busy life, seems engaged, fulfilled, happy… himself.

Here’s a slightly better Hollywood square of Jay:

Good ol’ Jay.

Been singing that all day.. for obvious reasons…

I’ll say this about that: it IS nice to have an herb garden. But I will also say… thyme is tedious to work with and I’m not sure it’s worth it. (Maybe I’m missing the trick.)

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In other news, Peter’s home. Could not be happier.

I’m not really this far ahead.

Well.. actually, maybe I am!

For years, I’ve squirreled away gifts. I usually forget I have them.. and then go out and buy a whole new bunch of things.. which sorta defeats the purpose, right? A couple days ago, I thought I’d check the stash and actually found ten items that would work for folks on our list this year. Matt, since he’s driving up for Thanksgiving (arrives tomorrow!) can haul most of them back down to Southern California and save us some shipping costs. Win win. It’s not all of them (darn.. that’d have been fun to be done with all the So Cal gifts before Thanksgiving), but it’s a good chunk. I’m satisfied with that!

Yay us.

Ten presents. Eight of them are books.

It’s the calm before the storm, and today was about yard clean up (thanks, Mary), getting recipes out, making shopping lists, cleaning out the icebox and pantries.. making room for supplies and leftovers. Tomorrow starts a bit of prep cooking, getting ready for folks to arrive starting Tuesday. It’s looking like a week of clear, sunny skies, mostly, and mild temps.

How about a peaceful, pre-onslaught kinda pic…this was taken on Oct 27, early in the morning on a walk down at Putah Creek.