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A Christmas Cookout? Eh, Why Not?

12/27/2024

Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"   http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
   "Hail Mary"    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
"Tropical Depression"       https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

A Christmas Cookout? Eh, Why Not?

I had the holiday schedule mostly planned out:
On Christmas Eve we'd set up luminaries on our block as we do every Christmas Eve, then afterwards our in-town children would come over for dinner.
And then a few days after Christmas our out-of-town family would come for a visit, some staying for a few days, some for a week, which would be filled with the celebratory feasting, and for which I'd been food shopping, food prepping, and baking for the past week and a half.
But on Christmas day it would be just Tom and I, home alone, and I was at a loss as to what to do about Christmas dinner. Cook up something fancy for the two of us? Go out for dinner at the Iron Chef, a local Japanese steak house that's always open on Christmas? Or forgo the whole Christmas Dinner concept altogether this year and just sling up some leftover hash from whatever was hanging around in the refrigerator?
I asked my mate for his input on my what-to-do-or-not-do-about-Christmas-dinner dilemma.
"How about if I cook up some burgers on the grill?" he said.
"A cookout on Christmas?" I gave it a moment's thought then said, "Sure, why not?"
Actually, a grilled burger served up with some coleslaw and fries did sound pretty good. Not to mention simple, a little oasis in the midst of the storm of all the food preparation, but kind special all the same, since we don't normally grill out on our old, old-school grill in the middle of winter.

And so my Christmas-dinner-for-two dilemma was solved, and a Christmas Day cookout it would be.
On Christmas Eve morning I lit my bayberry candle, as I do every Christmas Eve, following the directive of my mother, who was taught by her mother that:
"On Christmas Eve,
A bayberry candle burned down to the socket
Brings health to the body and wealth to the pocket."

Then at sunset Tom, Theresa, and I set up our neighborhood luminaries.

Later Tommy and Emily came over for pasta primavera, green beans almondine, salad and hot rolls,

...and for dessert a fruit salad and a Kroger's Christmas Tree cookie .

On Christmas morning I woke up all anxious to try out my Christmas present, a Cuisinart deluxe waffle-maker.

That I gave to myself. So that I could make waffles. Which I did. They were great.

As it turned out, Theresa ended up spending Christmas with us after all, which was nice, because there were now three of us for our Christmas cookout, which we all enjoyed.

"These burgers taste so good," said my daughter. "From now on we should always do a cookout on Christmas."
Tom, our burger griller replied, "Just as long as it's not too cold outside, guys."

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The Agony And The Ecstasy Of The Christmas Arch

12/25/2024

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The Agony And The Ecstasy Of The Christmas Arch

It had been two years since my hubby Tom and I last erected our Christmas arch over the sidewalk between our yard and the tree lawn.
I had gotten the idea of putting up a Christmas arch back in 2021 from an arch I spotted a couple of neighborhoods over,

...whose creator was kind enough to share with me his design and construction details so that we could build a variation of his on our block, which, with the help of our son Tommy and daughter Theresa, we did (see post from 12/15/2021, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/my-christmas-arch),

...and subsequently added to it a ball of mistletoe, turning it into a kissing arch.

(The idea of adding the mistletoe was in fact suggested to me by my friend Jan, who, so suddenly, so sadly, left this world for what lies beyond just the week before Christmas. (See post from 12/17/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/good-bye-dear-friend).

The Christmas Kissing Arch was a grand success and greatly enjoyed by our neighbors and other passersby, and so we constructed it again the following year, but didn't the year after, since at that time I was down with COVID.
This year, however, we were ready to put up the arch again. And so on Saturday, December 7, we once more gathered our arch construction crew, Tommy and Theresa, here fueling up before the job,

...along with a friend of Theresa's who showed up later to help and who was a great asset to the project.
After lunch we got to work, and were soon enough reminded of what we'd forgotten: That putting up the frame is a walk in the park,

...but getting the lights up is a headache and a half. In times past, and this time as well, we wrapped the lights around the ribs of the frame and secured them with zip ties. The problem has always arisen from trying to figure out at where and how to connect the strands.

It's kind of a mathematical conundrum that takes hours to solve and effectuate.
However, after the four of us had worked all afternoon and into the evening we finally got the arch together, complete with the kissing ball (except for a few candy canes that we simply couldn't seem to configure in but decided to maybe come back to later).

The day after we got the arch up, Sunday, December 8, Tom and I left for Chicago for a few days (See post from 12/23/2024, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/seeing-the-chicago-christmas-sights-mostly-on-foot). When we arrived home on Thursday, December 12, we saw to our horror that half of the arch lights were out, but not in any discernable pattern. We spent a dejected moment pow-wowing over whether, considering how much time and effort we'd put into it, we should live with a randomly half-lit Christmas arch.
We came to a pretty quick conclusion that a half-lit arch was a half-a**ed arch, and the light situation would have to be rectified, Herculean task that this might be.
And, as it turned out, was. Tom went out the following morning and began fiddling with the light strands. Three hours later he returned to the house a beaten man. He could not, for the life of him, figure out which were the bad strands or the rogue connections. From which again rose the dilemma: leave up the sorry-looking arch or put it and us out of its and our misery.
We were on the verge of choosing the latter option when I was suddenly hit with a bolt of inspiration. I remembered the towering arch we'd seen at the Chicago Botanic Garden light show the week before, and how I'd noted that the lights on this arch were draped over the top rib, and what a nice effect was created by the draping.

I suggested that we take down all the lights from our arch, test each strand, then try draping each strand over the top rib rather than wrapping the strands around all the ribs. And so we each pulled in a deep breath, girded out figurative loins, and decided to give this idea a last-ditch try.

We got to work, Tom, Theresa and I, snipping the zip ties then taking down and testing each light strand.

All that snipping, unwinding and testing took the rest of the day.
The following day we set to draping the lights, securing them to the ribs and also to the candy canes - which I had to run out to Home Depot and buy more of - for stability, and which also offered us more connecting plugs.

We likewise added two horizontal rows of lights.

How did this new method work out?
Beautifully. Draping the lights was exponentially easier, faster, and less complicated than wrapping them.

And the outcome was oh, such a joyous one.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

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Seeing The Chicago Christmas Sights, Mostly On Foot

12/23/2024

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Seeing The Chicago Christmas Sights, Mostly On Foot

...Continued from previous post:
The following morning, Monday, December 9, Claire again biked to our hotel, the Aloft (see previous post), as she would do each morning during our visit.

Our plan for the day was to visit the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, but first on the agenda was breakfast.
To this end we walked a mile (which is not all that far when you're taking in the city sights along the way),

...to a cute little place called the Kanela Breakfast Club.

...where the staff is nice, the food is yummy,

...and the coffee cups match the sculpture in front of the restaurant.

And the view is nice, too, if, like me, you're into cityscapes.

After breakfast we walked another mile or so across downtown,

...to the other side of the Chicago River, where we caught the bus to the South Side of town, where the Museum is located.

The Museum of Science and Industry.

...which, luckily for us, did not charge retired military. So Tom and I were able to enter the museum free with our military I.D.'s.

The museum was full of engaging exhibits,

...beautiful holiday displays,

...and legions of school kids.

The following day, Tuesday, after we met up with Claire in our hotel lobby,

...we walked a couple of short blocks to another of our favorite Chicago breakfast spots, the Yolk.

...where the eggs and potatoes are well worth the walk.

...as are the light, fluffy pancakes.

After breakfast we strolled the Loop,

...then we headed over to Daley plaza,

...to the Christkindlmarket, Chicago's German holiday market,

...where one can find all sorts of beautiful items,

...as well as all sorts of yummy food and drink.

We went into one of the tents to warm up and have a hot drink.

Tom had a cup of gluhwein - hot spiced wine - and I had a hot spiced cider.

We then took the train back to Claire's neighborhood,

...and we relaxed for a while at the house with the kitties.

Later in the afternoon Claire and Miguel rented a Zip car and we drove out to the the suburb of Glencoe to the Chicago Botanic Garden to see Lightscape, the enchanting holiday light and music show set amidst the Garden's flora and fauna.

After Lightscapes I requested that for dinner we return to a restaurant in that area that we'd gone to last year, a Middle Eastern place called Libanais, where the food had been out of this world.

The food was as good as we'd remembered it.
We had among us hummus,

...vegetarian Stuffed Grape leaves,

...vegetarian and shawarma wraps enveloped in a light, crunchy pita,

...and the hottest, crispiest, tastiest fries.

Claire ordered tea, which was served in a beatiful tea set.

And then there are the spectacular Libanais desserts.

I would, however, take exception to a special Arab dessert I tried last year when we were there called Kanafa, a cheesy item the taste of which I could not at all abide. (See post from 12/20/2023, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/a-visit-to-the-chicago-botanic-garden-a-cheesy-dessert-then-back-home-for-a-surprise .

However this time I chose more wisely, and went with the delicious carrot cake, which had a firm fondant icing and a cream filling on the inside.

Tom, meanwhile, had the pear tart,

...and Claire tired a couple of little pastries.

There was also a display of beautiful trays of sweets, which one of the staff told me were Turkish,

...which inspired me to buy a tray of Turkish Delight to bring back to Columbus for a Turkish friend of mine.

The next day, Wednesday, was Tom's and my last day in Chicago, and I had a yen to return to the Christkindlmarket.
However, Claire suggested that we first have breakfast at a new place she'd heard of called Sunny Side Up which was about a 15-minute walk from our hotel.

The Sunny Side Up was in what appeared to be an old house,

...charmingly repurposed into a restaurant,

...where the food was yummy.

After breakfast we set out for the Christkindlmarket which, according to Claire's Google Maps, was a 33-minute walk. After about 15 minutes Claire came to the realization that we'd been walking in the wrong direction. So we had to do an about-face, walk 15 minutes back to our starting point, and restart our 33 minute walk in the opposite direction.
But it was a nice walk all the same, and we definitely got all our steps in.

Finally we reached the Christkindlmarket, which was as crowded, lively, and cheery as the day before.

Then we returned to Claire's house.
When dinner time rolled around we walked to a nearby Cuban restaurant.

...with a cute interior,

...and the Cubano sandwiches and fries were good,

...but the service definitely left something to be desired - in filling their carryout-orders, the staff lagged in serving the restaurant customers.
Early the following morning, Thursday, December 12, Tom and I were on our way to catch the bus to the train to O'Hare,

...and soon after we were on our way home.

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Feeling The Chicago Christmas Vibe

12/22/2024

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Feeling The Chicago Christmas Vibe

On Tuesday, December 3, Tom and I arrived home from a two-week trip to California for my sister's wedding. (see post from 12/13/2024).
On Sunday, December 8 we were back among the crowd of Sunday morning travelers at the Columbus airport,

...and soon on our way to Chicago for our Christmas visit with our daughter Claire and son-in-law Miguel.

We love to visit Chicago at Christmas time. With the twinkling lights and the chilly weather and the streets filled with people, Chicago does have a wonderful Christmas vibe.

When we arrived at O'Hare we made our way through the terminal,

...to the train station where we caught the Blue Line train to the city.

We got off at the California stop near Logan Square,

...from where we walked to the nearby Cozy Corner, a popular neighborhood eatery,

...where we met Claire, who had biked over from her house.

Claire is one half of The Biking Vikings - my nickname for her and Miguel,

...as they don't own a car, bike to work and almost everywhere else they go, and every July they bike 500 miles across the mountains of Iowa (who knew Iowa has mountains?)

Fortunately we arrived at the Cozy Corner in the nick of time - around 9:30 am - so that the place was only medium busy (by am10 the waiting line would fill the counter area),

...and we were able to get a booth right away. (We made a note to ourselves never to arrive at the Cozy Corner later than 9:30 am on a weekend).

After breakfast we walked through the Logan Square neighborhood,

...until we arrived at Claire and Miguel's house.

...a cozy place which they share with their three kitties, Rosie, Siri, and Frank.

After Tom and I dropped off our luggage we went out again with Claire to get some groceries. We walked through the neighborhood,

...passing on our way the Block-Bock Club,

...the charming neighborhood chicken coop which matches the house of its owners, who sell the eggs,

...and we also passed the circus school,

...where, apparently, one can learn the circus arts.
We caught a bus,

...our destination being a supermarket called Mariano's. On our walk from our bus stop to Mariano's we passed the Chicago Actor Studio.

I don't know if this place is renowned or important in any way, but it looked kind of exciting,
Mariano's, as it turned out, was quite splendid architecturally,

...for a Kroger's affiliate supermarket, that is. And it had some nice lighting on the inside, too.

After we made our purchases we walked back to the bus stop,

...and caught a bus back to Claire's neighborhood.

Tom and I then collected our luggage and Ubered to the Loop, as downtown Chicago is known,

...to our go-to Chicago hotel, the Aloft off Michigan Avenue.

...where the rooms are basic, but cute and spotlessly clean.

Our view from the 14th floor.

Alas, gone was the little R2D2-esque service robot that used to tool around the hotel lobby communicating via its face screen,

...its only remains being its former charging station.

I can't say I was terrifically sad over this. That little automaton did used to kind of give me the creeps.
A few hours later, when the lobby was lit-up and festive-looking,

...Claire and Miguel, who'd biked the six miles from Logan Square to the Loop, met us there in the lobby, from where we walked along Michigan Avenue,

...until we arrived at Labriola, an Italian restaurant off Michigan Avenue that we'd tried and liked during our last visit.

Though we all agreed that my margherita pizza ( which I shared with the others as it was too big for me to polish off on my own) was very good,

...the others didn't like their pasta dishes quite as well as they had on our last visit.

After dinner while walking back towards our hotel we came upon an interesting-looking Italian market and eatery called Eataly,

...where people appeared to be eating delicious-looking pastries,

...so we decided to join them, even after we saw that the pastries were a tad - well, more than a tad - on the pricey side.

But then, they were sooo good.

There were also bins of colorfully wrapped candies,

...and we were having such a nice evening that I wanted to make it last a little longer, so I picked out a piece of chocolate candy for each of us to round out our dessert.
It wasn't until I arrived at the check-out counter with my four pieces of candy that I saw the sign that the candy was (gulp) $55.60 per pound!
While the cashier rang me up I silently prayed to the candy gods that those four little pieces of hazelnut chocolate weren't too heavy. Fortunately they weren't.

Still, I don't know who buys all that $55.60-a-pound candy. (Well, besides me).
After our high-class and high-priced desserts we strolled down Michigan Avenue for a bit, I, for one, feeling that magical Chicago Christmas vibe.

To be continued...

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Good-Bye, Dear Friend

12/17/2024

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Yesterday my friend Jan Wolanin Alexander died.
Jan and I met in college where we were roomies,

...and besties.

...when we two lived with six other girls in a house in the University of Dayton Student Ghetto, as the neighborhood of student housing surrounding the UD campus was colloquially known in our day and I assume still is.
Me, Jan, and our friend and fellow housemate Lynn going to a Fifties party.

Whatever vibe causes people to hit it off and take an instant liking to each other must have been in the air the day Jan and I met at the beginning of our sophomore year. In retrospect, it couldn't have been that we bonded over shared interests, propensities or fields of study; Jan was a neat, meticulously organized Biology Secondary Education major from Cleveland while I was a French major from Philadelphia with a flair for languages, procrastination and losing things. Jan was a vegetarian and an environmentalist before the word was in the vernacular;

...she was outdoorsy, a lover of nature, animals, and especially horses; in fact if there was one trait that defined Jan it was her love of horses.
I, on the other hand, was an indoorsy aficionado of the cultural arts, especially all things French, most especially the University of Dayton French Club, of which I was President.

But then good friends don’t generally give much thought to their differences, or, for that matter, to their similarities.
Still, if back when we were college friends Jan and I could have looked into a crystal ball we’d no doubt have been astonished to learn of something we had in common that neither of us could have imagined at the time: that we were destined, someday far in the future, to have our first books published within a week of each other, and that over the next few years we'd both go on to write more books.
But when we were twenty-one years old that shared event was decades away.
In the meantime we graduated,

...and everything changed.
I landed jobs working for the United States Army in Babenhausen then Aschaffenburg, Germany,

...while Jan back in Ohio got a job as a science teacher and her first horse, Geronimo.

We kept in touch long distance for a few years. Jan even came to visit me in Germany with our friend Linda, during which time we spent a weekend in Paris.

Then Jan and I fell out of close touch and the years rolled on as did our lives in their respective directions until our only communication was a yearly Christmas card.
But then seven years ago out of the blue and for no particular reason I can say, I found myself thinking of Jan, wondering how she was doing, what she was up to, and I suddenly felt like getting in touch.
And to this end, thank goodness for Facebook, by which means I found Jan, friended her, and we reconnected as easily as if all those decades had never come between us.
Jan, a retired science teacher, and her husband Jim, a retired Associate Professor of Biology from the University of Louisville, lived in Indiana,

...where they took in and gave much love to stray dogs,

...and kitties.

But central to Jan's life was her love of horses. Horses were her spirit animals and her bliss, especially her equine soulmate, Highlander.

And horses were her source of inspiration and creativity. Jan had a jewelry-making business called Swishtails Custom Horsehair Jewelry,

...which involved horse owners bringing her strands of their horse's hair from which she braided jewelry, delicate pieces commemorating and celebrating the special bond shared by horses and the people who love them.

And that subject which was most dear to her heart was likewise her inspiration for her writing, first short pieces that were published over the years in horse and trail-riding magazines such as The Trail Rider and Trail Blazer, then in her books.

Her first book, At Home on a Horse in the Woods, is a series of beautifully-written essays and prose poems that come together as a memoir/meditation in which Jan opened her life and heart, sharing her personal struggles, longings, joys, and spiritual journey as well as her ever-widening discovery along the way of the beauty and wonder of God’s world through the beloved horses in her life.

Her next book, “Braiding Horsehair Bracelets: Your Beginner’s Guide” is an enlightening and charming step-by-step introduction to the art of crafting bracelets from horse tail hair worked into braids.

Jan's final work, published last year, is a children's book called "Finally...Horses!" that brings young readers into the imaginative world that they'll recognize as their own and then continues the story of how horses came into her life.

Though our subject matter and writing styles have been as different as all the other differences that somehow brought us together - I write romantic comedy, Jan wrote equine non-fiction - our books served as yet another bond between Jan and me. Jan helped me with my writing and I helped her with hers, we discussed each other's issues, critiqued and proof-read each other's manuscripts, even helped each other a bit with marketing.

I dearly loved and often used for advertising this photo Jan sent me of her reading one of my books.

Here's a bookmark Jan made me for helping her line up a podcast gig.

I last saw Jan about a year ago when she was passing through Columbus. But we'd call from time to time and, again, thanks to Facebook, it felt as if we were in daily communication, me with her through her almost daily posts on horse care and trail riding, her with me through my blogs. We often communicated via Facebook personal messaging.
Last Friday I received a phone call from Jan's brother telling me that Jan had been thrown from her horse the previous Sunday during a ride with a friend. Another horse ahead of them on the trail had somehow become spooked, thrown its rider, turned around and went galloping until it crashed into Jan's horse. Her horse was so traumatized that even Jan, an expert horsewoman, could not control him and he threw her with such force that the helmet and protective vest she was wearing could not prevent the broken bones and head injury she suffered.
Jan survived a few days then yesterday, Monday, she crossed over the rainbow bridge. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head and my heart around the fact that Jan, who was so healthy and active, so alive and present in my life, is suddenly gone.
Yesterday I returned to her Facebook page. In a reply to a comment from a friend, here is the last sentence she wrote on Facebook, or in fact, anywhere:

And here was my reply to her reply:

Rest in peace, my dear friend.

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Stanley And Romaine's Wedding, Part 3: A Beautiful New Beginning

12/13/2024

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Stanley And Romaine's Wedding Part 3: A Beautiful New Beginning

...Continued from previous post:
The following day, Saturday, November 30, was the day of the wedding.
As the wedding was to begin at 1 pm, we spent the morning at our delightful Airbnb.

...before heading out for the wedding venue,

…a beautiful place called the Longshadow Ranch Winery.

We arrived there at noon for a rehearsal, called by by me, actually, since I was the officiant,

...and a minister in the American Fellowship Church.

The ceremony was a program of lovely music and readings chosen and organized by Stanley and Romaine.

The quartet were fellow musicians of Stanley, who is an ensemble violinist,

...and Stanley's son Jonas and daughter-in-law Susan performed as a violin-piano duo.

After a quick run-through with the musicians, readers, junior bridesmaids, ring bearer,

...and the bride and groom,

...we were ready.
By one o'clock the guests had arrived,

...and the ceremony began.

There were prayers, readings, and music,

I then delivered a brief sermon,

...which you can watch, if you want. Here's the link:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPHer8ekl3SPDl757MPCphAihQ5W0cMT8RK3SQuD6x_rxi2jCYuHcykqq710mhWHA/photo/AF1QipMJohyb3AHiLeMbKpS5bhizvcnuVImU1xgU3LZh?key=VkUwN0xFMkhNV0lSc0w1X3B5cDBmVWREWTlWMWhn

Then Stanley and Romaine recited the vows that they wrote to each other,

...followed by the Persian poet Rumi's marriage blessing, read by our brother Jim.

Then came the exchange of rings,

...and Stanley and Romaine became husband and wife.

After the wedding we headed to the reception hall for hors d'oeuvres and some photos,

Stanley's family.

Romaine's family.

My brothers Michael and Jim, Romaine and me.

The reception was emcee'd by my son Tommy, and began with a heartfelt speech by my brother Michael.

...followed by a sweet, funny speech by Stanley's son, Jonas.

Tom gave a blessing,

Then it was time for the delicious dinner buffet.

After dinner the bride and groom cut the cake.

Then followed an afternoon of dancing,

...socializing,

...and seeing off this day's happy ending,

...and the start of a beautiful new beginning.

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Romaine And Stanley's Wedding, Part 2: Beautiful Temecula And The Celebrating Begins

12/8/2024

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Romaine And Stanley's Wedding, Part 2: Beautiful Temecula And The Celebrating Begins

...Continued from yesterday:
The following afternoon, Friday, we headed out on the scenic two-hour ride from Los Angeles to Temecula,

....where our daughter had procured for us a beautiful Airbnb set far back on a small farm.

...with the most wonderful views,

...and a vast interior,

...that was nonetheless very cozy.

After we'd gotten ourselves settled in we headed out again (and were treated to a splendid sunset),

...to Romaine and Stanley's house, where they were hosting a casual rehearsal dinner for out of town family,

...where the menu was a variety of yummy pizzas and salad,

...and I brought along pans of my iced brownies and cherry almond streusel pie for dessert.

It was wonderful to see family whom we hadn't seen in some time,

...to meet new relatives-by-marriage,

...and to let the celebrating begin.

To be continued...

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Romaine And Stanley's Wedding, Part 1: First Stop, L.A.

12/6/2024

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Romaine And Stanley's Wedding, Part 1: First Stop, L.A.

On Wednesday, November 20, Tom and I were once again on our way to the West Coast, this time to celebrate the wedding of my sister Romaine and her fiancé Stanley.

The wedding took place on Saturday, November 30, in Temecula, California, a town 50 miles north of San Diego in the hills of southern California wine country.

However, we'd decided to stop along the way for another visit to Los Angeles to spend some time and Thanksgiving with our folks there.
Upon our arrival we were enthusiastically greeted as usual by our host pup, Pinky.

...and, as it was requested that I bake a batch of pizza while I was there, I gladly did so the following day.

The day after our arrival we also went for lunch to one of our favorite L.A. eateries, Mandy's, the old-fashioned interior of which has apparently been used a few times for movie settings.

Tom had his Mandy's favorite, eggs, bacon and potatoes,

...while I had my Mandy's favorite, the Veggie Scrambler,

On Friday we decided to walk 2 1/2 miles to Manhattan Village, the local indoor-outdoor shopping mall, enjoying the scenery along the way,

A pomegranate tree

...not to mention the hilly terrain,

...and stopping for a brief rest half way at Marine park.

When we arrived at the mall we walked around for a bit,

...picked up a newspaper (alas, Tom couldn't find a copy of his news provider of choice, the New York Times and so he was constrained to read the Wall Street Journal), then we stopped for lunch at a cute Polynesian-themed burger place called Islands.

Tom had the Moa Kai, a delicious albacore tuna sandwich with all the fixings and the crispiest fries,

...while I had the yummy Islands Burger Bowl.

The following Wednesday afternoon - the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, busiest travel day of the year - Tom, with me as his co-pilot, ventured out to the Los Angeles airport to pick up our daughter Theresa, who was our first pick up of the family members who were arriving for the wedding.

The place was indeed jammed with drivers picking up crowds of holiday travelers,

...but Tom negotiated the airport traffic like a pro and got us to the baggage claim,

...where we found Theresa.
The following day, Thanksgiving, Tom and I once again headed out to the airport, this time to pick up our son Tommy. Fortunately on this day the traffic wasn't quite so intense.

After we collected Tommy, he, Theresa, Tom, Pinky and I headed out to nearby Hermosa Beach,

...where there was a surprising number of folks who had the same destination as ourselves: Thanksgiving day lunch at a popular beachside restaurant called Good Stuff,

...where poochies are welcome.

As it turned out, we were all more in the mood for breakfast.

After we arrived back home I began working on my requested contribution to Thanksgiving dinner, my cherry almond streusel pie.

Thanksgiving dinner was held at a friend's house in beautiful Playa Vista.

The following afternoon, Friday, we headed out on the scenic two-hour ride from Los Angeles to Temecula.

To be continued...

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The Little Spider That Soothed My Soul

12/2/2024

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The Little Spider That Soothed My Soul

These are times that try folk’s souls. At least some folk’s souls. Probably the souls of at least 48.3% of the American population - you all know who you are and why - myself included.
I've been trying to follow the counsel of that old Carol King song and to get up every morning with a smile on my face and show the world all the love in my heart. But some days I nonetheless find myself getting up in the morning and ruminating about what has transpired in this country and what might be the shape of things to come and instead of a heart full of love I face the day feeling like my soul is in the lost and found.
And so I was feeling a couple of days ago. I was back in Los Angeles, where the sky was a balmy blue and the sun shone over the palm trees,

...along with the other lovely southern California flora and fauna that were in November bloom.

However on that day after reading the morning news a blue-grey haze hung low over my spirit.
Such was my interior state when I went into the bathroom to take a shower and saw a tiny spider crawling around the floor of the tub.

What is it about spiders and bath tubs? If they insist upon crashing your property - though in truth, maybe it's us humans who are crashing their property - but anyway, if they must enter a human domicile - and why would they even want or need to in Los Angeles, where the climate is warm and surely spider-friendly? - but if they must venture indoors, why must they inevitably head for your tub or shower space?
I, for one, hate finding a spider in the tub or shower. Not because I hate spiders. But because I hate killing them. Seems the more my own lifespan contracts, the less I want to be the one to wantonly cut short the lifespan of any other creature - even a bug - who's not doing me any harm.
But a spider in a tub is a spider soon to be caught in a watery death spiral down the drain, as this one soon would be if I were to take my shower. Even if I forewent taking a shower for the sake of sparing the spider's life for a while, soon enough someone after me would want a shower, and even if no one else did, a spider can survive only so long on a porcelain tundra, and, though spiders have an ill-begotten tendency to find their way into tubs and showers, once in they can seldom manage their way out.
So now, along with my current state of weltschmerz, I found myself faced with having to forego a shower or kill a spider in the process. Unless I saved the spider. Except that trying to rescue and relocate a tub-bound spider is a tricky, annoying, and not always successful endeavor. With an annoyed sigh I headed off to locate some spider-rescuing materials.
I found a sheet of cardboard and a cup, figuring I would lure the spider onto the cardboard then trap him with the cup.

However the spider, small and seemingly insignificant as he was, was apparently a sentient enough being that he knew that he was being pursued and was in danger. Each time I tried to entice him onto the cardboard he scurried away for his life.

I tried talking to the spider, telling him that I meant him no harm, quite the contrary, I was a friend who was trying to save him. But his misguided spidey sense was telling him otherwise while my annoyance and frustration grew.
Finally I came up with a new tactic: instead of trying to trap him on the cardboard, I would rather try to lure him into the cup then quickly cover the cup with the cardboard:

And it was this strategy that finally worked.
After trapping the spider in the cup,

...I brought him out to the patio and set him free at the edge of the garden.

The last I saw of him he was crawling into the safety of the grass.

And that's the end of the story; or almost the end.
After the little spider disappeared into the grass I realized that my funk had disappeared with him and the trouble had lifted from my soul.
I wish I could thank that spider for the kindness he did me that day.

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A Christmas Cookout? Eh, Why Not?

The Agony And The Ecstasy Of The Christmas Arch

Feeling The Chicago Christmas Vibe

Stanley And Romaine's Wedding Part 3: A Beautiful New Beginning

Romaine And Stanley's Wedding, Part 2: Beautiful Temecula And The Celebrating Begins

Romaine And Stanley's Wedding, Part 1: First Stop, L.A.

The Little Spider That Soothed My Soul