Thanksgiving

Roasted Cornish hens this year for Thanksgiving. Prepared them at my place to take over to Christine's for roasting. Also made cranberry-apple dressing and apple roses for dessert.

Christine made Brussels sprouts. Jan brought sweet potatoes. Kay brought pumpkin pie and acorn squash with a delicious mushroom stuffing.

I also had tomatoes from the garden!

The hens.

The meal

The biggest Thanksgiving plate

Happy Thanksgiving

Another Turkey Trot. This year 6 kilometers instead of 5. I am thankful for my Running For Brunch crew.

The moon!

Most of you know that I'm kind of a weather bug. I include the moon, sun and stars in my infatuation. The moon and sky have been beautifully dramatic lately.

My cameras don't normally take night or moon photos very well. But this one came out pretty good along with the help of some photo software.

The sky color with the refraction the clouds provided and the filter of the tree branches made the moon look magical.

Serendipity

ser·en·dip·i·ty

[ˌserənˈdipədē]

NOUN

1. the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way:

   "a fortunate stroke of serendipity" ·

   [more]

   synonyms: (happy) chance · (happy) accident · fluke · luck ·

   [more]

Powered by Oxford Dictionaries · © Oxford University Press

 

I met Rose, JT and Linda for breakfast and found out that the bank where my safety deposit box is is closing. Rose has a safety deposit box there, too. She got a letter but I have not.

JT and Linda were taking Rose to the bank so she could close her safety deposit account. I went along to close mine out, too.

A banker opened our boxes and we took the contents. I went with that banker to do the closing paperwork. Rose went back upstairs to get another banker to do the closing paperwork.

It took a while to do my transaction because the account was under Jill's name...the original owner. The process required searching for my name using different spelling. I noticed that the baker's name was also Jeffrey...spelled the usual way.

Rose was done before me. As we left, she said goodbye to her banker, Rose, and I said goodbye to my banker, Jeff! Serendipity!

Brrrr. November has finally arrived

It was bound to happen. The cold has arrived in Minnesota. It has arrived with a fierce wind. Got below freezing this morning and is now crazy windy.

This has been a very warm fall. October was so nice and November has been warm and rainy. The past few days we've had rain with thunder. Supposedly it would have been over 10 inches of snow had the temperature been lower.

Tomato in November!

Not just November but November 15. I picked this ripening tomato from the garden. This is by far the latest I have ever kept the garden going.

It was a beautiful day here in Minnesota by the way. Folks out running (including me) and walking around the lakes.

Kathy's Dave and Busters birthday celebration

the right side of the table

the left side of the table

the dance machine. much harder than it looks.

four-way air hockey

the free dessert

Kathy invited a group of us to celebrate her double-nickel birthday at Dave and Busters in Southdale. D&B is a game and restaurant and bar extravaganza.

The restaurant service was horrendous to say the least. Because of the total food and drink fiasco, the manager comped everything and gave each of us a $15 game card.

I know I had a blast playing games with my friends. Thank you Kathy and happy birthday.

the air hockey game was so intense this puck ended up in my jacket pocket

Mom's birthday

Me, Jasmine, Lotus, Carol

 I flew to Virginia on Saturday and picked up my rental car.

Sunday morning my sister Carol came over to Mom's with her grandkids, Jasmine and Lotus. There isn't a lot of room in mom's apartment so the girls and I went for a walk and gathered fallen leaves.

My brother Spade came over, too. Mom, Spade and I met my friends Judy, Lance and Tony at IHOP for brunch. We spent a few hours catching up and sharing stories.

Sunday evening Mom and I went to the church service at her apartment. The pastor, Nellie, is also a docent at the US Capitol. I had not been to the capitol since I was a congressional intern in the 1970's and mom had never been. Nellie said she would give us a tour on Monday if mom wanted to do that for her birthday.

Nellie holding up the dome.

Mom and Nellie in front of the casting for the statue at the top of the US capitol dome.

 We were able to get a parking space less than a block and half from the visitor center entrance. Nellie met us right outside of security and had us with a small group of college students from Honduras. With our small group we were able to take the elevator to the rotund. Nellie had it all planned for mom.

We toured the rotunda shrouded in fabric and scaffolding during the restoration of the dome and hall of statues (former house of representatives) then went down one level to the crypt and to the old Supreme Court Chamber.

On the way back to the Visitor's Center, Nellie told the students that the elderly woman with them was celebrating her 91st birthday. All of them spontaneously started singing Happy Birthday right there in the Capitol Building!

 After the students departed, Nellie took us back to see the Old Senate Chamber and the Visitor's Center Museum. It was truly a special tour and special event for mom's birthday.

We drove out of downtown D.C. during rush hour to make our way to Waldorf, MD to have dinner with my sister Lea and brother-in-law Tim. It was a long day but so worth it.

The trip home on Tuesday was okay. It was raining in DC but the flight left on time. The flight out of O'Hare was not so uneventful. There wasn't even a plane until almost two hours after we were supposed to have departed.

I used the two hours to eat familiar Chicago food. Tri-flavored popcorn and nuts from Nuts on Clark and a Chicago-style hot dog from the secret place on the L concourse.

Christmas? cactus

Hmmm...this guy looked close to blooming when I left for Denver but I wasn't expecting this...fully bloomed.

Business (contractor) trip - Denver

I wasn't expecting to travel on this contract but testing started with the users and it was decided to work all together. It did not go so well but not really a surprise given the history of this project.

I don't have any photos. Most time was spent inside and with sun set at 5pm, there isn't any light after work.

There is snow on the central mountain range already but the temperature got to 75 in the city on Tuesday! By Thursday the forecast was for snow. That's Denver.

Pumpkin carving, Halloween costumes, running and partying

The Taylors hosted their annual pumpkin carving party two weekends ago. I had bowling that night so could only stay for a short time. The outcome is pictured to the left.

Amy had the most interestingly shaped pumpkin. It looked like a skull before it was even carved.

The food was great. The company was even better.

The Monster Dash was the second run for Running For Brunch this month. This is a very popular race...especially the 5K. So this year we graduated to the 10 miler and a skeleton-themed costume. I was the torso and Michelle and Abby were the arms.

It was a cold and rainy day. I thought there would be fewer runners in the 10 miler. There were but still 3500 plus 4500 doing the half-marathon. Crazy that so many people are willing to get in costume and run through St. Paul.

Dave invited me to attend his friends Kent and Don's annual Halloween party in Minnetonka. There home is beautiful and fantastically decorated with Halloween chakas.

Dave and I were the Village People, cowboy and construction worker.