White Thanksgiving. Not really. I'm actually dreaming of a bit of a let up so I could drive to Hudson NY to pick up Joe, who's coming in tonight on the train. When we made the decision a few weeks ago to have Thanksgiving here, it seemed like a good idea. Those of us who have more flexible schedules had been going to Washington for Thanksgiving the last few Novembers, saving the working stiffs from battling the holiday mass travel. Anyway, we may go back to our original plans next year. Still, it will be nice to have Annie and Joe here; Margaret and Andrew are in Pennsylvania for the holiday. Annie came up yesterday by train.
Where are you? Hopefully inside and warm. I hear David and Paula will have a houseful, as I suspect Andrew and Lur will as well. If I remember right, the Peter Dicksons normally head to one of Janet's cousins for a big extended family dinner. We hear Kathleen will be hosting Thanksgiving for her parents in Boston, and John and Marilyn will have a crowd here.
Timmy will be warm outside, in LA, where he will be having his first Thanksgiving as a married man. Yes, that is THE big news of the letter, that Tim was married on November 15 to Denisa Edete, a woman he has known for a long time. They tied the knot in Las Vegas, and we were able to watch it live streamed. Congratulations. We understand there may be a wedding reception next year in LA.
At least he wasn't in Buffalo. No matter how bad the weather gets, we will always be able to say, at least we're not in Buffalo. We originally thought Rochester/Fairport was in the same track, but David and Paula said they only got a few inches of the same storm. Just that part of Buffalo closest to the lake got hit badly. David was driving back from Albany and managed to avoid the closing of Rt 90 further west.
Don't ever say I wait until the last minute to get my jobs done. At 8am today, before the first snow flake fell, I was 5th in line to get my snow tires put on. So, two hours later, when I pulled out of the auto shop, the old Saturn was ready, and we needed the tread immediately. Should help on my drive later this evening. And, if you notice in the picture below, I was waiting for Joe to help me put the picnic table out of the snow. Oh well.
On the travel scene, Joe gets the award for furthest distance since the last letter. He's been to Hong Kong and back, all in the space of a week. He wrote from the airport saying he had a middle seat on a 16-hour flight. Kathleen was not far behind as she went to Morocco.
Andrew and Lur went out to see Claire for parents' weekend at Hope, and they said they went to a concert where Claire was playing the oboe. She had gotten into the college orchestra, quite an achievement. Also from Dundee, is news that Daniel has started basketball practice/tryouts. He has also become the youngest Dickson to get a car, I believe. It's a sporty Mazda, for a sporty guy.
With Annie last night, we had the first of our current event conversations that I am sure are played out across the country. The topic was Ferguson. I suspect there are many families will be grappling with this and other topics, like immigration, over turkey. We used to get fairly worked up over these talks. Now, it's kind of fun to hear points of view we don't normally get, in our quiet, staid lives.
What else? Little things, like ongoing plans for our trip back to Gabon. We got our visas, and we've placed our first order for wood to repair the roof. we had a pizza dinner the other night John and Marilyn who was on the mend for a second knee operation. Now she's ready for golf, if only there was no snow. And we had two visits from Peace Corps friends, Charlie Morrison and Tom Friedeberg, who Joe will remember as he put together a short internship for Joe in Madagascar.
And we close this special Thanksgiving edition with a photo of the most recent newlyweds; move over Margaret and Andrew.
Have a wonderful, fantastic day tomorrow. Love from up here.
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