Thanksgiving

What do you call the day after Black Friday?  And before Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday?  I know, you can call it weekly letter Saturday.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Wherever you found yourselves.  Hope too you didn't get stuck somewhere in the winter storms that moved from west to east.  Tomorrow we will get clobbered, all the way through Monday evening, Mr. Weatherman says.  So, it was probably a good thing that Margaret and Andrew (and D) left on Friday.  That way the escaped the Saturday traffic that is trying to escape the Sunday storm.

Margaret and Andrew arrived at JFK from Tokyo and then somehow managed to drive up here and sit through Thanksgiving dinner and half of a football game.  They looked exhausted with jet lag and time zone creases around their eyes.  They had a wonderful trip, by all accounts – good food, beautiful scenery and temples, very nice people, and, most importantly, fun. 

We had more of "Friendsgiving" with the Locherys and the Tierneys and Timmy.  Lots of work, but a lot of helpers, more than a little chaos, but good food.  One new tradition that Jody introduced us to – listen to Alice's Restaurant at some point during or around meal time.

We talked to the Brazil folks who were heading out to dinner with Embassy friends, and Annie who had opted to spend Thanksgiving in Los Angeles with Sankar.  Which was warmer?  Brazil, as Annie told us that it was unusually rainy and raw in southern California.  Thomas is adjusting to his new "school" and has to wear a uniform that is ….. how to put it?...... kind of ……. unflattering, if you can use that word on a two-year old's fashion.    

What about you folks?  We touched base with everyone over the holidays.  Peter was supposed to be spending Tuesday night with us for a court case he's been working on in Lakeville CT, just over the border.  He bailed on us, I suspect because of the thought of driving back to Pennington on Wednesday.  We nailed down our arrangements with Andrew and Lur for Chicago this coming week, including a concert and a dinner with Daniel, we hope.  David said they are on track for the coldest November on record and already have had, if I remember right, 18 inches of the white stuff.  Sounds like John and Marilyn had a Friendsgiving as well, without the snow.  They squeezed in the day between a couple of cruises.

What else?  A movie recommendation – A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.  Ever since watching it, we've been channeling Mr. Rogers, playing a lot of the low notes on the piano.  The perfect movie for this political season.

We close with a sad note – Aunt Georgia, Mom's sister in law, passed away last week, having made it to her mid-90s.  Her daughter, Hope, wrote and said her mother did seem to make an impression on everyone, and I noted a positive one – funny, commanding and not shy about her opinions whether it was about the way Peapack (town near us in New Jersey) was pronounced or something more substantive.  Eating pecan pie this week reminded me of her as I suspect I had my first slice of that most delicious dessert at one of her Thanksgivings and then enjoyed her annual gifts of tins full of pecans from down south. 

Well, that made me hungry.  Maybe I'll make my way for a slice of leftover pie.  In the meantime, see if you can pick out everyone in the photos.

Love from up here.