Optimist Under Siege

I cooked an early Thanksgiving dinner for my mother and husband this year. I admit that I didn’t actually make a turkey (which I don’t really like that much anyway!), but we had sweet potatoes, stuffing, apple pie and other yummy stuff. It was actually rather satisfying putting it all together (yeah me!). And we got to use the good china and wine glasses…woo hoo! Here are some pics.





And this is what my husband did for most of the occasion…

A good time was had all around!

I weeped just a little bit inside today. I finally had to drag my down winter coat out of the closet and I mourned its necessity (even though it’s a delightfully warm coat!). *Sigh* It’s now seasonally cold.

And sadly, you can’t really complain about the cold very much when it’s seasonal. If it were 25 degrees fahrenheit in July, then my complaints would be justified. But we’ve been having unseasonally wonderfully warm weather lately, and now that it’s seasonally cold, I have no right to whine.

But I will still mourn and weep inside, just a little!

A friend of mine planned a formal event this past weekend (something I approve of and very much appreciate! Yeah, dressing up!). As a result, my husband and I ended up going out to a fancy dinner beforehand at an old school Boston institution, Locke-Ober.

Now, I didn’t really know much about the place, which made my first impression that much more interesting. The restaurant, Locke-Ober, turned out to be the definition of an old school restaurant. Frank Sinatra should have been there drinking cognac and smoking a cigar! From the dark wood paneling to the framed mirrors and gold/brass highlights behind the bar areas, and even the oriental rug-like carpeting, I actually kept expecting a bar maid out or Renoir’s paintings to serve me a sidecar (which we both drank!). I know that I’m mixing my time periods in my description, but wow! And the average age of the clientele must have been at least 65!

The weird thing is that we actually got pretty bad service. The waiter never came back to get my husband’s drink order and he forgot to bring us our side dish of spinach. We tried to figure out if we had perhaps done something to offend him…and decided that perhaps our extreme relative youth was enough!

I had a very unique experience with the recent presidential election. On election day Tuesday, I happily went to the voting booth and did my civic duty (as they say). Then, coincidentally, Tuesday evening I boarded a plane for London (where I visited a friend in London and another in Edinburgh). The vacation had been planned with no consideration of election day, but I was glad to be here to vote instead of having to get an absentee ballot.

But here’s the funny part. My husband and I managed to watch some of the early election results from a bar at the airport, but then we spent the next six or seven hours on a plane without any access to news. Once we arrived in London (mid-morning UK time), we went to meet up with our friend for lunch and had to ask her, the European, who exactly our next president was going to be. She laughed at us! But she did know and filled us in on Obama’s victory. What a funny way to find out!

On a further funny presidential note, one of the London newspapers had a GREAT headline the following day. It read: “The day the US became a little bit cool again.” Amusing and awesome!

Guess what we were for Halloween!

Here are some hints. Yes, I’m a cat. Yes, my husband is a cat also, but he happens to be a dead cat.

Additional hint…yes, we are dorks. Yes, this has something to do with quantum physics.

That’s right, we’re Schrodinger’s cat!!!

The 2 whole people who understood our esoteric costume thought it was hilarious. Everyone else were basically like, “hey…nice cat and zombie costumes…whatever.”

That’s okay. We amused ourselves at least!

P.S. We’re leaving for a trip to London and Edinburgh tomorrow. So there will be a slight pause in blogging. See you all in about a week!