For some reason, our TV really wants us to watch “Baywatch”. At some point in the recent past, the TV and/or the Mac computer it’s attached to developed an odd behavior in which, whenever the TV is powered back on, it switches to a channel that shows only “Baywatch”. We cannot identify the cause of this behavior, nor find anyway to stop this from happening.
Angela visits four elderly congregants who can’t make it to church so that she can administer the sacrament of communion. For this purpose, she brings along a small “communion kit” containing tiny plastic cups and the other things she needs for the sacrament.
Jan and Bree are greatly amused by the aesthetic appearance of the kit, which is clearly modeled on tactical military gear. The case is woven carbon fiber, and there’s even a carabiner to clip the kit onto something — a belt? A bandolier? The kit appears designed to meet the demanding conditions of a communion commando who must parachute in behind enemy lines to administer wafers and grape juice.
Jan asks Bree to put away the jam that’s been sitting on the kitchen island. “You see a jar of jam that has been left out,” she replies, “but I tell you that I have liberated the jam from the confines of the pantry so that it might be free.”
Bree has an extremely busy week. Sometimes she sticks a little post-it note to the front door reminding her to bring something (lunch, say) to school the next morning. This week is so busy that tonight there are a number of such notes.
Jan feels compelled to add a few more notes to the door: “Gerbil”, “Sword”, “Brain”.
Bree has a dream in which she sees our two cats joined by third, identical cat. In the dream, Jan reveals a secret room in which he’s been secretly raising Mojo and Moxie’s littermates all this time. We often wonder about their two brothers, and whether the four would recognize each other.
We watch Bree’s school’s performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Bree and the rest of the costuming crew have been madly working for the past month to costume the gigantic cast of 24 actors. The costuming lead, Leila, has been out for the most of the past two weeks, so Bree’s stepped up as the acting team lead.
Jan, Angela, and Lyn drive to the school in the early afternoon for a matinee performance, the third of four shows. Bree’s observing this particular performance, so she comes down to say hello.
The show goes off without a hitch. Bree’s friend, Mazzy, does a great job as the courtier Lysander, one of the four Athenian lovers at the heart of the play. But even Mazzy is outshone by a student named Julia playing Nick Bottom; she steals the show.
In the curtain calls, the production team members also come out. (Bree is third from left in the photo.)
November 16 is National Give Your Third Kids Books Day — at least, according to our third kid. Since Bree will be away on the 16th, we give her some books from Madison Books a couple of days of early.
James, the owner of Madison Books, likes the idea of the holiday. He adds an item to his monthly newsletter promoting National Give Your Third Kids Book Day.
Bree has some time off from school, so she and Jan head to the East Coast for a few days to visit friends. At the airport, Jan buys a bag of Haribo gummy bears, and on the flight he notices that the back of the bag has a color key to identify the purported flavor of the gummy bears: green = strawberry, red = raspberry, yellow = lemon, orange = orange, and clear = pineapple. These fruit flavors turn out to be almost entirely theoretical, as Bree discovers when she tries to identify the flavor of a gummy bear with her eyes closed. Even having prepped by reading the color key, she can only correctly identify 1 gummy bears in 6 attempts.
Jan and Bree stop in the town of Hawthorne, NJ, to see Owen and Nicole. It’s been a few years since Owen and Nicole had a chance to see Bree – she’s grown up quite a bit since then!
From New Jersey, Jan and Bree drive up to New Haven, CT, to pick up Liya. Liya’s just wrapped up her classes and is starting her Thanksgiving break. She shows Jan and Bree the suite in Davenport College that she shares with five friends. The suite contains a large number of little gnomes.
Jan, Liya, and Bree drive up to Exeter, NH, to see Jan’s stepbrother Bondi and his wife Jane. It’s an unseasonably warm, sunny day for mid-November, but the fine weather makes for a quick drive. Jan hasn’t been to Exeter for a few years, so it’s nice to see Bondi and Jane again. The three of them go for a nice walk down to the quaint village of Exeter and back, then Bondi cooks a great dinner. Jane’s daughter, Katherine, joins in the meal.
Bondi cooks everyone breakfast, and he, Jan, and Jane catch up for a bit before Jan heads off with Liya and Bree. The next step is across town at the home of Ute and Roy Tellini, old family friends from Jan’s childhood in Maplewood, NJ. Ute and Roy are doing well, and getting ready to sell their house and downsize to a retirement home. It’s been years since they’ve seen Liya and Bree, so it’s nice to have time with them. They serve a quick lunch before Jan, Liya, and Bree need to head to Boston for a flight home.
As it happens, Evan’s also flying back home today from California, and his flight arrives around the same time. Angela comes to the airport and picks everyone up, and all five of us travel back home together.
Chris flies to Seattle from Haarlem, The Netherlands, where he and Julie been living this fall. He’s staying at an AirBnB in Madison Park just a few blocks away from our house; Lyn moves to the AirBnb as well.
In the evening, Skye and her family arrives by train from Salem. We’ve set them up in the downstairs guest room, bringing the number of people in our house to 9.
Thanksgiving Day. Chris and Lyn walk over in the morning and everyone has breakfast at our house. Jan, Chris, Liya, and Angela go for a walk down to the lake. We’re having a week of unexpectedly cold but clear weather.
Leif and Auden are keen to play Mario Kart again, and are joined by Chris and Jared.
Much of the afternoon is taken up with food preparation. Bree leads Leif and Auden in making ice box pudding. Nabisco stopped selling chocolate wafers last year – we’re using Dewey’s chocolate wafers as a substitute, which taste fine but are smaller and more brittle.
After dinner we play a game of “Poetry for Neanderthals”. It’s something like Charades or Taboo but you can only speak in one-syllable words. If someone says a multisyllabic word, they get bonked on the hit with an inflatable club.
Now that Thanksgiving’s past, we need to harvest the kiwis from our backyard kiwi trees — if we wait too much longer, they’ll be damaged by frost. Skye had said Leif and Auden were excited to pick kiwis, so Jan enlists their help, and Jared’s as well.
Sadly, we have almost no kiwis this year. Normally we have many, many more pounds of kiwis than we can eat. This year the four of us manage to find a grand total of 9 kiwis. We’re not sure what happened — maybe there weren’t enough bees this year to pollinate the female plant? Or maybe our summers are getting too hot and dry for the kiwi?
We go for a family walk in Seward Park. Our unseasonably sunny weather continues, so we make a nice loop through the park.
Since everyone’s in town, we hold a belated family celebration for Lyn’s 80th birthday. We have a nice Italian dinner at Cinque Terre downtown. They bring a big sparkly dessert for her.
Leif and Auden ask the waitress for chocolate gelato, emphasizing that they each want their own portion. They each receive a heaping pile of gelato. Jan: “That’s enough gelato for four people.” Leif: “That’s enough gelato for me.”
Auden spends a morning moment with Moxie. Jan takes Skye and her family back to the Amtrak station for the train to Salem. Chris and Lyn spend the day hanging around with us. Chris gives Jan a tutorial on the use of a 3D modeling program so that Jan can try to create something new on Bree’s 3D printer.
Chris is keen to have dinner at Chinook’s at Fisherman’s Terminal, so we get there on the early side for a larger table. The food is delicious as always.
Everyone heads home. Liya catches an early flight back to the East Coast, Evan leaves mid-morning for California, and Chris leaves in the early afternoon. It’s a Sunday, so we have Lyn over for our usual Sunday evening family meal to wind down the holiday week.