Gobble gobble

A few days and a couple of Thanksgiving dinners later, Cas and I are safely tucked in at home.  We were at his mom's house for the majority of the day on Thursday, then we went over to Holly's house, where my parents were eating their turkey.

It was a good day, and Mom started it off for me by showing how Dad helped with the bird.

Cas and I were assigned to bring a fruit salad to Jeanne's house, but I think she made that call before she tried any of my cooking.  Next year, I think I may get a more complicated assignment.  No matter- we made a beautiful fruit salad.  In fact, we went to Whole Foods to get the best and prettiest fruit available. 

It was a bunch of dang hippies and well-off white people.  I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but we were looking at white guy dreadlocks.  Perhaps the grossest hairstyle available to white people, the dread is generally dirty and usually very smelly.  

The fruit is always fresh and very yummy, but you have to swallow a lot of outrage while you walk through a whole foods.  Behold, organic dog treats:

For the bargain price of $7.49. There was a big basket of infinity scarves that look like something a kid made on a summer camp loom.  I didn't read closely enough, but it was likely some fundraiser for a blind, mentally challenged women's shelter.  The sign suggested that patrons who wanted the ugly scarves could be socially conscious trendsetters or something of that sort.  Ugh. 

Anyhow, we got the fruit, made the fruit salad and took it over to Jeanne's house.  The meal there was very good, and we took off just in time to catch pies at my cousin's house.  That was Holly, Kris, Jason, Alejandro, Haley, Joe, Autumn, Wiley, Mom, Dad, Handyman Jim and the triplets.  I was probably correct in my thinking that we didn't need to be two more hungry people at that table.  Arrival for the pie portion of the day was probably for the best.  

We also brought along a dozen brand new (but washed) plastic containers to use and share.  We managed to take six of them home, and that's totally fine.  I think Jim has a few and there have to be some in Holly's fridge.  No matter.  We went home and had some leftovers that evening.  

Now, we must tidy up a little and prepare to host a movie night for my family on our giant TV.  They're bringing pizza from Campizi's.  We have red wine.  This will work out just fine.  

Stuff my turducken

It's been pretty busy. Over the last weekend, Cas and I ran a bunch of errands, ending up with a new desk on the way for his office and a haircut for him.  We also spent a little time with my parents.  That was Saturday.  On Sunday, we had dinner at the house for Jeanne and Dave.  I made the pork tenderloin recipe that never fails.  As expected, it was successful.  Cas seemed pretty happy showing his mom and step-Dave around.  The place looks pretty darn good, now, and it was good to have them over.  I could tell Jeanne was happy to have been invited. 

I had, of course, been nervous about getting everything just right, but it all turned out okay.  Good thing, too, because if the whole evening had flopped, I would remain in a state of disappointment- probably until Christmas. 

Anyhow, I had to get up the next morning and go to work.  Cas did not.  I was a little bitter, but it turned out okay.  He had scheduled the day for the TV installation.  It looks pretty awesome.

Yesterday, Cas updated his passport, took his flight (a birthday gift from his brother- he flew the plane for a little bit), and had his brother over for a while in the afternoon.  I came home from work to see the Dunlap boys in the living room staring up at the giant TV.

We went to Pat's and Mike's for a few margaritas, then we headed over to the Addison Ice House for our trivia game.

Jerone and Laura made it out, too, and we named our team "Stuff my turducken."

We won.  Of course.  And we used a few gift cards from previous wins to pay a large portion of the tab.  It was a good way to kick off the break for me.  Who doesn't like to begin with a little bit of victory?  I won't know the scores until we see the blog from the substitute quizmaster later on today, but I get the feeling we totally ran away with it.  There was one category where all the answers were people with bird names.  I have no idea why, but I crushed that one.  Good thing, too, because I was of absolutely no help in the round about Karl Marx and Bernie Sanders.

I am off today to help my mother with pies.  Doesn't sound like a bad gig...

Apparently, we're a #goals couple

I was putting together our Christmas card yesterday.

Cas' family does a lot more cards than my family appears to do. Here's what I came up with:

As I was making this card during lunch yesterday, one of my students said we or a #Goals couple. 

I had no idea what that meant. She said, "You know, like the things you do are my goals." That was sweet. And we do some pretty cool things. 

Anyhow, the cards have been ordered. They should be in my hands in about a week. That will be nice. 

As for the house, we are finally finished with the water damage people. They came on Monday to clean the carpets and finally collect their money. I still had not seen an invoice, and I asked mom to get one before handing over in the check I wrote out. I only knew the amount to write on the check because the girl who called to schedule the appointment told it to me, and I wrote it down.

Anyhow, I'm glad it is all over with. Right now feel confident that Cas and I can have people over to the house without having to stop and explain why it is broken. 

It is Wednesday today. I have the rest of this week, Monday and Tuesday to work before I'm off for Thanksgiving. Cas, however, has only until the end of this week. I'm trying hard not to resent him about that. It's OK though, this weekend has his flight scheduled. It was his brother's gift to him on his birthday. Cas will be flying airplane at the Addison Airport. I decided that I should probably take the opportunity to have my family day on Saturday, so that I could spend all of my energy cooking a nice meal for Jeanne and Dave on Sunday.

We invited them over for a meal, now that our dining room has been reassembled. Jeanie was a very happy with the invite. So, I will be making them something that I've made a million times before and can't screw up. Seems like the smartest way to go. As for now, I am on the way to work, talking out loud while my phone transcribes my words. I hadn't stopped in and said much in a while, but everything seems to be going along rather well. Happy one-week-until-Thanksgiving-break! 

All about that baseboard

There was much rejoicing and dancing in the streets!  Hooray!  Yippee!  Just look:

My dining room has baseboards again!  What a glorious day!  It only took a month and eight days!  

Apparently, there is a carpet cleaning component to this process, and when that is finished, we may just be able to put that lovely cabinet into the dining room.  Once we can do that, I am relatively sure we can take the boxes full of grandma's china out of Dad's shop and put them where they belong.  Wouldn't that be something?  

Either way, I think I will get those boxes this weekend and have them at the ready for whatever day we can actually put the cabinet where it goes.  

Other than all of that, this week has been (as the children say) pretty chill.  We had staff development on Monday.  Our campus has a temporary chiller thing that feeds the air conditioner, and we genuinely needed it last week.  The classrooms were pretty hot on Thursday, so the cool air was a welcome relief on Friday.  By Monday, however, some cool air had visited Dallas.  It would have been the perfect day to shut everything off and just open the windows, but apparently, when you ask for emergency funding for a giant air cooling machine, you have to use it.  So, on Monday, I was very happy to have my nice zippered fleece jacket with me.  We went from one frigid room to the next in the morning, but I was perfectly comfortable.  In the afternoon, I spent the majority of my time in my own classroom, where I was very happy.  When my friend Jerone said he was quitting WT White and his room would become available, I didn't think that hard about it.  When he said it had a thermostat and its own HVAC unit, I campaigned and lobbied for the move.  It was one of the smarter things I have done.  

It's Wednesday today, so I have donned a college T shirt and some jeans.  Cas is a little envious of my twice-a-week jeans wardrobe, but I don't think it would be reason enough for him to actually take a teaching job where I work.  We see each other plenty at the house, and I think we are both exactly where we belong.  

I'm off to make a little breakfast and get on with my day, but I thought I would pop in and celebrate the shiny, new baseboards in the dining room.  Hooray!  

Beeah heeah

When Dad helped me fix up and sell my motorcycle, I wanted to do something to say thank you.  I couldn't give him money- I could only repay him for the parts he bought- so I decided that I would take him on another brewery tour.  Those seem to please him, and he appears to enjoy going with me and Danny.

We went to the Tupps brewery yesterday, and it was certainly interesting.  When we arrived, there was a bike race in progress, and part of that race went through the brewery. It was a cyclocross race, which is something that none of us had ever heard of.  Apparently, you put knobby tires on a street bike and ride up and down a series of little hills and obstacles.  At some point, you may be called upon to hop off your bike and lift it over a thing or two.  Apparently, there is a fair amount of crowd heckling that the riders must also endure.  We managed to share a table for a moment with a woman who rode last season, but was taking this season off.  Apparently, it's a winter thing.  Anyhow, she explained the sport in pretty great detail, and as you may surmise, Dad was intrigued.  

We each got three beers, a T shirt and a tour.  The guy at the front door said there would be no tour that day due to the race, but apparently, enough people showed up wanting one, so they did it anyway.  It was a tough thing, I suppose, since there was a very loud live DJ playing music outside for the racers, and the building was very open-air.  No matter, we got our tour.  

It was a pretty great day, and I think it was adequate thanks for Dad helping me with my motorcycle.  I think he felt thanked, at least.  

In the afternoon, Cas wanted to go buy our new living room TV.  He was all done with his research, and he had narrowed it to two different Samsung models.  We had to go to the Best Buy to look at them both.  We had checked prices at Costco, Walmart, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Best Buy.  Turns out that Best Buy was finally going to live up to its name.  I'm still never buying a computer there, though.  

We borrowed Dad's PT Cruiser and folded the back seats down to accommodate the television.  Neither Cas nor I could have made it work in our own cars.  Since I was already in Richardson, Cas came to meet me there.  We borrowed the car, bought the TV, dropped it off at home and returned the car.

With that done, we returned the car to Dad and went to dinner together at Rockfish.  I think Cas could eat their crab bisque every day and never get tired of it.  I have a real affection for their shallot vinaigrette salad dressing.  It was all good.  We got home and decided to play a game of Trivial Pursuit.  It was a lot more fun than playing last week at Jack Mac's with the flying squirrel, and as a bonus, we were both guaranteed to place in the top two.  This time, as luck would have it, I won.  It usually gets to be a race to see who can answer that last sports question correctly.  We both have the pies or wedges or whatever, and we dance around the middle.  When I land there, he chooses green to ask me.  When he lands there, I choose green.  Whichever of us can actually answer the last sports question correctly is the champ, and last night, I was the first one to answer a sportsball question in the middle.  So it goes.  I am sure there will be a rematch.  

For now, I need to settle in and edit some stupid videos.  Blegh.  I may do that over at Mom and Dad's house.  In the meantime, I think I will have some breakfast...

Play date

Yesterday was the day we distributed the newspaper again. We hand out a few thousand papers in an hour, and it has been smooth sailing every time. I love Hoofbeat day.

I also got in touch with the girl at the water damage place. Target date is Tuesday. That's when we should expect someone to come replace our baseboards. It's about damn time, too.

Anyhow, Cas and I did our standard Friday after-school happy hour last night. We went to a place we hadn't tried before, called Spork. Spork is a refurbished Sonic location. They had a fantastic outdoor area that used to be the drive in. On that day, the outdoor area had been overrun by elementary aged boys. The children far outnumbered to the adults, and they were very poorly behaved. The boys ran around squealing with joy, and I guess I can't blame them for having such a good time. Their parents were sitting at a table in the corner of the patio, drinking. I do blame them for paying absolutely no attention to their rotten kids.  They just sat together and drank- but honestly, if my kids were that bad, I would drink a lot. Their kids were horrible. 

The waitress told us they had put up signs at one point asking parents to control their children, but as irony would have it, children trampled those signs a while back. The place has been open for seven months now, and it really should be a lot more fun than it is. There's a dartboard, Foosball table, and several other bar games for adults to enjoy, but the children have overrun it. I felt like I was on a giant play date.

It's unfortunate. That place has a great menu and fantastic, creative drinks. 

I started with a bourbon drink with a scoop of sherbet in it. 

I think we may go back some other day after all those kids' bedtime. 

Flying squirrel

Cas and I decided to try out the geeks who drink trivia at Jack Mac's swill and grill last night. The host of the trivia was dressed up for Halloween as a flying squirrel.

Now, we hadn't been to Jack Mac's in a while, because we had put them on a time out. The last time we went there, we ordered a beverage at the bar. We were seated at the bar with about 6 to 8 other patrons. We drink the entire beer, waited for the the bartender to ask us any further follow-up questions, waited for them to ask us anything at all, finally estimated the cost of beers and put money down before leaving. Nobody said goodbye. It was without a doubt the worst service I have gotten at a bar in the past decade. It's a shame, too, because that would be a perfect little neighborhood bar for us. It is within staggering distance of our home.

Well, last night we decided to give it another go. The service was better but still not great. And the host of geeks who drink had this week had the highest voice I had heard in quite some time. I wondered why they gave her a microphone. She certainly didn't need one.

Still, it was a good time. Cas and I came in sixth place, but I think there was a scoring error, because we circled the indicator to double the points in the last round, and we did not move up in the standings at all. I had figured that, doubling the points from round eight, we would have at least moved up a spot or two. Seemed strange. Anyhow, not too bad for just the pair of us. Especially since we hadn't played trivia in quite some time.