I have not written anything (or at least not anything that got completed to post here) for a while. Work has been very busy and Tom and I as well as the kids ended up spending a lot of time on the school play. But that finished up last weekend. We didn't go around the table yesterday and say what we were thankful for. If we had, I might have said I was thankful that the play was over.
Since I posted last we've had another block party. Fewer people than the one in the spring, I think, but some of the new neighbors were there, as well as one of the longtime neighbors who hadn't come before. There was music (thanks to Mark, Mathew, and Yoshi) and it was very nice. It was followed by rain (as has been almost everything this fall) so no worrying this time about the sidewalk chalk in the parking lot.
The leaves are now mostly down. Our ginkgo tree has lost most of its leaves, revealing a bird's nest, way up high. It's a medium-sized one, and looks to be made of grass rather than twigs. I don't know what kind of bird made it, but there were mockingbirds in the front yard during the summer - perhaps it was theirs. It certainly looks like a safe location - out of reach of cats and nosy humans - and I didn't even know it was there until a couple of weeks ago.
During the summer I wrote about
the three caterpillars on the fennel by the mailbox. I kept looking for crysalises and never saw any. One by one, just when they got big enough, they disappeared. (I even took one into protective custody, but I wasn't sure it was eating, so I put it back outside.) I assume the birds got them. Although I wish we had the butterflies, I guess I can't begrudge the birds their dinner. But next summer I may definitely go the protective custody route.
Most of the construction seems to be done on the street, which hopefully will take care of the ongoing silt problems and the mysterious water that always seems to be running in the gutter. One day (it might have been Veteran's Day) there was so much water coming down the street we were sure a water line must be broken and called the city. The woman who answered the phone said that since it was a nice day, everyone except for her was out enjoying the day and noticing leaks and calling them in.
And then, yesterday was Thanksgiving. I did almost all the shopping on Wednesday, but still had to go to a second store to get pie crusts and butternut squash. Tom cooked the turkey outside in the smoker, and as always it was very good. The condition of the bird was monitored continually by telemetry like it was an ICU patient. The girls made pies and Iain and Caroline made the green bean casserole. Susan got here in time to help mash the potatoes and we ended up not needing the second loaf of bread.
Enough people were expected that we thought everyone would not fit around our dining room table, even with all the extra leaves inserted, so this year we had a kids' table in the living room. Besides the five of us and Susan, there were six more people over the course of the day. Fred came with Max and Emma, and Angela came without Doris, who came later with a box of chocolates. Mark ended up having to work, but came by for a little while in the evening. The kids played Apples to Apples for many hours, and the adults talked and drank, punctuated by intermittent dishwashing (see below). The food was passable and the company excellent. And we were able to find space in the refrigerator for all the leftovers without a major refrigerator-cleaning effort. The dog spent most of the day on the leash and only was able to get to one food item on the table (a stick of butter). The consensus was that I should just throw away the part with the teeth marks in it, so that's what I did.
The major excitement of the day was unrelated to food preparation and occurred before any of our guests arrived. I was getting plates out for setting the tables and at that point noticed that the dishwasher (which had been started many hours before) was still running. This was because the heating element had failed to shut off and was in the process of melting all the plastic inside of the dishwasher, including parts of the dishwasher itself. This was not good. And, to make it worse, it won't turn off.
I told the kids to go find Tom. They said he is walking the dog. When he got back a few minutes later the lower partially melted rack full of extremely hot dishes is in the middle of the kitchen floor. He threw the circuit breaker and with that it finally turns off. There was melted black plastic from the dishwasher's upper gasket on the dinner plates, but I was able to get it off and we did not have to use paper plates. We did though have to wash lots of dishes yesterday.
Sometime yesterday someone asked if we were going shopping today. Tom said possibly for a dishwasher. What kind? Well, he said, something other than a GE Monogram.
After the last of the guests left, I went upstairs and collapsed and Tom finished the dishes. This morning I took the second loaf of bread out of the bread machine and used part of the butter that didn't have teeth marks in it. On this day after Thanksgiving, I am thankful for a husband who knows how to stop rogue appliances, children who can amuse themselves playing games that require a substantial amount of general knowledge, food on the table, friends who come and share the day, and the roof over our heads, in spite of the dishwasher that left to its own devices would have burned the house down.
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