I'm Free!

I'm out from under the onus of having to work 5 entire, nearly customer-free days in the last week.  Let me just say that I do not understand at all how they manage to keep the doors open and the lights on.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they do since I couldn't ask for a better job, I just don't see how they do it.  It's sunny and warmish (50s) outside today so I plan to revel in filling the birdfeeders and I might just go take a walk along the river.  Or go shopping.  One or the other.  See, I've got a gift card from Barnes & Noble that's kind of burning a hole in my pocket so I might have to go spend it on... on... something.  I told you that I'm not much of a shopper but sometimes I just want to go do it.  Not that I have a lot of spare money for it, but I felt very confined sitting in that empty and echoing dive shop all week so I'm kind of restless.  I was disappointed that it was foggy when I was driving to work yesterday morning because I was hoping to snap a picture of big helium balloons towering over the downtown trees before the holiday parade.  I didn't see one so I slipped off the Mason St. bridge, cruised down Monroe to see what I could see, doubled back, and took a picture of a marching band assembling in St. James Park.  It's not much parade but it's better than no parade at all, I think.  BTW, "happened this weekend" is today's Photo a Day theme so I'm counting the pre-parade photo.  Next year I'm going to the parade.  *stamps foot*  In today's paper they published the dates for the Festival of Lights in the Botanical Garden this year; it's Fridays, Saturdays & Sundays from November 23 - December 29, so Lala, check your calendar and figure out when you can come up for an overnight so we can go.  We'll keep our fingers crossed so that there's snow and I'll pop for wagon ride tickets.  You can buy the hot chocolate.  We'll make Durwood cook us food.  D'you like chicken cacciatore?  We can make him make that and it's really good.  Speaking of really good, the sauerkraut is really stinking up the basement, the rest of the house too.  That means it's just about ready so there'll be preserving going on next weekend I think.  It doesn't make much sense that something that smells so bad tastes really good but it does.  Yay for homemade kraut!  Yay for not having the stinkiest basement in three states anymore.

November 18--Rafael, Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist.  The boys grew up more like brothers than cousins.  Where one was the other was sure to be.  Since they lived on either end of the town everyone knew them because they roamed freely from John's house to Isaac's house and back.  If John swam naked in the creek, Isaac did too.  When Isaac didn't pay for his ice cream cone by snatching away his nickel and running, so did John.  Their mothers doted on them and their fathers wondered if they'd end up in jail or get themselves killed with their antics.

I didn't make up those pranks either.  Those are things that Durwood and his brothers did when they were growing up in suburban Chicago.  See?  All of life is fodder for fiction.  Crank it up and spit it out.
--Barbara