Odds and Ends

1. The holidays approach. Blogging will be scant this next week. I'm on travel tomorrow and we leave for Michigan to visit my mother later this week. Back next weekend.

2. Thanksgiving marks the 1-year anniversary of my father's funeral. We're cooking dinner for my mother and a large group of her friends. Almost everyone that needs to be there will be there.

3. It's a Maryland tradition to have sauerkraut with your Thanksgiving turkey. I love sauerkraut but everyone else hates it. Thanksgiving is the one time during the year I make it.

4. The labor for A-'s Eagle Scout Service Project is done. Tomorrow he gets his work inspected by the man coordinating the project. The he writes the report.

5. Conversation with my younger son this morning while we were getting ready for church. D- was sitting in his bedroom playing video games.

"D-, get that wet towel off the floor, pick up those dirty clothes, and make your bed."
"OK"
Less than one minute later I come back to find the bed "made" and everything off the floor.
"Where did you put that wet towel?"
A pause during which time you could literally see the plausible explanation machinery of his brain explode into smithereens. "Well, it's in my closet."

6. Please take some time to watch my favorite Thanksgiving movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It's a buddy movie staring Steve Martin and John Candy and it's hilarious. ("Those aren't pillows!") Both actors are at the top of their game. If you're a John Candy fan like me, Del Griffith is his best role. The poignancy of Del's loneliness together with his sincere generosity of spirit provides a marvelous counterpoint to Thanksgiving with family and friends.
K-