Thanks, Oregon. Trader Joe’s is within walking distance. No chips and dip, I promise! I think the crowd is going to be smaller than the invitation list, so I’m officially out of “panic” mode.
I’m just sitting in the San Francisco airport, where it’s raining pretty steadily, waiting for my flight home. It would be great if it’s raining there, but I doubt it is. In any case, hoping the rain doesn’t keep us here …
Safe (and speedy) travels, Z.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Safe travels to those traveling this year.
Feels like the calm before the storm . . . S got home last night. His laundry is now washed and folded. He has a HS friend arriving today. The deep-fried turkey arrived yesterday and is in the refrigerator. Most of the other meal components will be delivered tonight.
D received a job offer, and negotiated to get the salary a little higher. She will not be taking a pay cut by switching jobs. Not sure when she’ll start - since she has 7 vacation days scheduled off in December, she may need to wait until January.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!
congrats to your D, c_q!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Congrats C_Q o your D!
Great c-q. Matched my expectation.
ShawSon just arrived home. Tired and a little heavier (no exercise for much of the quarter – he is not only working on the research in CS/Data Science and taking first quarter business school course but has now started two ventures and is thinking he will be a strategic advisor to a third so with all that and a GF, his exercise regime went out the window). The new GF seems great so far. He was worried that they were so different that it would cause problems, but it seems more complementary than conflicting.
ShawD has a clinical today but will come home this evening.
Great news, c_q, Congratulations to your daughter.
Hope everyone has a nice Thanksgiving. We are driving to DC tomorrow to see our sons. We are eating in a restaurant in DC. We always cook for Thanksgiving and usually our sons come home, so this will be different. But the restaurant should be nice and I will still order turkey and all the trimmings. My husband says he’s getting the rockfish as long as he can have a bite of my turkey! We’ll go to see H’s family in Baltimore on Friday and watch the UVa-VT game together at a sports bar back in DC on Saturday so our weekend will be pretty full. Happy Thanksgiving!
So! I hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving!
We had a very nice time at friends with their relatives who have just moved to WA. and experienced their
first every Thanksgiving. All are from Spain.
my friend is not a good cook. This was her best ever though.
Gossiping–chopped a load of onions and just added them to the potatoes.
Did not sauté, no salt and no pepper and no butter. :((
H has to sleep in the guest room tonight if you get my drift b-(
But fun games and the day is over! This is my least favorite holiday as I do not actually like any of the food.
Oh! and wonderful desserts brought from some famous Seattle bakery (lemon cake was superb) but no
pumpkin pie! Which I do like!
Yet! S texted what he wants for his Christmas gift as it is on a Black Friday sale–
So, I am thinking that all I will do for the gifts are checks and a few stocking stuffers.
Ok, bittersweet yet not awful.
At his age I used my mothers check to pay my dental bill.
Always have used gift money this way but somehow my kids feel that a gift is a gift…
much better I think.
I like the idea of using gift money for fun.
The kids are each getting one big (i.e. expensive) gift and they already know what those are. So I am mostly shopping for stocking stuffers, H and our elderly parents. I bought one thing on line this AM- good sale - but it’s for me.
Thanksgiving was fun and we had way, way too much food. Fortunately I like these foods as we will be eating leftovers for the next several days. I was though strangely exhausted by around 6 PM.
Belated Happy Thanksgiving…and kudos to CQ’s D!
Since we had Canadian TG with my side of the family already and mch’s dad is always down at his sisters, this TG was just mcson, gf, h and I. Had a nice time. Mcson and gf made the most delicious pumpkin pie I’ve ever had. Girl has a talent with pastry, it seems. She topped it with perfectly carmelized pecans. Her crust was perfect. Perhaps I’ll get her to teach me this ninja skill 
Happy Thanksgiving to all. Great to have the kids here. Both delightful to talk to. ShawSon is working so hard he is worried about his health. He finds he doesn’t have to read most of the material to do well in his business school classes (and this is one of the top schools in the world). He is pushing on his non-profit app. Not yet out, but he’s hoping for this weekend. He’s got a major venture and is thinking of agreeing to advise another really interesting venture on strategy. Kids from his school call him for advice on their new ventures and one young man (very interesting career path including leading special ops in the military whom ShawSon said is very impressive) told another of ShawSon’s friends that he had just talked with ShawSon and he is a genius. Good reputation to have, I think, particularly if you can tie the intellectual horsepower to motivating people to get the right things done.
ShawD talked to one of her childhood friends about Portland. He worked there last summer and hated it. He said it was depressing. No sun ever. Lots of homeless folks. @Oregon101, I haven’t been there in 25 years, but none of that matches my experience. Things have undoubtedly changed a lot, but I found it clean and relatively charming. I don’t recall homeless folks in any real magnitude (but then again, I was living in NYC at the time). Is he really off base?
kmc, great to have a gf who is great at cooking (at least desserts). ShawD made cocktails for us.
Hope everyone is enjoying some rest today. We have a gorgeous, but nippy, day. Perfect post-Thanksgiving weather.
So, we enjoyed the folks (PhD students and post-docs) from D2’s lab; they represented China, India, Trinidad-Tobago, and the US. It was nice to see that they really enjoy each other, and had lots of stories to swap about their PI. Not all labs are so congenial, nor all PIs so beloved. This lab does interesting work all connected to alternative energy and a number of related applications. We understood some of what they talked about, but there were many jokes about nano servings of pie, etc., that we mostly got!
We had way too much food, but they seemed to appreciate the hospitality. As they are mostly international, they would have been alone otherwise, but only one grew up celebrating Thanksgiving in the States.
Shaw, Portland is a mix – of weather, neighborhoods, and people. In some ways, it’s the “new Seattle” – the gentrifying neighborhoods, downtown, etc. But, yes, the areas surrounding downtown are mixed. Maybe Oregon101 has a different or more up to date view. The NW can be cloudy much of the summer: but when it’s nice, it’s darn hard to beat (my Dad is from Oregon, H is from the state of Washington).
Glad to read that T-day was a success for all!
The homeless population is one of the largest in the States. This is due our very generous benefits for the homeless.
Still, the population has reached a point where it a serious problem.
There is still very little crime related to the population. It is more a matter of where they sleep and eat and hang out
during the day. Portland set up many benches a few years ago just to help give a place other than the sidewalk for folks to sit.
The summer weather is typically wonderful! From June until late October there is nowhere else we would want to be…
although last summer was too hot for many outdoor activities.
Now I have sworn never to spend the entire month of November in Oregon again. It is a dreary month.
Yet here I sit with the brightest week of sunny days! All so unpredictable!
Yes, agree that the city is full of interesting and diverse neighborhoods.
So many restaurants that are amazing. Fabulous Arts and Music.
Considered more desirable than Seattle–somewhat due to S’s traffic issues. Our traffic is bad but
as Portland is built in a circle Seattle is a corridor.
Portland’s rent/income ratio is terrible.
Zetesis, my D and her bf are hosting the international students from the bf’s lab today for a Thanksgiving dinner. D had to work yesterday. On Thursday I think they had Chinese take-out.
Coming up for air. 16 trees up, with 6 to go. After that will still have to do tree toppers and skirts and a lot of clean up. We have had record breaking rain… So glad it wasn’t ice!
Hope putting up those trees is a group effort, mp! That’s a lot of work.
D and SIL return to Brooklyn today, they are going back on the bus and leaving the car here over the winter. This weekend has gone by too fast.
Older D was a huge help. She decorated five trees totally on her own. The other two… Not so much. Younger D put up her own tree. Son did not touch an ornament. I can’t even send all his ornaments back with him because he and fiancé have a wild kitten so no tree
Missy, you’re making me feel almost guilty that this year I just cut off the Saran Wrap I slathered around last year’s decorated tree Its been my favorite tree-trimming year yet I’d threatened last year to try this “hack” after no-help tree trimming. It worked.
But with 17 trees you might have a problem storing them whole!
Re wild kitten, tell your son cats CAN be trained, via water gun, to behave. What’s he gonna do, never have a tree? Better long term to train the cat than forego the tree! (Except of course no tinsel, as it can kill them).
(This theory is a good practice run for parenting, methinks At least, that was my thinking when I helped train mcson in how to train a cat )
Happy Cyber Monday to all!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, although it was our first without either of our children in attendance. I won’t bore you with all the excruciating details, but H seems to be in a MUCH better place with D’s engagement/wedding. Last week he had D come over alone for a “talk.” It was completely miserable – D was in tears, yet I was SO proud of her for speaking her heart to H and standing up to him. I really had no idea where things would end up, but on Wed. H went to morning Mass (something he has NEVER done) and then went back later to talk with the priest. IMO, it finally dawned on H that he could “lose” his D and he better try to sort things out. The Catholic church we attend here is quite liberal (what else would you expect in Cambridge?), so when H said he was meeting with the priest, I was pretty sure he would tell H to chill out. It’s hard to put into words, but it was almost as if H was worried about what other people would think when they found out D was marrying a non-Catholic/non-churchgoer and may not even get married in a “proper” church – that everyone would believe H had failed as a parent. His entire side of the family (all Catholic, at least in upbringing) is absolutely THRILLED for D, though, so no issues there. ANYWAY, the priest did, in fact, tell H he needed to chill some. H wants to have another chat with D tomorrow, and then, hopefully, we can all move from this and let the fun begin!
On Thanksgiving evening we FaceTimed with S – it was Friday morning for him in South Korea. He seems to be doing well – has found a nice apartment near the base; brand new and quite spacious. He has a moped for transportation. His current job is construction management, similar to his job at the base in NJ, but at some point he’ll change to something else.
Wednesday H and I are off the FL for a week. We got ridiculously low airfares a couple of months ago – too good to pass up. Of course it’s one of these airlines that charges even for carry-on bags over a certain, very small size, so we have to pack in a gym bag … Oh well, what do we need other than a bathing suit, toothbrush and flip-flops?
Congrats to c_q’s D on the new job. And kudos to mp on all the trees. I can barely deal with one!