Thanksgiving recap

I know you're waiting for the Thanksgiving post-game recap -- first, a bite of turkey, followed by complementary cranberry sauce...choosing salad for the third bite was an error, should have waited until further through the savory items...

Anyway, I had a great TG (as my mother refers to it in email communications) weekend. Nice to see the family, although Davin doesn't return from Colombia until just before Christmas. While there was a smaller-than-usual group at my parents' house this year, we had the customary large surplus of food, good for several subsequent days of meals revolving around refrigerator rummaging and the microwave.

I helped Dad out a bit with the deck he's building, as can be seen below. We were going to work a bit more before I left this morning, but were thwarted by sleet and big fat snowflakes.


Through a quirk of Amtrak pricing, I reserved a return trip on the spiffy Acela Express for only several bucks more than the regular train. It was spiffy, though not much faster, especially after we got stuck behind another train for the last part of the trip. Fortunately the luggage sniffing dogs I encountered on my way to CT weren't there, or they might have demanded to examine the left-over turkey and stuffing I had stowed in my carryon.

From the Fridge (an occasional feature)

Garden Recap

The weather here is a bit schizophrenic, but the garden season is definitely over. However, by bringing in most of the remaining green tomatoes from the garden a couple weeks ago, I've had a rerun of peak tomato season, with enough ripening on the windowsill to keep me thinking of ways to use them. There are still a dozen at varying states of ripeness, so I will likely have fresh tomatoes for a couple more weeks.


The big pot of vegetable soup that's in the fridge right now contains the last carrots and squash, as well as some tomatoes. (You'll have to trust me on this, because I was too lazy to take a picture, but the last carrot I pulled was immaculate! Tall, nicely proportioned, arrow straight...most of my others were gnarled.)

I'm not sure exactly how many veggies I harvested over the course of the season, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than 20 lbs each of both tomatoes and squash, along with not-inconsequential amounts of green beans, carrots and greens -- mostly tastier than what I could buy at the store. Considering that back when I planted in the spring, I calculated that I had spent just over $50 on gardening supplies, this is a good deal. It's also satisfying, as evidenced by my repeated postings. Also, the amount of time I dedicated to the garden was pathetically small. I spent a couple afternoons planting it, and then weeded it maybe twice; I used the hose to water it every couple days during the dry parts of the summer. If these are the results you get without really trying, imagine if I put in some actual effort! Matt and Risa kindly gave me a gardening book when they visited a few weeks ago, so hopefully next year I can have an even better harvest...

Election night

This quick video clip I shot on Tuesday night captures the scene a lot better than the photos:

In DC

Riding around the city with Eric this evening, on the way home from watching the returns at Aron's, there was lots of honking. But it was not because cars wanted us to get out of the way.

On U Street:


Next to the White House:

Songs of the Moment (An Occasional Feature)

> Les Savy Fav - The End
> TV on the Radio - DLZ [YouTube]
> The Thermals - St. Rosa and the Swallows
> Butthole Surfers - Thermador
> The Weakerthans - Sun in an Empty Room
> Weezer - Buddy Holly [YouTube]
> Magnetic Fields - Epitaph for My Heart

Estate sale promotion

I saw this while out on a bike ride yesterday evening:

I know it's Halloween, but putting happy skull balloons on your estate sale sign is still kinda weird.

Carving

Hope you had a sufficiently spooky Halloween. Here's my jack-o-lantern, which looks suspiciously like last year's:

I had folks over on Thursday for carving, but it was BYOP, and Catherine couldn't find a P, so she carved an acorn squash instead. Makes a nice black cat:

I also carved the giant zucchini that I had previously mentioned finding in the garden:

Seems like it could be one of Strongbad's friends, maybe Marzipan's sister.