Mark, Jiajia, and Mira came down for Thanksgiving. Ed, Lynne, Pete and his girls joined us for dinner. We included the Reeds via Zoom. We had a minor problem with the kitchen faucet. The handle came off in my hand. I wasn’t able to get a new part until Friday, but we got by with a special “two thumb push” on the guts of the faucet. Danita did a wonderful job as usual. In addition to the traditional meal with all the trimmings, Danita made quiche, 4-cheese Mac and Cheese, Cinnamon bread, scones and more. We all managed to add several pounds in a couple of days. This week Danita is having “no new foods from the kitchen” week. Between leftovers, food trucks, and a ridiculous give-away at Panera, it will be over a week before Danita has to cook a full meal. There’s pictures on the website.

House construction has gone well. They repaired all the wood rot. They had to remove the basement door and window for a day. The county inspector gave his blessing. Now the plywood is up and Tyvek is hung.The door from our bedroom to the deck has been replaced with a new one. The rumor is that the door from the living room to the deck will arrive this week. They won’t be able to replace the stonework until spring. Temperatures have to be consistently above 45 degrees. For now, we’re enjoying several days of no construction noise.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a very interesting “Lunch and Learn” at our neighborhood this week. A new resident used to be the captain of ocean-going vessels. He commanded the largest and fastest cargo ships in the world. The first ship he captained was a livestock carrier. They shipped 150,000 sheep from Australia to the Middle East for religious sacrifices. It was a several day journey. Inevitably about 100 sheep would die every day. These had to be thrown overboard. That guaranteed sharks would follow the ship. In spite of the sharks, his was the safest ship in the world. The stink ensured no pirates would try to board. When they arrived in port, the waring countries would never try to attack the ship, because the sheep were considered sacred. The guy is a natural story teller. It is quite an entertaining presentation.

Friday the construction crew wanted to install a new door and also start repairs on our basement window. Unfortunately, they waited until Friday morning to make their request. I was literally backing out of the driveway to take Mom to an appointment with her retina specialist. Danita was leaving within the half hour to attend her Aunt Mia’s funeral. It’s supposed to rain tonight. If the rain ends fairly early tomorrow, they might start tomorrow. If not, staring Tuesday will be iffy, with Mira planning to arrive Wednesday afternoon. (We’ll allow her parents to stay also.) We’ll have to wait and see whether the work will be done before Thanksgiving. They have to cut through drywall to get the basement window out. There’s lots of white dust everywhere when they are done. There’s a couple of construction pics below.

I’ve been invited to give a cyber security luncheon talk at one of the churches in January. They have a group of 30 or so people attend. They meet every other month, alternating sacred and secular topics. I attended their meeting this month to see how the sessions go. It’s a nice group of people. I learned a lot about lay leaders in the Catholic Church. I saw how their meetings flow. And I found out what I have to bring to connect to their AV system.

We went to a very good presentation on ancient Chinese art. It was our kind of event. Attendees had to demonstrate vaccination. Every other row was closed. There were two empty seats between parties. Douglas Dillon of the Metropolitan Museum of Art gave the presentation, based on a book he wrote. He started with examples of calligraphy as art, then went on to show the importance of brush work in Chinese art. He demonstrated several scrolls. He tied art into the politics of the time. Douglas has a Ph. D. I’m sure he could have thrown in lots of jargon. He kept it at the layman’s level. It was a safe and interesting time.

We had a neighborhood party yesterday, but the food truck for tonight cancelled due to weather. (Wuss!) Our neighbors and we will do a Jason’s Deli run and have our own private food truck party.

Danita wanted to go back to volunteering at the county food bank. She didn’t want to work with clients, many of whom might not be vaccinated. So she volunteered to spend two hours sorting food. She was in a large warehouse with the door open most of the time. There were only a couple of workers in the warehouse. Keeping a safe distance was pretty easy.

I have been enjoying my bike, but missing the opportunity to take it to the store when I buy stuff. I finally figured out a way to get my pannier bags mounted to the bike. Considering I had only a rough idea of a plan and didn’t really know what I was doing, it came out well. Here’s a pic. I had intended in trimming the vertical bars to size, but in looking at them, they seemed to cry out for flags.

Construction on our house is moving smoothly. The fake stone is attached to plywood. To fix the rotten wood, they had to remove the stone. Our plywood was so rotted that most of it fell apart. For whatever reason, our house had more rot than most. That’s surprising, since there were no water stains or other visible indications of trouble. It’s a good thing we’re getting the repairs done.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It’s been another quiet week. Temperatures have been dropping below freezing the last few nights. The fall leaf colors are past their peak. Trails are sometimes covered in layers of leaves. There were no parties or food trucks.

We had one fatality in the house last week. The blades in our blender froze. That blender has been around for a good long while. I’m sure all three kids made smoothies with that blender. It’s too bad. The motor still works and the glass is in perfect condition. But the seal has been leaky for decades. We decided it was time to say goodbye to the old blender. Danita is trying to pick a new one.

I rode down to the Patapsco River the other day. They have two temporary bridges over tributaries that have been in place since the Ellicott City flooding a couple of years ago. The last big rain we had moved them substantially. One bridge was made of heavy wooden timbers. It looked like the timbers basically floated on the swollen waters, letting the water push them downstream. I had to dismount and carry my bike. The bike is ungainly and 40 pounds. Who says bicycling doesn’t provide an upper-body workout? I’m looking forward to standard time. It’s substantially cooler before 10:00, so I’ve been starting rides later in the morning. Beginning next week, I’ll be staring rides an hour earlier.

Construction on our house hasn’t started yet. The foreman said he thinks they will probably start sometime this coming week. On Thanksgiving, the upstairs will be fine. We will still have the old doors to the upper deck in place. New doors will definitely be installed after Thanksgiving. The upper deck itself will probably be finished. The basement should be done, but there is a possibility of plastic sheeting and/or unfinished construction on the exterior wall. There’s a decent chance the downstairs porch won’t be put back together. If there is any construction downstairs, we might close off the basement on Thanksgiving day. That’s not much of a disruption. The repairs to the house are one more thing to be thankful for.