For the past month, Hallmark has been airing commercials with the slogan, "Leave Grandma home for Christmas." Yeesh! Of course, they're assuming you won't totally abandon Grandma, but will send her a Hallmark card to cheer her up. Why in the world they think these commercials are good is beyond me. But with the latest virus spikes, the CDC advised everyone to stay home for Thanksgiving (grandkids as well as Grandma). Bummer. So after Courtney canceled her flight home, we decided to just go ahead and cook our 12-pound turkey on Tuesday and free up some space in our refrigerator. That meant on Thursday, we ended up having spaghetti for dinner (3 nights of turkey in a row was overkill for me). But we weren't the only ones having a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Brian and Amber grilled steaks, and Courtney made herself pulled pork tacos. Ho. Ho. Ho. What a year this has been.
Like the rest of the country, I went online to do some Black Friday shopping to cheer myself up. I heard that Violet was kicked out of school - all the students have to do virtual school until Jan 11. So advent calendars seemed like a good idea to give Lincoln, Hazel, and Violet something to do during December. Hazel, like most 2-year olds, was having more fun popping the bubble wrap that the calendars came in.
I'm continuing my daily walks around the neighborhood. The other day, I walked over to Washington University's campus. It was so quiet. There are a few students on campus, mostly occupying the study carrels in the library. I noticed that some professors have set up outdoor classrooms, but I doubt that will last much longer when the snow starts. We've been extremely fortunate so far to have had a very mild and dry autumn.
The restaurants have been gearing up for holiday parties. They aren't allowed to have indoor seating right now, but I guess if you're lucky you might be able to snag a tent or a seat next to the portable heater. I've had lunch a couple times with my friend, Joyce, at Panera's. Once we got rained on, but luckily we were sitting at an umbrella table.
The destruction of my neighborhood continues. This used to be a row of 1960's brick townhouses. It was torn down in about 2 days so that they can construct a new row of townhouses. Pretty soon there aren't going to be any 60's buildings left.
But I guess I can't throw stones at new homes. We had our pre-construction meeting this week. The contractor sent us 5 different documents to look over. One was the site plan showing the way the house will be situated on the lot (not a lot of wiggle room left over). Bruce was most interested in how long the driveway will be so he can justify getting a snowblower. The new driveway will be significantly shorter than our current driveway, but we don't get 36 inches of snow a year around here. They also sent us a 21-page document detailing the soil conditions on the property. Being a former civil engineer, I thought the first 9 pages were interesting, but then it got a little tedious. After all, there isn't a whole lot I can do about it, except to say, just start digging already. Hopefully that should start next week.
