This and That, Belated Turkey Edition

Once again we’re wrapping up another month and rapidly moving into the holiday seasons.  Thanksgiving Day has come and gone with the last of the turkey leftovers are in today’s lunchtime sandwich.  The trees are finally bare of leaves, we’ve cut the grass for the last time this year, and we have next spring’s gardening to look forward to.

It’s just another late autumn day here in Northern Virginia, out on the edge of our nation’s capital.

We had a great Thanksgiving Day feast this year with the largest crowd we’ve had since living in northern Virginia.  We invited over our friends Brian and Zoila with their four young girls, and a single lady Cheryl who just moved here from Cincinnati, Ohio the previous week.

For our Thanksgiving Day dinner we had my typical excellent turkey with stuffing (really) and a zucchini salad I tried for the first time.  Winnie made her excellent egg rolls and dumplings, stuffed bread rolls, and a hot and spicy soup that had me gasping for air when I tasted it.  Zoila is originally from Peru, and contributed Peruvian-style tamales, which I thought were excellent and way better that Mexican-style tamales I’ve had in the past.  Together with baked yams and potatoes, fried rice, pumpkin pie and ice cream, I had one of the nicest and most interesting Thanksgiving Day dinners I’ve ever hosted.  It was truly a day for thanks.

Aside from Thanksgiving Day, it was another fast November.  I made another trip out to California, and had the chance to jump down to Los Angeles on Veteran’s day to visit with Howard and Pam.  We had a very nice day indeed.  Howard and Pam got tickets to L.A.’s science museum for the exhibit of “Mummies of the World.“

Quite an interesting exhibit, but it also seemed full of sadness in viewing the mummified corpses of ancient babies and adults.  What I found interesting was that none of the mummified remains were more than 45 years old at the time of their death.  There were also remains of several young children with the youngest only ten months at the time of death.  This was also the oldest mummy in the exhibit; if I remember correctly it was carbon-dated at about 6000 years old. I try to picture my sorry-ass carcass mummified and on display in some museum of the future and it’s not a pretty thought.  In fact, that thought is strong encouragement for cremation – leave no evidence behind!

My November trip may also be my last trip for a while.  My present contract ends in a few weeks and I’m still unsure of where I’ll be transferred to next.  I will stay with my present company as its large enough and with the resources to keep us consultants “on the bench” for a while between assignments if necessary.  So at least I have no worries for now on employment.

Not flying for at least awhile may also be a blessing, as I don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy-run-amok otherwise known as the TSA.  Flying was already a miserable experience without strange (in every sense of that word) people feeling me up in the name of national security.  If I can stay grounded for a while that will be just fine.  I think Winnie would like to have me at home also, which is a good thing (that she wants me around the house).

So, another month of traveling and turkey and spending time with family and friends is past.  Not such a bad month indeed.  Here’s to looking forward to Christmas and the start of a new year.