Thanksgiving 2020

 

This was an unusual Thanksgiving for all of us, I suppose. Richard Bonomo hunkered down with just his housemate to have dinner, so Travalon and I decided to go to the Concourse Hotel. Then Rich said another guy we know had wanted to come to his house for dinner but he had also turned him down, and Travalon loves talking about classic rock with this guy, so he called him and invited him to join us. I walked with my neighbor in the morning, then Travalon and I went for a two-mile walk at Jackson's Landing in the late morning because we had signed up to do the Virtual Turkey Trot (it raises money for the Boys and Girls Club), and then I walked with my neighbor again. I ended up walking seven and a quarter miles today, but that probably isn't enough to walk off the delicious Thanksgiving dinner we had at the Concourse Hotel. And our dinner companion is a wonderful conversationalist, so it was a delightful time. When we first got there, another table of people were just leaving, and they had a big soft white dog who wanted to say hello to everyone, so I got to pet her. I didn't expect a dog in a restaurant, but she was very well-behaved, even though I suspect she is a teenage dog and will get even larger. She seemed like a familiar breed, but I couldn't think what. Our dinner was pumpkin soup (or salad, but we all chose soup) to start, along with fresh bread with tangerine-honey-thyme butter. Then we had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and green beans almandine, and for dessert, pie. Travalon and I chose the classic pumpkin pie, while our dinner companion chose apple pie. We were talking so long that I started to feel really sorry for our waiter - maybe he had his own Thanksgiving dinner to go to, and we were holding him up! We did tip him generously for having to work on a holiday.

As we walked around downtown, a lot of the storefronts are boarded up in case of riots, and some of the artwork on the plywood rivals that in Black Cat Alley. It's done by local artists.

This was on a pasty shop - it's a talking pasty!

A timely message - and really, a timeless one:

This is the time of year on Famous Hat when there will be lots of pictures of Christmas lights. I'm not sure if the Overture Center is lit up for Christmas, but it sure is beautiful.

And I tried to take a picture of the lights on Monona State Bank, but it's not that great. I took a closer picture as we drove past, but that's really out of focus.

We drove around looking at some of the Christmas lights that are up, but I'm sure there will be more as we get into December. This is a little video of the wreathes on the fence at Whaler's Cove in our neighborhood.

Between all the walking and all the eating, I am feeling very sleepy now. Fortunately I have tomorrow off of work and can sleep in. Hopefully I don't have a dream as weird as the one I had this morning when I slept until 8:30, about these creatures that looked like foxes with human faces. I was the only one who saw them, and I didn't have a camera with me, but someone said, "Oh yeah, those are marmots," and then I was puzzling over whether he meant marmots or marmosets. He said, "They were considered sacred by the Native Americans." Oddly, the Dream Dictionary does have an entry for Marmots (apparently they symbolize deceit and falsehood, and I am being misled in some aspect of a relationship), but there is no entry for Marmosets. What do you know about that? Though I will note that there is an entry for Monkey (and marmosets are a type of monkey) that says seeing one symbolizes deceit. What's with all the deceit?? Who's deceiving me??

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