Next week is Thanksgiving break; after that, there's one more week of classes and then finals.

I haven't decided yet what I'm going to make for next week's dinners. I do plan to make some brown bread (a molasses-infused bread that, in my family, came in a fat cylinder and was served hot, with plenty of butter) and a cheesecake. I'm thinking, perhaps, of something traditional, involving ham and yams and - for some reason they seem appropriate - green beans. Or I may do something completely different. Only a day or two to make up my mind...

I'll be staying in Illinois again this holiday season; Gracie's eye trouble has flared up again (my fault), and there are a few other things I have to take care of. (For one, I'll be teaching our *other* history of math class next semester, as well as my usual one. This one covers the period from antiquity to Descartes - the other runs from Descartes to the present - and I haven't been satisfied with how I've handled it in the past. I'm going to try to model it more closely on the other class, taking into account the slightly different audience.)

Here in Edwardsville, there is a parade downtown on Halloween, and - apparently - most parents take their children. As a result, Halloween itself is not much of a trick-or-treat day. The custom has been that children go out trick-or-treating on October 30. Last night, though, was rainy, so the city strongly suggested that children go out on November 1 - tomorrow - instead.

Had the ToT taken place last night, I couldn't have participated; I don't get home until after 8:30 on Wednesdays. Friday, though, my only class is 2:00-2:50, so I'll be home by midafternoon. I'll have to stock up on candy today or tomorrow.

I won't comment on the unmooring of celebrations from their roots.

The kitchen is a mess. I am full.

The side dishes - a store-bought salad and sweet potatoes with butter - were, well, adequate. The two dishes I put effort into, the pilaf and the pecan pie, were excellent (save for, perhaps, a slightly burnt undertaste in the pie).

The dogs are discontent, because I didn't let them lick the plate. (Onions in the pilaf - tabu!) I did give them treats, though.

"Full" may not be the word. "Replete" may come closer. I think I'm going to lie down for a while.

Well, I'm home. A few vacation and post-vacation notes:

1. The dogs have finally settled down from their daddyshome frenzy. It only took about twenty hours.

2. Reading glasses, once they become necessary, are a godsend.

3. One of my great-nephews has emerged as a history buff. At the family Christmas party, he gave me a lengthy and mostly correct, if somewhat disorganized, description of the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. I remember, when I was about his age, reading a number of biographies-for-kids; Alexander the Great and Marie Curie are the only ones I specifically remember, but I'm sure there were more. I might poke around and see if I can get some of them, or the equivalent, for him - if that's OK with his mother!

4. I did get a fair amount of reading done - a dozen e-books, all fiction except for a history of ancient Rome (up to the Gaulish invasion). Two each by Bujold and Patricia Briggs, singletons by Carrie Vaughn, Ben Aaronovitch, Eric Flint, and N. K. Jemisin, plus older works by Edgar Pangborn ("West of the Sun"), Samuel Delany ("The Jewels of Aptor"), and for a change of pace Tennyson's "Idylls of the King".

5. "The Darkest Hour" was entertaining; it's too bad that several scenes, including the best one, were ahistorical. Churchill was in many respects a sonuvabitch, but you only have to do the right thing once to achieve greatness.

6. I hope I can get the motor revving by Monday. I have no energy at the moment, though I have put in motion a couple of things necessary for this semester's classes.

Tonight is the night local kids come out to trick or treat. (The city has a big Halloween parade on the 31st; most kids seem to be taken to it, and so they go out the previous night. A few stragglers show up on the 31st, but not many.) Unfortunately, between my work schedule and the bus schedule, I won't get home either night until almost 9PM, so no candy-giving for me this year. Also no candy *buying*, which is probably a good thing.

Today is (effectively) the first day of Thanksgiving break. (Technically, it doesn't begin until Monday.) Saturday is normally my big grocery day, when I buy the fixings for the next week's meals; but not today. There's a strong and cold west wind blowing, and the rain is steady if not very hard. NWS says it'll be that way until late afternoon, when it will start snowing. No accumulation is predicted, and tomorrow is supposed to be - not clear, but un-precip'd.

It's a day for lounging around the house, wearing long johns and fuzzy slippers. Gracie was just demanding to be let outside, but she spent less than a minute before shaking vigorously and asking for readmission.

I'm thinking I'll make Brunswick stew for Thanksgiving week this year. I haven't settled on the side dishes yet; a nice salad, I suppose, and maybe a store-bought cheesecake. Or maybe I'll try my hand at another kind of pie - I'm not in the mood for apple pie, but maybe pumpkin, or even pecan....

Saturday the 15th began inauspiciously, as I discovered that my brother had sworn off milk, and so I couldn't have cereal for breakfast. (Not really complaining; it just required a change of routine.) We wound up breakfasting at IHOP. Later in the day, we - Dad's five children, plus O's husband - gathered for dinner at a restaurant called JB's. I had a ravioli bowl, which contained rather more food than I could comfortably eat - not that that stopped me from eating it! I recall pleasant but unmemorable conversation - not much else.

The 16th was the big day. I have to drop back and provide some background. In mid-July, I'd received an e-mail from a former classmate (DG, one of the two I got together with in summer '06) announcing that our high school's 40th reunion would be on August 8. Sadly, I'd already made my travel plans, to be in SD the following week. DG responded by organizing (with JP, the other '06er) a micro-reunion, with as many of our old crowd as they could locate. This was scheduled for the afternoon of the 16th, at JP's house. There were nine or so of us, plus spouses and one child; most of them I had not seen in forty years, and my memories of two of them required a certain amount of jogging. It was a blast, seeing them all and finding out what everybody had done with their lives. (In some cases, this was a somewhat humbling experience....) A lot of reminiscence, a lot of catching-up, and a good bit of other conversation. (They put up with a certain amount of pontification on my part, on my favorite topics - math, history, language. I'm sorry, it's What I Do....) We'll be trying to keep in better touch in future. (If any old Crawfordites are reading these words: Hi! Feel free to leave comments!)

On the 17th, D and I got together again with E and her husband, dining at Soup Plantation. Again, it was nice to see them, but I really don't remember what we talked about. E recommended a few movies she'd seen lately, and I promised to keep an eye out. (I rarely see movies in the theater; I generally wait for them to come around on satellite.)

Not much more to say about my San Diego visit; the next day I left for Spokane. More on that later.

Well, finals are over; I posted grades for my classes yesterday morning, and I'll be leaving for California on Friday. It'll be a shorter trip than usual this year, only a little over two weeks, but we'll fit everything needful in.

I think I'm only going to take a couple of physical books with me this time. Both of them are time-eaters. One is volume two of a study of the late Roman Empire; I finished the first volume a week or two ago. This one has the material on trade that I was most interested in. The other is a math text, on "homotopy type theory"; it's not very long, but I know that it's going to take study to understand. Of course, I'll have my Kindle, and I'll probably buy a few books at B&N while I'm there.

Next semester will be a bit of a change for me. I'll be teaching my history of math course, as usual, but my differential geometry course didn't attract enough students and had to be cancelled. My other two courses will be Introduction to Analysis (which I taught last summer, but this time I'll have the full fifteen weeks instead of trying to cram it into eight) and Quantitative Reasoning, a freshman-level course, mainly for people who won't be going into STEM fields; I've never taught it before, and I'm a little uneasy about it. Both courses will require a good deal of prep work, which is one reason I'm coming back a week before classes start.

:yawn: I definitely need this break.

This week's dinners came from a recipe titled "French Pork and Bean Casserole". What it was, was pork and beans. (Well, that, plus a little bacon, half a pound of kielbasa, tomatoes, onions, and for some reason carrots.) I just finished it off. The first helping was... let's say imperfectly integrated. The tastes fought against each other, instead of blending. But by Tuesday they'd come to terms, and the last several servings were delicious.

I'm beginning to think about this year's Thanksgiving dinners. I'm leaning towards chili. I've never made chili before.

What goes with chili? Cornbread, of course. (I've never made cornbread either.) What else?

It's been more than twenty years, but I still cringe as Mother's Day approaches, knowing how many e-mail messages referencing that day - one I can no longer celebrate - I will receive.