Part 2

The cats plotted all night to decide how best to get me back for putting antler ears on their head.  

This is what Doug found when he got up for work this morning.  

Beware of Free Things

I’ll admit I was lured in by one particular Black Friday ad.  “Free antlers on November 29 (while supplies last)" at Petco.  Although we didn’t exactly need a bag of cat food today, we will need one in the next week so I was at Petco at the crack of 11:30 in hopes of snagging a pair of free antlers with purchase. 

As expected, these antlers were much more fun for me than for the cats.  In fact, nobody except me was even remotely thrilled with this idea.   

Ravel was more interested in trying to tear them apart than wear them.


His reactions were from general annoyance to all out wrestling. 


Nigel wasn't as aggressively anti-antlers as his brother.  However, it looks like maybe Nigel got up too early for Black Friday shopping OR had a bit too much wine at Thanksgiving dinner.  

Beware cats! One tree is up and I haven’t given up my quest for a cute picture of cats wearing antlers yet.  It’s not even the first day of Advent.  We have plenty of time for this nonsense.

Thanksgiving Day

 

We’re trying to train the cats to be civilized by wearing collars. I wanted to get an orange collar for Ravel and a black collar for Nigel to reinforce the sense that they are a matched set, a couple of fraternal twins, die Brueder.

But blue looks so good on Nigel. It enhances his orangeness.

We started cooking some of the food for today’s feast as early as Tuesday. We even expanded the table length by inserting the original-color leaf that has not been worn down by use and the sun. We employed an angle formation for the table to make it fit better in the room. The feng shui was most excellent.

Sue moved the clock into the sunlight to give the orange cat something to do in the midmorning hours when he can chase the reflections back and forth on the wall.

Candied sweet potatoes and a glass of white wine.

Watching the Packers lose to Detroit is also a proud Thanksgiving day tradition.

In addition to the Bergs, we invited neighbor Ann and her daughter Samantha and son in law Nick. Ann is moving to Burnsville tomorrow and we will really miss her!

Real men eat turkey legs.

Samantha and Nick live in Urbana, Illinois. It was nice to see them. When we built our house in 2000, Samantha was only about 15 years old.

We are thankful for family and friends and food and fun.

Wok and Parole

Here’s my new green curry recipe getting the wok treatment. You’re looking at yellow peppers, onions, and green chili paste.

 

The curry ended up a little on the white side due the bright white off the coconut milk but still plenty spicy.

And I made my first pumpkin pie of the season—a success.

We attended parent-teacher conferences last week where we talked to two of Christoph’s teachers that teach him four of his eight classes. Here was Christoph deep in thought making up a test that he missed while he was in New York.

This is the best beard/police line up picture ever!

Look at the fuzziness!

How long will I let this thing get?

Hmmm

Hmmm

Packer-Viking Game

It's good to be a cat...

Movember: The Early Years

How awesome is this? Charles was 40 years old in this Milwaukee County Parks golf ID.  Note the hint of gray in the beard but more stunning than that: look at how full that beard is. This is an inspirational beard. There were rumors that he could hide a pencil inside this beard.

Representing Germany…

Christoph got a new laptop last night!  After messing around with international warranties, it was decided the best thing to do was for him to buy a cheap laptop here and send his out of commission computer back to Germany for repair.  German companies provide excellent warranty coverage! 

No that’s not Christoph as the #11 on the FBI’s 10 most wanted criminal list.  That’s his picture on the World Youth Chess Championship website.  He will be competing as part of the German team in Abu Dhabi next month. 

Such a serious looking boy!

King of Burgers

 

Christoph returned from his trip to the east coast safe and sound on Saturday afternoon around 4pm. The bus broke down at least once delaying their arrival at Niagara Falls which they then had to enjoy in the dark illuminated artificially. Otherwise, Christoph had great things to say about the trip. He is a little tired of fast food especially the king of burgers, aka The Burger King. Notice the New York sweatshirt.

Naturally, we watched two of our three favorite quarterbacks (Ponder and that other guy but not Freeman)underperform yesterday. I told my mother that my beard looks good “on film” and “from afar” but not necessarily in person. I stand by this statement.

 

Brotherly antics

 

After dinner with the Dills at ApfelBees bar and grille, Christoph, Leon, Laura and I headed off downtown for the Wild – Winnipeg hockey showdown. Christoph and I sat in the 8th row (thank you Pfeifers!) for this 2 – 1 win by our Minnesota Wild.

We enjoyed both the Canadian and American national anthems and also the prolific booing of the Winnipeggers. Oh Canada!  was sung in French with an artful switch to English for the last few lines. Oui, Oui.

Were we ready for some football?  Yes, but we watched the Vikings instead. Did everyone in the central division lose yesterday?

This fuzzy pink thing used to be attached to the the Kitty Barn.  The Cats’ motto: seek, shred, destroy.

There were only a couple of short fist fights and thankfully they were only on the ice and not in the stands. The Winnipeggers were an unruly bunch not unlike a band of British Soccer Hooligans.  Christoph and I accidentally wore Winnipeg dark blue instead of the Wild green and/or red.

I think Christoph enjoyed the violence of this icy sport.

Seek, Shred, Destroy

Photo Reviews

 

I have been looking back through our photos to find some great photos for our Christmas card this year.  None of these are making the card but I like them for different reasons. 

The photo above makes me smile!  Here we are out in a little ‘village’ where there is no running water or electricity.  At the same time, Nixon is talking on his cell phone!  Several people in Tanzania told us that Tanzania basically bypassed what we might consider ‘standard’ telephones and went from no phones to cell phones. 

This is a great picture of Doug with a little guy who made himself Doug’s BFF for the day when we were at church and the choir festival at Ipogoro.  This little guy was pretty memorable!  Too bad he wasn’t looking at the camera and this would have been Christmas card worthy. 

So close!  Now that he’s looking Doug’s blurry and that is probably my elbow in the photo!

One of my favorites from the safari!

Elephants in all shapes and sizes!

It would have been really cool to have a picture of us with this giraffe in the background.  We didn’t even think to pose with the animals because it was too cool seeing them! 

I’ll admit I’m more excited than usual for my concert this Thursday!  We are playing the arrangement that Doug and I of “Under One Sky”.  We learned the song from Alexander who is pictured here with the tambourine.  The arrangement is just “OK” but the kids really like it because of the stories I’ve told them about our trip.  

Another favorite!  Alexander, surrounded by about 50 kids, singing his song for me!