What I did over Thanksgiving weekend
Dec. 1st, 2008 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carbonelWednesday: Traveled from MSP to ORD at midday. The plane was an hour or so late because of difficulties at the other end, but the airport was mostly empty. Traveling early worked well, though it was mostly in order to get a cheaper flight. Spent the afternoon helping get the the house ready for company on Friday, then went out to dinner at a new Asian fusion restaurant called Hana, which had excellent sushi.
Thursday: Had breakfast at Seven Brothers with my parents, then went bowling with my nephews and a huge group of acquaintances. This is a tradition that's been going on for more than 50 years, mostly of families that know each other through Habonim (a labor Zionist youth organization), but with lots of other hangers-on. In the afternoon, I picked up my cousin Eileen at the train station and went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to set the table and do other useful pre-Thanksgiving dinner stuff. The guests arrived around 5 pm, and everything went well. This is the third year that Carol has done Thanksgiving (my mother did it before that), and things went like clockwork -- unlike the first year, which involved two turkeys in an outdoor barbecue and insufficient time for cooking.
Friday: I got up early to go to Lands' End. This is my only yearly concession to Black Friday. I've gained weight over the last year (alas), so I was glad to find jeans and turtlenecks at reasonable prices. I also found a cashmere sweater for 30% off the $50 price, and a nice pair of black corduroys for $12 or so. For lunch, I went with my mother to her every-Friday Hadassah lunch get-together at the Bagel at Old Orchard. You just can't get a comparable corned beef sandwich in Minneapolis. After that, I went to my brother's place to help him get his USB turntable working. The software it comes with is pretty simple, but not everything was hooked up properly. I think I left him knowing how to do it. That evening was Shabbat dinner at my parents' place. It would have been considerably more work, except that the food was takeout from a kosher restaurant (mostly Mediterranean food), and the table was set with disposables. There were 20 people in all, with a bunch of out-of-towners because of my cousin's bar mitzvah on Saturday.
Saturday: The Saturday morning service started at 9 am, and were were there almost at the beginning. It was at a Conservative congregation, and there seemed to be a lot more coming and going than I was used to in a Reform congregation. My cousin Jordan (who's the grandson of a brother of my grandmother, which I think makes him a second cousin once removed) did a great job with the Torah reading. He didn't have to do an interpretation the way b'nai mitzvot do in a Reform or Reconstructionist congregation. The service finally ended around noon, and then there was a kiddush afterwards, which took care of any need for lunch. That evening, my mother and I had planned to go to the Lyric Opera to see Porgy and Bess. My parents have season tickets, and the original plan was that I would use my father's ticket, and he would go by himself on December 12. But my father decided he really wanted to go with us, so I went looking for a ticket for him. It was a really hot ticket -- combination of Thanksgiving weekend and a popular opera -- and none of the premium ticket sites I tried had tickets available. But just as I was about to give up, I found a link to StubHub.com, which is a commission-based site for people to sell their own tickets to events. I found two tickets for $80 each in the dress circle, and was confident that I could sell the other ticket, so we bought those. The StubHub pickup site wasn't too far from the Lyric, so that worked out well. Unfortunately, the traffic was slow, and (even worse) the service at the restaurant (Rivers) was very slow. The food arrived just as we were about to give up and leave, so instead of a nice leisurely dinner before the opera, it was a rather hurried one. The food was excellent, though. I had bacon-wrapped sea scallops. The opera was also excellent. The music was great, even though the plot is incredibly depressing. Murder, rape, domestic abuse, natural disaster -- just the stuff of musical tragedy.
Sunday: The party part of Jordan's bar mitzvah started at 11:30 at a Westin in Wheeling, IL. The pre-lunch gathering separated out the adults and teens (or as the organizer kept saying, "young adults"), with a bar and fancy appetizers (ahi tuna, cheese and pesto, and potato pancakes) for the adults, and pop and soft pretzels for the kids. Then there was a sit-down luncheon, with intermittent dancing. The band was awfully loud, as seems to be customary with such things. Again, the adults go different food (steak sandwich and veggies) than the kids (mini-burgers and I didn't see what else). The kids won out on dessert, though -- they had do-it-yourself sundaes, whereas the adults were given fruit-and-cake kebabs and warm chocolate sauce for do-it-yourself chocolate fondue. There was also a buffet table with cookies and pretzels and other stuff, just in case anyone was feeling peckish. The whole thing was remarkably lavish. I think the kids had a great time, and other than the high noise volume, I enjoyed it. I got to see relatives that I don't see often enough, and had a couple of good conversations. I was originally supposed to take a 10 pm flight from Chicago (again, for cost reasons), but given the current weather (freezing rain) and the threat of several inches of snow, we went straight from the party to the airport in hopes of my getting on the 4:40 pm flight. I did, but it didn't leave until after 7 pm, and I finally walked in the door at just before 10 pm.
And now I need a rest from my long weekend.
Thursday: Had breakfast at Seven Brothers with my parents, then went bowling with my nephews and a huge group of acquaintances. This is a tradition that's been going on for more than 50 years, mostly of families that know each other through Habonim (a labor Zionist youth organization), but with lots of other hangers-on. In the afternoon, I picked up my cousin Eileen at the train station and went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to set the table and do other useful pre-Thanksgiving dinner stuff. The guests arrived around 5 pm, and everything went well. This is the third year that Carol has done Thanksgiving (my mother did it before that), and things went like clockwork -- unlike the first year, which involved two turkeys in an outdoor barbecue and insufficient time for cooking.
Friday: I got up early to go to Lands' End. This is my only yearly concession to Black Friday. I've gained weight over the last year (alas), so I was glad to find jeans and turtlenecks at reasonable prices. I also found a cashmere sweater for 30% off the $50 price, and a nice pair of black corduroys for $12 or so. For lunch, I went with my mother to her every-Friday Hadassah lunch get-together at the Bagel at Old Orchard. You just can't get a comparable corned beef sandwich in Minneapolis. After that, I went to my brother's place to help him get his USB turntable working. The software it comes with is pretty simple, but not everything was hooked up properly. I think I left him knowing how to do it. That evening was Shabbat dinner at my parents' place. It would have been considerably more work, except that the food was takeout from a kosher restaurant (mostly Mediterranean food), and the table was set with disposables. There were 20 people in all, with a bunch of out-of-towners because of my cousin's bar mitzvah on Saturday.
Saturday: The Saturday morning service started at 9 am, and were were there almost at the beginning. It was at a Conservative congregation, and there seemed to be a lot more coming and going than I was used to in a Reform congregation. My cousin Jordan (who's the grandson of a brother of my grandmother, which I think makes him a second cousin once removed) did a great job with the Torah reading. He didn't have to do an interpretation the way b'nai mitzvot do in a Reform or Reconstructionist congregation. The service finally ended around noon, and then there was a kiddush afterwards, which took care of any need for lunch. That evening, my mother and I had planned to go to the Lyric Opera to see Porgy and Bess. My parents have season tickets, and the original plan was that I would use my father's ticket, and he would go by himself on December 12. But my father decided he really wanted to go with us, so I went looking for a ticket for him. It was a really hot ticket -- combination of Thanksgiving weekend and a popular opera -- and none of the premium ticket sites I tried had tickets available. But just as I was about to give up, I found a link to StubHub.com, which is a commission-based site for people to sell their own tickets to events. I found two tickets for $80 each in the dress circle, and was confident that I could sell the other ticket, so we bought those. The StubHub pickup site wasn't too far from the Lyric, so that worked out well. Unfortunately, the traffic was slow, and (even worse) the service at the restaurant (Rivers) was very slow. The food arrived just as we were about to give up and leave, so instead of a nice leisurely dinner before the opera, it was a rather hurried one. The food was excellent, though. I had bacon-wrapped sea scallops. The opera was also excellent. The music was great, even though the plot is incredibly depressing. Murder, rape, domestic abuse, natural disaster -- just the stuff of musical tragedy.
Sunday: The party part of Jordan's bar mitzvah started at 11:30 at a Westin in Wheeling, IL. The pre-lunch gathering separated out the adults and teens (or as the organizer kept saying, "young adults"), with a bar and fancy appetizers (ahi tuna, cheese and pesto, and potato pancakes) for the adults, and pop and soft pretzels for the kids. Then there was a sit-down luncheon, with intermittent dancing. The band was awfully loud, as seems to be customary with such things. Again, the adults go different food (steak sandwich and veggies) than the kids (mini-burgers and I didn't see what else). The kids won out on dessert, though -- they had do-it-yourself sundaes, whereas the adults were given fruit-and-cake kebabs and warm chocolate sauce for do-it-yourself chocolate fondue. There was also a buffet table with cookies and pretzels and other stuff, just in case anyone was feeling peckish. The whole thing was remarkably lavish. I think the kids had a great time, and other than the high noise volume, I enjoyed it. I got to see relatives that I don't see often enough, and had a couple of good conversations. I was originally supposed to take a 10 pm flight from Chicago (again, for cost reasons), but given the current weather (freezing rain) and the threat of several inches of snow, we went straight from the party to the airport in hopes of my getting on the 4:40 pm flight. I did, but it didn't leave until after 7 pm, and I finally walked in the door at just before 10 pm.
And now I need a rest from my long weekend.
