Potted

Today I potted the amaryllis my mom gave me on the day after Thanksgiving.

We went to Winterthur where we enjoyed the Yuletide tour and ate a yummy lunch in their cafeteria, and the gift shop happened to have amaryllis bulbs. So my mom bought one for herself and one for me. I’ve never had one before, and we’ll have to make sure the cat doesn’t eat it (he doesn’t usually eat the plants on the dining room table, and we will keep him supplied with cat grass, which he loves) since they are poisonous to cats, but I am looking forward to the tall, red blossoms.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving, with my parents arriving on Wednesday afternoon after I got home from parent conferences and my workout class. Greg made sweet & sour tofu for dinner, and made the tart for Thursday’s dessert. I made rolls and cranberry sauce. We all drank wine. Thursday we spent relaxing and cooking, in preparation for our guests arriving 3-ish for a 4-ish meal. We invited one of my colleagues and his wife, and one of Greg’s colleagues and her husband. Interestingly, this resulted in two Chinese women at our meal, along with a part-Mexican, a Japanese man and a half-Japanese man (Greg), and my parents and me: a mix of white and Native American. We all ate turkey (except Greg), tofu-turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, roasted vegetables, Pennsylvania-style chow-chow (pickled vegetables that my colleague made), dinner rolls, and a fruit-and-nut salad. And then there was ginger-blueberry tart and apple pie for dessert. With decaf coffee or tea. I was sooooo full afterward, and it was all so good!

The next day involved not only Winterthur, but seeing Lincoln at the movie theater and dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant. All casual, no hurrying or rushing, and the only crowd was at the theater, where we had to sit more toward the front than we really wanted to, but it turned out OK. I really enjoyed the movie, and thought Daniel Day-Lewis did a really good job as Lincoln. I thought Tommy Lee Jones was also very good and I thought it was really nice that S. Epatha Merkerson read the 13th amendment. I was glad that a Native American actor (Asa-Luke Twocrow) played Ely Parker, one of my ancestors. There were some scenes I could not watch (the Civil War was a very bloody and terrible war) but not very many.

I’m wrapping up the holiday weekend with a little bit of schoolwork (lesson planning) and shopping online, and eating leftovers. I’m thankful that Greg and I both have good jobs and earn enough money that we don’t need to worry too much, and that we have loving families and good friends.