Been down at my parents’ place this weekend. Thus far the visit has gone well, and it’s been pleasant to see them, my brother and his family, and my aunt and her family. Folks have liked the stuff I brought down for them, and it’s just been a good time. I almost felt guilty in terms of my haul versus my brother’s (he didn’t make out well from the parentals in terms of “stuff”), and then I remembered that they’re paying his rent while he works on his MBA. At that, any guilt flew right out the window.
My brother did finally give a return on the gift I got him two years ago, as well as this year’s gift. Two years ago I got him a vegan dessert cookbook and a nice cheesecake springform pan. He loves the faux cheesecakes at Sticky Fingers, so I figured I’d give him a way to make his own. He hadn’t really tried it until he started grad school this fall, but along with the new food processor I gave him (yeah, he made out well from me), he’s been baking up a storm. The cheesecake was very good, and the fudge not bad (he used carob instead of chocolate, and while carob is okay, there’s no substitute for good chocolate). It’s a good thing he cooks, too, since his wife is (admittedly, on her part) not terribly handy in the kitchen.
I’ve also managed to keep up my exercise schedule, swimming yesterday for an hour, and I’ll go back to the local Y to run today. I’d not normally been so good about sticking with exercise when down here.
I will say that I’m very glad that my parents have WiFi, though.
Added more links off the Glen’s main page, catching up on the sites I read, either daily or less frequently. Will have to work on the coding later to sort them on the page, but for now they’re up and running at least.
Originally we thought my parents would have me sleeping in the motor home, but when it was revealed that there was no water in there, so if I wnted to use the loo it’s meant either going and then using a gallon of water to flush the thing manually, or coming inside, I said forget it and volunteered for the blow up mattress. It’s been okay so far, though some off dreams have resulted, mainly involving train travel and somehow or another wandering around San Francisco. Very odd, but not too bad, I’ve still managed to get enough sleep here.
Went grocery and wine shopping with Dad just now. Strangely (for them), it took me prompting them before we had anything to drink last night. The normal routine the past few years has been them practically popping the cork before we walked in the door, so to have almost gone two nights here without any wine was shocking, to say the least.
Oh, and while out with him I was reminded of something I forgot to mention here. Being an employee at a Big Government Agency, I have to go through mandatory training each year on the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace. Our training happened at the beginning of this month and was the usual exhortations not to pick on other people in the workplace, etc. Well, as I’m heading out of the training, one of our political appointees (one I’ve seen before in the halls) decides this is the proper time to start chatting me up. Literally, right in the hallway outside the training room, and down the hall as we walked back to the elevators, he chatted with me, subtly came out (as if I couldn’t tell), and then not-quite-overtly flirted with me. After he left it was all I could do not to laugh out loud at his ironic choice of timing.
Well, it’s almost time to haul out the Tofurkey™ (the real turkey and ham are already done), welcome my brother and his family back in, and open another bottle of wine, so it’s time for me to zip.