Thanksgiving Weekend So Far: A Mixed Bag

Wednesday
Both got a bit of an early release. Monica used the time to make herself a birthday cake. Don't judge me! I'm just not a baker, she has the traditional family birthday cake recipe worked out for the altitude, and wanted to experiment with the frosting. Is this the time for me to try to learn something new? I thought you'd agree.



Dinner out a La Boca, a nice, tasty time after some seating problems. Back home for the aforementioned cake. Which was really, really good.


Thursday
A nice sleep in. Sitting about catching up on newspapers(!) and Greytalk, watching parades and dog show on the TV. Time for some reading before heading over to Stacy and Jim's for dinner.



Joined again by her friend from Brooklyn and his girlfriend, Bernice, and other friends. A delicious dinner (which I failed to photograph this year) and a great time socializing.

Turns out Stacy was not only at Flash Flood last weekend along with Bernice, but was a volunteer; there's some of her and more of the event in this movie, though I'm still waiting for someone to post a video of the river turning blue.


Friday
Even more sleeping in, which meant a later start to the post-Thanksgiving hike. Not necessarily a bad thing, we were having some pretty cold temperatures; decided on Atalaya, not to go all the way, but because it was likely to keep us in the sun.



Unfortunately, the breakfast burrito before was betraying me; I was dragging the whole time and I don't think any of us were particularly into this hike. An hour up, then an hour back retracing our steps. To True Believers for their Blackest Friday sale, stocking up on gifts and few new releases. Back to nap, which the dog never really bothered to get back up from. Read some of the haul, but I called it an early night.


Saturday
Shaky, but getting better, I was starting to clean up some when a call came in from a friend, out of state with his family for the weekend. His dog wasn't well and wanted to know if we could help his mother, house- and dog-sitting, get him to the vet. The pickup got complicated, I'd forgotten how big this dog is; we'd sat for him in the past, seen him some, and I wouldn't have characterized him as particularly active, but he was lagging noticeably. To the emergency vet where he was admitted for critical care.

Monica later noted what a weird time warp it is there. Simultaneously dragging and speeding, there's a rhythm of activity and sitting, never able to actually concentrate on reading. Noticing we were in one of the agitating cycles after a couple hours, we were updated on the tests' progress by a vet tech. And then, a while later, when the vet herself came out, we could tell it wasn't going to be good.

There was one more test to run, but he probably only had hours and would have to be put to sleep. We took a break, home to get some food, and Mon and I headed back to the office when the worst was confirmed. We were able to sit with him for about an hour, feed him the peanut butter, squeeze cheese, and turkey the doctor gave us, crying as we held him as he got the injections and went quietly and peacefully. He was a beloved family dog, 11 years old, I'm just sorry his people couldn't be there and hope we were some sort of comfort.


Sunday
Another slow start, we're just really not doing mornings this weekend. In a little while we'll be J+J's guests for Circus Luminous, a post-Thanksgiving tradition here in town. We've never been — and, actually, have never even been to The Lensic, so looking forward to a nice time and dinner out this evening.