wednesday: jesse was in town from nyc for a couple of days (maybe 1.5) visiting his mom. his brother was in town also, and on thanksgiving they would leave town to visit their father. i was going to meet up with him the day before, but he got delayed by a late ups delivery and did not get into town until 3am or something like that. i met up with him around noon, and we went off to have lunch at the the little thai house. afterwards, i took him to target and old navy to buy clothes; he caught the bus up to ithaca without stopping home, so he had clothing issues.
after lunch the errand-running, i stopped by work for a brief time, picked up natalie from fernow hall, went back to the apartment for some last minute packing, stopped by northside for a few bottles of wine, and then went off to buffalo with natalie. she was going to go visit a friend in toronto for the holidays; she would continue onward to canada we stopped in buffalo. the drive was uneventful, tho we did get to see the white deer in the old seneca army depot. once back home, i drew a not-to-scale map for natalie with directions back to our apartment in buffalo, and off she went to the great white north.
amanda and her immediate family were already there. her parents had driven up from ohio, and her sister had flown in from phildelphia. we were going to eat dinner at romeo and juliet�s, but it was closed, so we ate at chili�s instead since amanda�s dad had never been to one. after dinner we just relaxed at home. susan really got into playing gta iii.
thursday: thursday was all about cooking (and eating) a thanksgiving meal. there was even a turkey for the meat-eating types. piglet was very happy that the turkey was around. i ate way too much italian cream cake. we played trivial pursuit to cap off the evening. amanda�s mom started feeling ill tho during the day.
friday: along with hordes of other people, we went off to the galleria for some shopping and a movie. the mall was pretty packed, but it did not look completely overrun. i did not really do any shopping; i just idly walked about unlike it was time for the movie. tho i guess that what shopping is� looking but not buying.
i did buy a deluxe scrabble game for the household. amanda did not believe the deluxe scrabble was all that and wanted to get the original version, but susan and i (and one of the toy store employees!) agreed deluxe scrabble was the way to go. the twirly board makes all the difference.
our choice of movie was master and commander: the far side of the world. amanda�s mom was a big fan of the series the movie was based on. i found it entertaining even though i am not a fan of russell crowe.
lainie came over later to play scrabble. she and i partnered up and lost by a mere point in the first game, but we crushed the competition in the second. muwahahaha. we also played a game of cranium.
saturday: we had our traditional brunch at solid grounds with erika. actually, it was a bit different of course, in that amanda’s family was also there. the waitress, whose name i forget, got me to try a different green tea than my usual sencha japanese tea.
amanda�s parents took off for ohio after brunch. they were going to stick around a bit longer, but her mom was still feeling ill, and they decided to leave earlier than planned rather than go with susan, amanda and myself to the albright-knox gallery.
the museum (or gallery really) itself was cool as always. it is the perfect size for a museum (i. e. small enough not to get burnt out with art and culture). they had moved things about since our last visit in order to �look at old friends in new ways� or somesuch and, as usual, rotated pieces from their permanent collection. i tried to find a print of one of my favorite paintings, bucolic landscape by milton avery, but alas, they were out. apparently, according to a woman in the gift shop, it was the favorite of mr knox, whom i presume was one of the founders of the gallery. they still had the marvelous sauce on display tho.
after the art viewing, we went back home and collapsed for quite a long time (hours). i guess we were all quite a bit sleep deprived for some reason (or perhaps the museum sapped our energy). we roused ourselves to eat dinner at the thai bistro as we did not want to eat anymore thanksgiving leftovers yet, but we did not have any more exciting activities since amanda was on call at sisters the next day and susan would be leaving early in the morning as well.
sunday: i dropped off susan at the southwest terminal at the airport after dropping amanda off at work. the airport is shockingly close to our apartment (as well as sisters hospital). i, of course, went to sleep afterwards because i could, but later got up to do some work
amanda got really sick at work, so i picked her up early that afternoon, and she spent the rest of the day sleeping. i kinda puttered about idly cleaning, websurfing, bill-paying, organizing, working, yadda yadda yadda� the usual administrative tasks of life.
monday: amanda was still feeling very nauseous, so she called in sick to the hospital. we did not know what was the problem; perhaps she caught whatever her mother had or possibly some weird food poisoning or both. anyways, she stayed at home and rested while i worked and whatnot.
i did manage to go to the gym for the first time in a week. unfortunately, i gained a whopping nine pounds since last at the gym. in a week! yikes! no more italian cream cake for me.
natalie arrived back from toronto that evening, and we forced her to watch the mummy returns.
tuesday: natalie and i drove back to ithaca in the morning, and amanda felt well enough to go to work. there was crazy amounts of snow� more snow in ithaca than buffalo. we passed many accidents on the way down. i had to drive carefully as i did not have my snow tires on the subaru yet, but the drive was not all that bad. it did take us four hours tho.
but the day was like all other tuesdays� drive back to ithaca, work, go back to apartment around 8 or 9pm. do some lifting. zzzz.