Last Monday, we said goodbye to the foster kittens. One of Mer’s students has a mother who is a vet, and she was kind enough to offer to try to place the kittens in homes, and she even had several leads before the kittens even were sent along.

We had the kittens for twenty-nine days, and they were noticeably bigger, but still very much kittens. They were not quite fully social cats, but they were no longer terrified of people, so I am hoping they will adjust to new homes in just a few weeks. They were very cute, but it is good to be back to five cats again, and I am happy to have the use of the spare bedroom, if only to hang my clothes in the closet. I had been piling my clothes in a pile in our library while the kittens were in residence. I hope they find good homes.

Last Saturday was Mer’s day. We slept in, and I went running in the morning. We ate lunch, and then headed down to the First Ladies’ Museum in Canton. Neither of us had ever been.

The museum is right downtown in Canton, and is in two buildings. One building is an old bank that now houses the First Ladies’ Library, as well as rotating exhibits. Mer and I were there early, so we wandered down the street for twenty minutes or so (it was a lovely day), and we returned to watch several short films on various First Ladies and how they handled crises like the burning of the White House in the War of 1812, or how Mrs. Roosevelt helped out by visiting troops in WW2. We then toured the current exhibit, which was on First Lady dresses, especially their Inaugural Ball gowns. Some of the First Ladies were tiny, even in their forties and fifties. There were some displays of the White House china, which the First Ladies selected, and in the basement there was an exhibit on women in the Red Cross. The exhibits were not extensive, but they were interesting.

We then made our way over to the second building of the museum, which is the Stanton House, which belonged to Mrs. McKinley’s sister’s family. William and Mrs. McKinney often stayed at the Stanton House, so it has a definite tie-in to a real First Lady. The house had been restored to how it would have looked around 1900, and the third floor’s major room is lined with the portraits and short bios of all the First Ladies. I had not known that the White House always has a First Lady, even if it is not the President’s wife. In the case where the President’s wife is dead, usually the oldest daughter would become the First Lady and act as hostess at White House functions. It was an interesting display. The museum is small, but well done, and the house is in very good shape now.

After the museum, we headed south toward Amish country. We went to The Amish Door bakery and restaurant, largely because Mer had a coupon for a free piece of pie. It was great – there was a buffet that we both took advantage of, and we both got pie for dessert (my peanut butter pie was only okay – I need to go for the Amish Door sundae next time!). As a bonus, there was a man playing the piano for entertainment – mostly playing Christmas carols, although he did a few hymns as well. It was very atmospheric and helped both me and Mer start to get in the holiday spirit.

The day after Thanksgiving has become known as “Black Friday,” and is largely dedicated to consumers buying lots of things. I’m not sure what would make me go out to stores on Black Friday, but sales are not enough. Instead, Mer and I took advantage of the day off to finally go through our basement storage room, and clean it out of all the stuff we have accumulated over thirteen-plus years of marriage. Much of the stuff in there was still packed in boxes from when we moved four and a half years ago. It was time to be pretty ruthless with this stuff. We enjoyed the irony of getting rid of stuff on a day dedicated to the acquiring of more things.

We were. I hauled the stuff up from the basement and emptied the boxes to make sure they were bug-free. Mer then sported the contents into “keep,” “pitch,” and “give away” piles. It took all day, and we did not quite finish; we still had five small boxes to go through, which we finished up on Saturday. We both ran out of steam, and we had a play to go to anyway.

In the evening, we got to go see Actors’ Summit’s latest production, a Christmas-season play called Winter Wonderettes. It was basically a musical review, with a loose storyline of a group of four women singing in a small hardware store for the store’s Christmas celebration. The play was set in the early 1960s, so the music was largely from the 50s. I am often skeptical about musical reviews – they usually are just glorified concerts. So, I was pleased when I enjoyed this one. I liked the characters of the four women, and there was quite a bit of humor involved, including pulling random men out of the audience to help out with the Christmas presentation. The music was recorded and played over speakers, but the singing was excellent, and the set was festive (simple holiday decorations). The lighting for the play was extensive, with various lighting effects for the songs, and that was new (at least to me). It was not a deeply moving play, but I had a good time with it.

Mer and I try to go on opening nights because there are small desserts served, and you can chat with the cast. I got to talk to the oldest sister of one of Mer’s best students (who graduated in 2007), and it was a great conversation. We chatted about her role in this play, as well as her role in the production of Rosecrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead that Mer and I saw at Kent State a few years ago. In fact, Mer and I pretty much closed out the place, as we were the last guests to leave. It helped redeem the day spent pawing through boxes of stuff.