Last week was Thanksgiving, and I am thankful. I am happily married to a wife who is also my best friend. I have cool friends whom I like and admire. I have a family I actually like to visit. I live in an age of modern marvels like television, DVD players, computers, the internet, and the automobile, which makes 300-mile treks easy to do. I have a job that I really enjoy, and one that provides for more than my basic needs and gives me a decent amount of time off. I really am blessed.

Mer and I left for our Thanksgiving break and headed back to Ellen’s cute house in Michigan. It was only a three-hour drive, but it seemed long to me because we did not get on the road until just before 5:00, because of school. The drive was uneventful, and we got to Ellen’s around 8:00 and immediately (I think we said “hello” in the car pulling out of the driveway) left for supper. Two weeks before when we had been at Ellen’s for the marathon weekend, Mer had been getting over the flu and so had not fully been able to enjoy her food at the Saucy Dog restaurant, a local BBQ place. So, Mer asked if we could go back, and Ellen did not need much persuading.

We ate too much at the restaurant, but skipped dessert. The Saucy Dog desserts are huge, even by Riordan standards; plus, we had homemade dessert waiting back at Ellen’s. Ellen had made flan, a custard-like dessert, that I tried but found quite rich, so I stopped at a taste. I normally am not turned away from rich food, but Ellen had also amazed me by making one of my native-land foods, whoopie pies. They were flat-out excellent. With no offense to flan, it just cannot tempt me away from a freshly made whoopie pie. Ellen even went to the trouble of making these decent-sized; they were a little bigger than a closed fist. I have seen (and eaten) bigger, but these were not wimpy whoops.

We slept in some on Wednesday, but had to be somewhat efficient because we had to be on the road around 11:00. We were driving west toward Mom and Marc’s place, but wanted to swing through South Bend to visit with our college friend, Jen (known to her college friends as “Gen”) and her family. Excitingly, Gen had recently given birth to her second daughter, so we wanted to meet her. We had agreed to meet around 1:00 and go out to lunch.

We got to Gen’s after only one slight detour (I missed the first South Bend exit), and we headed out to eat. Gen’s husband, Dan, was already at the restaurant with their first daughter, who is now an adorable two-year-old. Dan had an appointment later that day, so he went ahead of everyone else. Gen drove her car and we followed her, past Notre Dame University and the new spiffy-looking buildings on one side of campus. We stopped at the bakery/sandwich shop, Indulgence, and went in.

It was a nice place. The had good sandwiches and pita-pizzas for sale, and a small but excellent-looking display of desserts. We ordered our food and sat down and chatted about family and running and medicine (Gen and Dan are doctors). Along the way, Dan had to leave with the elder daughter, but we stayed on and kept talking. And eating: Mer, Gen, and I ordered small cakes for dessert, and they were great. All in all, we got to visit with Gen for about two hours (and her younger daughter is very cute and well-behaved).

We headed up the road to Mom’s, and got there a little after 4:00, just as Mom was pulling into the driveway from her Chicago commute (she works in Chicago three days a week). Marc was home, so we schlepped all of our stuff into the house and were able to greet everyone. We puttered around a lot that evening. Mom made a light supper of burgers, and we watched an episode of The Power of Art, a BBC series on eight different artists who changed art. It turns out to be really fascinating and really well-told. I had thought that Ellen and Mom and Marc would enjoy it, and they seemed to.

Thursday was a mellow day as well. I walked down to the beach by myself, as it was a very cold and windy day. Mom and I walked down to the lake and back mid-morning. It was a pretty day. Once we got home, Mom, Marc, Ellen, and Mer all watched Wall-E while I decided to take the low ground and watch football upstairs. In my defense, I switched over to Mythbusters during commercials. I had a decent time watching the game and eating.

Around 4:00, Mom and Marc served up a large and excellent Thanksgiving dinner, with all the usual foods – turkey, potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, biscuits, and other foods. I did not eat myself to excess, but it was still a large meal. After supper, we all sat down and played the word game Snatch-it. It is a game like Scrabble, but with no board, and you can steal other people’s words if you can add letters to make new words. Mer won the first game (I had three points) and Ellen won the second game (I got shut out). It was clearly time to go watch another Power of Art episode.