As Holidays Approach

Couple of guys in fleece hoodies, bravely facing the brightness of the coming holiday season:

Thanks to Pete for the photo!

Lot of cooking to be done this week. Franklin got in some good practice the other day:

Emily was out of town and it was way too cold to go out for a walk, so we made black beans together. He peeled the onion himself, helped me rinse the beans, and helped get everything into the pot.


He also really likes adding salt, but tends to get a little, well, excited...

But hey, they tasted great, so I'll take it!


And now we're on to Thursday's feast. First step: roasting some pumpkin for our pie:

Going to try the recipe on the Times' cool Thanksgiving page.

I may have said this before, but Melissa Clark is awesome.

You know what? See for yourself—here's the video:




Meanwhile Emily was working on the advanced preparations for one of the most important parts of the meal: spiced vermouth for the Holiday Manhattans!


All right, I should run. Little more work to get through before the rest of the cooking. Speaking of work, my Greek reading group met yesterday, and I discovered this wonderful line by Plato:

ἅπτει γάρ πώς μου τοῖς λόγοις τῆς ψυχῆς, ὦ Σώκρατες
somehow you touch my soul with your words, Socrates
(Ion 535a)

I mean, that about sums it up!

So, back to the words... and I'll see you soon with more food.

Happy Thanksgiving reader!

A Post For Those Who Will Not Read It

Okay, so here's a funny fact: Grandma Christine has been in Seattle for a month already! And we've seen her at least once a week—often more—since then. And yet... somehow... we're always too busy or distracted to get any photos. Next time, I promise!

Busy doing what you ask? Mostly the sort of shopping and errand-running involved in relocating to the other side of the country. Here's little map of our travels with Grandma:


She was also awesome about watching Franklin last week so I could attend the Arrupe seminar on Jesuit education. Our topic was Friedrich Spee. I would never had heard of him were it not for our book (same for the Jesuit priest leading our group).

A poet and priest active in the early 1600's, he's now most famous for writing a book cautioning against the witchcraft trials going on at the time. It's a work that sounds remarkable on a number of levels, and I haven't actually read it all, but it has what may be my favorite preface of all time:


Meanwhile in our enlightened age Franklin continues his interest in the arts:


And is getting bigger and more self-reliant every day. No more being carried by mom in the Ergo for this young man!

It Just Mattered That You Played

Just a coincidence that Franklin spent an afternoon transfixed by the guitar two days before the Times ran a story on the benefits of music lessons?

Either way, sounds good to me!

He's also been busy cleaning up at daycare. Not always clear why you'd want, for example, to sweep up rain puddles in a sandbox, but there you go:

I love that his classmates paused to smile for Emily's camera while Franklin was just too busy to take a break.



Did pause the other day to look at some recent issues of the Journal of the History of Philosophy:

He insisted that I look at one while he flipped through another. Cute, yes, but also helpful: he pointed me to an article on Aristotle that I think will prove quite helpful in the classroom. Not bad!

Speaking of journal articles, you know how I was working on a paper on Plato's Symposium a few years ago, and then the Classical Quarterly said they'd publish it?

Well, I'm happy to say that now it's finally out! Woo! Feel free to take a look—I'd love to know what you think!

Oh, and as I mentioned on Facebook the other day, Franklin really loves apples. Ate all of this one:

I mean all—seeds, core... eventually Emily asked where the stem was and he smiled and spit it out.


And I mean, they are delicious, especially this time of year.

Okay, speaking of this time of year, I'm still finding great shots from our walk through the Arboretum last month:

Hope you enjoy it while it lasts!

Cheers, reader.

Let It Fall!

A little of this and a little of that:

Love this photo Emily took! And it sure is a beautiful fall here this year! Made our rainy walk through the Arboretum last weekend especially nice.



Franklin sure likes puddles!










He also seemed to like Halloween, though we stuck with just the indoor, daycare version over at Mt. St. Vincent and the St. Joseph Residence:






Back home, Emily and Franklin worked on some yoga poses. Here's the Three-Legged Downward Dog:

Emily usually goes to the Y to do yoga on Sundays, and last week while she was gone Franklin said "Mommy yoga," so it seemed like he was ready to try a few poses...

It's sunny and calm so far today, but it is fall, which means, in the words of the book that inspired the title of this post:
Chilly, windy, gusty breeze,
rake, rake, rake the blowing leaves.
And also this:

Whoa! Tree down blocking Thomas at 17th. Buses etc cannot get thru pic.twitter.com/zYJ290q7ab

— yancy (@yancy9) November 2, 2013

Luckily no one was injured when it happened; and luckily we happened to walk by at the right time: my tweet was front page news on CHS for most of Saturday!

Also showed up in a KIRO TV photo gallery, apparently uncredited... But hey, it's TV news, what do you expect? ;)

All the wind and weather couldn't keep our young friend from having fun at the park, though. Had it all to ourselves on that blustery day:


And finally, one of Franklin's current favorite words and objects: ladder!