Orel Family

Hanukkiah on the Thanksgiving table! Right next to the... mashed potatoes! Did we? No. I wanted to. What better than to replace yams -- I don't like yams, anyway -- with good old fashioned latkes? But this was an over-the-river-and-through-the-snow year, and grandma was already making the yams and mashed potatoes. Who could argue? The mashed potatoes were really good. Much has been written about the coincidence of Thanksgiving and Hanukkah this year. It has been given the lame name Thanksgivukkah  (what did they call it when Hanukkah coincided with Black Friday, just 11 years ago? Shopukah?). Some sites have proclaimed that it has never happened before won't happen again until the year 79811, due to how the two calendars work. That's not quite true, as an excellent recap by the calendar-heads at Chabad shows. Mostly, it was cool to have a menorah on the Thanksgiving table, and to give out gelt after the pies. As for the latkes, we stopped off at friends in...

Back in January, I wrote about the local weather . Seemed we were getting unusually warm weather for an extended period of time, and it seemed a bit... scary. For a period of more than a month, every day was warmer than "normal," most by a wide margin -- 10 degrees or more. Well, the early fall provided an encore of the heat. Today marks the 22nd consecutive day above normal , and the hottest came last. This past weekend saw temperatures 25 degrees above normal . So what else is there to do, but... SWIM!! So we sent out the late invites. Had to call it early, 'cause by 3:45 the sun's behind the trees. And people started to come. And some more people came. Because when it's 90 degrees on October 8th in Michigan, that's what you do . At least, given the opportunity. Glad we didn't stay the whole weekend in Philadelphia! Gotta live in the moment at home. Last Sunday was the sukkah pool party, this weekend 40 people for the October pool ...

Yesterday one of my best friends and I were having an email discussion on some things, including my ailing dad. He ended one email by saying, "it’s always sounded to me like there was as much affection as respect between the two of you and that is a very good thing. And he kept the Chevy." Yes, he did. Not that he kept it in perfect condition, but he did keep it. So I wrote back: Did I tell you about our last trip to NJ as a family? Aaron always asks to go for a ride in the Chevy. So, last day home, he convinced my dad to start it up. After a couple tries, he got it running. It wasn't exactly stable, but it ran. Then he said to get in, I figured he'd take it around the block. But, noooooooo!! He goes past the school. and out to Millburn Avenue. Holy shit, we're all going to die. And the kids aren't even scared! Then he turned on to Vauxhall Road! My dad was never much of a driver anyway, and I'm wondering if he's totally lost his mi...