Christmas tree - from backyard to living room

We wanted to take down a increasingly large pine tree in the back yard to make way for a larger garden. We (Ack and Tom Achtor) cut it down and now the top of the tree is our Christmas tree. The lights are on, but we are waiting to add other decorations when Erin, Alana and Al come visit. Merry Christmas! Here are three pictures of the current project.

17 Minutes of the Lunar Eclipse

6:50 am

So glad our house faces west! We could stay inside to watch and not have to brave the 9 degree temperature outside.

6:52 am

6:55 am

6:59 am

7:04 am

7:07 am

San Fran

The ceiling painted in Native design at Mission Delores, a church built before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

I didn't take many photos, only the one above. I was having too good a time.  I love that city!

Photo by Lin Chambers of Ack and Margaret at her AGU poster presentation. They gave a paper together too.

Photo by Margaret of me at Mel's Diner, a great breakfast spot.

Photo by a busboy at Sam's, a dockside restaurant in Tiburon that had delicious crabcakes and smooth mimosas. We were lucky enough to have sunny, 60s, no fog days. Old friend Dave Meyer treated us to exploring some of the Marin Headlands. Great to see him again after 25 years.

Erin's Here!

It's a week now that Erin's been home visiting.  Al joined us on Thursday. They'll stay 'til Sunday.

Erin, Margaret and Anne had dinner at Sardine on Tuesday. Meg came by later. Ack should have been curling but instead was home sick. He felt better by the Big Day.

Erin (see above the A) at the 219th daily noon Solidarity Sing-Along in the Capitol on Wednesday.

We saw the glorious new Muppet movie on Wed night with Ellen, Carrie and their Thanksgiving guests. Go see it!

Al and his folks were with us for Thanksgiving. Here's the puzzle a bunch of us (mostly Al) did  that day.

Chemo #5

Ack's items to get through the day: iPad, meds (in a favorite chocolatier's bag, to make them sweeter), some hard candies to counter bad tasting meds, and a book from E&A about champagne (which he has lost his taste for!)

The day is not fun but he's getting through it.  This is the start of the second half of treatments so we're closer to the end than the beginning of the cycles now, which is great.

Today we're in Bay 13, next to a window with the closest view of the construction we've had so far.  None of the other bays in this corridor are occupied, which is a first.  Usually it's a full house. 

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

This afternoon, Ack was inducted as a Fellow in the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.  Seated at our table to make the event even more wonderful were Mary and Joe Pryor, Orange and Dean Schroeder, Margaret Mooney, Ellen Pryor, Carrie Kruse and Ginny Kruse.  Long series of talks but interesting. Ack talked about how to take a complex entity, make it simple and then deal with the problems caused from that simplification. Judy Faulker, CEO of Epic Systems, gave three rules, one of which was: what you put up with is what you stand for. Jeremey Suri, a historian, stressed that clusters of creative people is what incubates profound change. Maury Laws, the composer of the music in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer cartoon (yes, that one we see every year on TV), traced how music really is involved in all parts of life.  7 Fellows total, all with interesting ideas. 

A November Friday with Mimi

 My mother is game for any adventure. 

On this sunny but cool day, Mimi and Anne putt-putted the pontoon over to Governor Nelson State Park for Donny Anderson to take and store it for the winter season.  This was after a few other steps first: shuttling a car over to the park (Poppy did that with me), clearing out the boat and drying the  hidden water in every compartment, finding that the battery was dead, and then recharging the battery.  The short ride on the lake was beautiful.

Then later in the afternoon, we went to the 60th annual lutefisk dinner at Lakeview Lutheran Church, down the road from our house.  Even though she wasn't hungry, and despite the fact that neither of us planned to eat the fish (the white stuff on the platter in the photo), we had a great time.  I ate the meatballs, mashed potatoes, rutabaga, cole slaw, lefse, cranberries and pie.  Mimi had a few tastes of the meatballs, taters and pie.  What's as delightful as any of the foods are the enthusiastic stories people tell about lutefisk: how they grew to like it, advice (to me) on how to eat it, their favorite way to prepare it, their favorite places to go for it, the church lutefisk suppers they've gone to this season already and will go to next. 

Through it all, Ack did great work at work and Daddy kept guard at the dining room table or napped in the guest room.