Nov 28 2011

Dear everyone,

I think this is probably the last thanksgiving letter, since we heard from Jeff, Owen, and Roger. I’m sitting at home with Hannah. Jacob is sleeping or working in Lucas’ room. Lucas is at a friend’s house working on a history project. Cindy is taking Jasper to swim practice and then Nicola to the hairdresser. Gail delivered the two Californians and Nicola to us this morning, after taking Madeline to Midway. Maddi’s luggage was overweight, presumably because of all the extra gluten-free food.

We all had a lot of terrific meals and family fun over the last few days, including Pictionary, and three games of Conqueror. Joey somehow managed to be on the winning side every time. Among other memories are three turkeys for thanksgiving (two roasted by Barbara, and one smoked by Joey), several days of turnips and rutabagas from me and Owen, super stinky cheese - - I got five cheeses from Andy for my birthday from Murray’s cheese (http://www.murrayscheese.com/). Andy chose the stinkiest he could find, and we tried three of them during this week. Two smelled so ‘fresh’ that I ate them before Thanksgiving (it was that or gag every time I opened the refrigerator). One was a “Langres” a cow cheese from France that was not too bad. The other was another French cow cheese called ‘Epoisses”. This one really smelled bad (rumored to be banned on French public transportation). Its taste didn’t justify the smell. At Barbara and Roger’s I brought an Italian cow cheese called “Taleggio” that was a bit smelly, but tasted pretty good. I would recommend the Langres or the Taleggio at a restaurant (you really wouldn’t want any of these in your home). Two others were truly awful, but i am not sure of their names (we threw away the lables by accident): “Brebisrousse D’Argental", and the other is so horrible it is no longer on the cheese site!

I have been reading some interesting books lately. First up is Murakami’s 1Q84. Some people really like this author. I think he is a good writer, but the plots are improbable and meandering. His characters are also items of fantasy. So, 1Q84, which is almost 1000 pages, was not for me. I read about ½ of it before putting it aside. There seemed to be endless repetition of descriptive elements, no understandable plot, and too much gratuitous sex. Maybe if I was Japanese I would have liked it more. Not so a biography called Unbroken, about, a biography of Louis Zamperini, a world class miler in the 30’s who was in the Army Air Force in WWII, shot down, survived 6 weeks in the pacific in a raft, ‘rescued’ by the Japanese, and subsequently spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. Very well written. Did you know that about 2% of prisoners captured by Americans died during the war, while over 1/3 of those the Japanese captured died? Jasper is reading this book now in a book club organized by some of his friends.

We are looking forward to the Bears game this afternoon and the Steelers game tonight, although we will be running Nicola back to school, and taking Hannah and Jacob to Midway.

Work has been about the same as usual. I was at work on Wednesday, and was on the frozen service on Friday. It was busier than I expected on Friday, and many of the tissue samples revealed patients with dismal diseases. One was an 87 year of with a ‘triple crown’ of skin diseases – basal cell carcinoma, squamous carcinoma, and metastatic melanoma. We all have a lot to be thankful for.

Love, H.