Rough Thanksgiving

Well, this has been a tough couple of weeks. The big issue was the passing of my grandfather. We had planned to meet at his building because it was easier for him and it's a mid-point between everyone in the family. He died just a week before the date, so we decided to have Thanksgiving there, anyhow. Needless to say, it was a little weird.

Next, we found out that a friend of the family (my age) had died unexpectedly from heart failure of some sort while in the hospital for a seemingly unrelated issue. The visitation was on black Friday.

And, this morning we got the call that a great aunt has died. My wife will accompany her mom to the funeral today, I believe.

My wife worked her first three full days as a nurse, and that's been a little stressful, too. Also, my laptop power cord burned up nearly two weeks ago, so I've learned unequivocally how much I actually depend on it.

I got the Christmas lights hung, then realized I had started with the wrong end and could not plug them in. I took the whole thing down, put them up correctly, plugged them in, then realized that only two three-foot segments still work. The rest were useless. (They're all going in the garbage.)

Speaking of garbage, the Bears started out looking good last night, then utterly fell apart. The capper was Berrian (former Bear) burning Charles Tillman for a super-long touchdown pass. Not the actual capper - that was probably their Adrian Peterson dragging half the Bear defense for a few yards. Quick suggestion for Ron Turner - when you have four shots at a one-yard touchdown, try this: run Forte, play action, run Forte, run Forte. Or, take the points.

Whew.