The Day Before Thanksgiviing

The Family With Evie's New Selfie Stick

I slept in till 6:45 which may not be sleeping in for most people.  Rami was already up, no workout this morning, just coffee, breakfast and off to work at 7:30.  Mitchell, our grandson at the University of Texas in Austin, drove in last night, arriving around 1:00.  Tyler, who works in Boston, flies in tonight and the gang will finally all be here.

Yesterday we did not have to get our stuff together until about 10:30.  So Ramiro was off early, Marisa at 7:50 for her final day of school, then lots of coffee and some breakfast.  At 10:30, I drove to downtown Dallas, a quick and easy 10-minute drive if it's not rush hour.

The Texas School Book Depository Building (6th-floor window on right)

We parked at the Elm Street Garage, next to the Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza.  It's basically a pictorial history of the Kennedy Presidency, to the assassination and its aftermath and consequences.  Each visitor gets a pair of headphones and the visitor stops at each station to listen to the explanation. Unfortunately, it's not a very large area, just the sixth floor, so there were lots of traffic jams, especially at the beginning.  I was surprised at the number of people who were visiting as well.  I guess many like us were either retired or on Thanksgiving vacation.  I have to admit I expected more but I am not sure what that might be.  The corner where Oswald shot Kennedy was glassed in so we could see what it must have looked like back in 1963, with piles of boxes of books surrounding the windows.  The seventh floor had a video and it's where they have exhibitions, this time of works of art portraying both Jackie and the President.

The Grassy Knoll

We stayed for an hour and a half, then went outside to the Grassy Knoll memorial, with a green X marking the spot where Kennedy was assassinated.  That was kind of cool, to also see where Abraham Zapruder was able to capture the assassination on film.

JFK was assassinated 54 years ago today.  I remember being in a Teaching Of English class at Ohio University when our teacher announced JFK's death, then talked about how to use this as a teaching moment!

Two Thanksgiving Turkeys!

We decided to skip eating lunch out because we were going out for dinner, so we were home by 12:30, with nothing we had to do the rest of the afternoon, other than walk the dog.  Marisa came home early, happy that she had a vacation for a few days.  Both she and Evie got busy making a gingerbread Thanksgiving Turkey cake, not quite as easy as the direction seemed but fun nevertheless.

Not Quite A Work Of Art

I finished my book, MY ABSOLUTE DARLING, started my fourth Longmire, ANOTHER MAN'S MOCCASINS,  took another nap, much needed I think, and then did some browsing at a local store called Tylers, which has lots of neat clothes I like although I ended up buying nothing.  It was getting dark by the time I returned but light enough to take Cody out for another walk.

Rami arrived home around 6:00 and we sat around deciding where to go out to eat, finally deciding on a restaurant we had never been to called The Porch.  It's about 20 minutes away, in an area called Henderson.  We had been to the bar across the street after Mitchell's graduation from high school 18 months ago.  We were surprised at how crowded the restaurant was on a Tuesday night, we even had to wait in line to get a valet.  Fortunately, there was an open booth, an efficient waitress, so we got our drinks, water, and an appetizer, parmesan onion rings quickly.  The inside is welcoming, with a great long bar on one side, tables on the other and an outdoor seating area with curtains up because of the chill.  The menu was interesting,  eclectic.  Evie and Rami ordered the Tomahawk pork chops, Marisa and Beth the steak, and I had wood roasted Texas quail on a bed of kale, squash, and lardons.  It was really good.  The finality of a great meal was something called a 'gooey cake,' hard to describe but a moist, delicious, extraordinarily rich cake with ice cream and caramel sauce.  Two pieces were more than enough for the five of us.

Gooey Cake

We didn't get home till 9:30.  Marisa and Rami then went upstairs to play a video game they both like, inviting Evie to join them but she passed.  So the three of us sat around talking, watching some TV until 10:30 when we all were tired enough to go to bed.