Not too stuffed

Back home again, and we had a fine time! It was great to see everyone and get caught up on what's going on with each other. Everyone seems to be doing well, and it was a nice time. My great-nephew and great-niece made personalized placemats for each of us, and they passed them out before dinner. It was too cute! Wow, they're getting really big....

All the food was very good, and my macaroni and cheese turned out just fine. My Mom said, "Beth Anne, you got a good do on your macaroni and cheese!" (A "good do" is a high compliment from Mom. Yay! An endorsement from Mom!) I had a plateful, and finished that, and I was done. I had a tiny piece of cheesecake, and that was it for me. Everything was great, but I can only eat so much, and I see no point in making myself miserable. Ken was the same way. However, we brought home a few leftovers, including a piece of pie each. After dinner, we had the usual discussion of how to solve the country's problems. We had some good ideas, and we'll be forwarding them to our elected officials. (Ha! Not really.)

My one sister, Diana, is the assistant director of her county museum. She had a neat task a while back. At her museum, they have a few things that belonged to Ambrose Bierce, the writer (The Devil's Dictionary--good stuff!), who lived in the area at one point. During the Civil War, he was a mapmaker, and they have one of the maps that he made (beautiful work, too). The Field Museum in Chicago is doing an exhibit of historic maps, including ones by Lincoln, Da Vinci, and other notables. They wanted to borrow the Bierce map for their exhibit! So Di got to take the map up there. I asked if she had a briefcase attached to her wrist with a cuff, like the Blues Brothers, and she laughed and said no, it wasn't quite that exciting! What WAS exciting is that her and Tom got to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the Field Museum, and see all the different work areas, including sewing, carpentry, etc. She said it was very cool and amazing. They also got to see some things that aren't on display--they display only 1% of the collection they have. Wow!

I remember once when I went to visit Di at the museum, and spent the afternoon there. She let me into their archives, and I got to look at old county records and stuff like that. The neatest thing I got to look at was a Civil War diary written by a Union soldier...I actually got to hold it in my hands and read it. I love that kind of stuff!

But I'm rambling. It was a fun day with my family--they're the best! Oh, and we are indeed getting our first measurable snow of the season. It was coming down pretty hard for a while there, but it seems to have stopped for the moment. I'd say we have two to three inches, and it's the thick fluffy kind. Very pretty, but I'm happy to be warm and toasty inside! Hope everyone had a great day.

Addendum

I called my folks to make sure they made it home okay. They did, but agreed that the snow was coming down pretty hard for a while. They live about 45 minutes south of us, and said that they ran out of it not too far past where we live, and it was dry by the time they got to where they live! I'm glad they made it home safe and sound. While talking to Dad, he mentioned something we talked about after dinner. I can't remember how the subject came up, but someone (a non-family member) made the comment that New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt, that as far as he was concerned, it was a matter of God wiping the whole city off the map (I guess because of their sinful ways). Well....

Let me tell you. New Orleans is my favorite city that I've visited. We went there for our honeymoon, and we went back a month prior to Katrina and met up with Kim and Steve. I don't know if New Orleans is Ken's favorite city--I think that might be San Francisco, and yes, he just confirmed that--but he loves it, too. When I heard that comment, it was sort of like a wall descended around me, and I very calmly said, "There are a lot of good people there." The person also mentioned San Francisco, and Ken said, "I used to live there, and believe me, there are a lot of good people there, too." We quickly moved on to other topics.

When I was talking to Dad a little bit ago, he brought this up. He said, "You know, I was thinking about that on the way home. Both you and Ken spoke up and said, 'There are a lot of good people there.' That was a good lesson for me." He went on to say that while it's easy to make a general statement like that, it's not that simple, and there are good and bad people everywhere. How can you judge an entire city based on your perceptions of what is good or bad about the city? How can you judge a city's population on how you feel about the city itself? I love my Dad for realizing that the comment that was made was not fair, and I love him for respecting us for speaking up about it. I would never presume to think that I could ever "teach" my Dad anything, but what a nice thing to hear him say, "I learned something today from what you said." Being open-minded knows no age. Thanks, Dad.

Tags: Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary, Field Museum