Monday Meanders 11-29

Bears WIN!!! I wrote last week that the game played yesterday would give us a measure of this team like no other game this season had. Well, measurements are in and the Bears now appear bigger than they have in a long time. It's beginning to look as though my season-starting prediction of a 10 and 6 season may, in fact, have been rather conservative. Ain't it nice?

Thanksgiving was great. Warm and relaxed. Plenty of food, drink and family. Since our shopping is pretty much done, Friday was spent with a lengthy snuggle in bed, rather than getting up at three in the morning and going out to compete with a lot of crazed gift shoppers. Imminently preferable.

Saturday, I drove to the north side of the city and bought a copy of OHMommy's newly published book, "Wigilia", the story of how her three kids celebrate an ancient Polish tradition on Christmas Eve. I gave her a big hug and she autographed my copy of the book - which I shall treasure forever.

Then, on Sunday, I traveled north, again, but this time to the northwest suburbs to meet up with a man I haven't seen in something more than 45 years. Al B. and his (now deceased) business partner, Stan Sidlik, ran the theater group of which I was a member at age 15 until I went into the service at age 17. We spent an hour talking and reminiscing. There is a lot of catching up to do - we have only scratched the surface. I'm hoping to persuade him to start a blog - there's a lot of stuff in his head that needs preservation - needs recording. I hope he does it.

Later Sunday afternoon, I attended the Pizza Party/Awards Ceremony for that Pop Warner football team I shot pictures for this year. I set up my laptop and ran a slide show of all the pictures I shot. The parents, most of whom had never seen the shots, were very pleased. I spent as much of the time there as I could watching the Bears. After all, this was about football, right?

This was the first time I had ever shot sports - live, at field level and on a team basis. I have taken shots of kids I know playing baseball, but I've never served the purposes of a whole team before - and when you do that, things work differently. I learned a lot about shooting sports activities this year. Next year, I'll do better.

It's back to work, today. I suppose, then, it goes without saying ... I did NOT win the lottery.

Ndinombethe.