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wherein Liz reports on the recent holiday
Nov. 28th, 2015 12:52 pmSo Thanksgiving happened!
Generally all went well. People arrived roughly on time Tuesday afternoon/evening, despite some traffic glitches, and we had a nice dinner at Coltivare, a local restaurant heavily tied to Ithaca College. On Wednesday we hit three Cayuga Lake wineries, then had lunch over on Seneca Lake at the little cafe attached to Red Newt Cellars. I then headed back to Ithaca, walked Dottie, and went to work for four hours, while the others hit two more Seneca wineries before returning to Ithaca themselves. Dinner was beef stew.
Thursday was, of course, turkey day. There were some trials with my oven, which has apparently become more unreliable over the years -- see, it's a gas oven/range combo with an electric spark rather than pilot lights, and sometimes the electric ignition... doesn't quite ignite. Um. And then Mom says it heats far too slowly once lit. But everything got cooked!
Vicky and I took Dottie for a longish walk around noon, because I wanted to show her the new set of infographics the Sciencenter has installed along Cascadilla Creek. We also went past the three outermost parts of the Sagan Planet Walk, which has been slightly refurbished in various ways this year. The inner planets, upon reinstallation in the Commons, have had their windowpanes changed. They used to be clear(ish) plexiglass with teeny-tiny dark dots in the center to show the relative sizes of the sun and the planets in question. (The walk is based upon the idea of the sun being the size of the circular windows; all distances are proportional. Alpha Centauri is in Hawaii.) But that's really hard to see, not to mention the glass had gotten scuffed and discolored over time, so the inner planets now have yellow panes with pinholes to show the size of the planet in question. I haven't checked Jupiter and Saturn recently, but the three outermost planets have merely received updated infographic plaques. Pluto's now talks a little about dwarf planets as a category, and it has the gorgeous photos from New Horizons for both Charon and Pluto itself. And Neptune's plaque no longer lies and says that Neptune hasn't made a full circuit of the sun since it was discovered. (1846 plus 165 = 2011; note that it is currently 2015. That had been annoying me for a few years and I'm glad it's been corrected. *grin*)
Tangent: apparently there are plans to extend the exhibit even further than Hawaii -- they want to put a plaque on the moon, to represent exoplanet Kepler-37d! I am not sure those plans have (or will) actually come to pass, but isn't it an amazing idea?
Anyway, we ate Thanksgiving dinner around 3:30, after which Vicky suggested we drive to Cascadilla Glen Park and walk up the gorge for a bit, admiring the Cornell Plantations' repairs and improvements to the trail. Aunt Cara has bad knees and it was getting dark, so we only went up to the Stewart Ave. bridge, but the general consensus was that I live in a ridiculously scenic area. Which is not exactly news, but hey. Local pride for the win!
Dessert was pumpkin pie and apple cake. Dessert on previous nights was birthday cake, since Aunt Cara's birthday was Sunday. We did not manage to get organized enough to do a blind wine tasting. Instead, we did a lot of crosswords. And I do mean a LOT. I had a crossword book, Vicky had a crossword book, and Mom brought clipped crosswords from various issues of the New York Times Magazine.
After my parents and Aunt Cara left for the night, Vicky and I watched two episodes of Jessica Jones, so I have seen through ep. 5. It's always fun to be able to squee about stories with my sister, and since we're not on the same page as often as when we were kids (this is partly because she's not as strongly genre-oriented as I am, but mostly because of my audiovisual media issues), we make the most of it when we happen to overlap. Thus far, we agree that it's an awesome show, and we can't watch more than a couple episodes at a time because of paranoia overdose.
On Friday morning, Aunt Cara left early to drive home to Chicago. Meanwhile Mom, Dad, Vicky and I had breakfast at the local Friendly's, after which Vicky and I went briefly to the mall (she needed a computer monitor that could double as a television; I needed new sneakers) while Mom and Dad went back to my apartment to divvy up the food and pack all their stuff. In the event, they ended up accidentally stealing my leftover French toast and leaving a pair of Dad's gloves, but if that was the only glitch? I will take it.
All in all, a successful holiday! :D
Generally all went well. People arrived roughly on time Tuesday afternoon/evening, despite some traffic glitches, and we had a nice dinner at Coltivare, a local restaurant heavily tied to Ithaca College. On Wednesday we hit three Cayuga Lake wineries, then had lunch over on Seneca Lake at the little cafe attached to Red Newt Cellars. I then headed back to Ithaca, walked Dottie, and went to work for four hours, while the others hit two more Seneca wineries before returning to Ithaca themselves. Dinner was beef stew.
Thursday was, of course, turkey day. There were some trials with my oven, which has apparently become more unreliable over the years -- see, it's a gas oven/range combo with an electric spark rather than pilot lights, and sometimes the electric ignition... doesn't quite ignite. Um. And then Mom says it heats far too slowly once lit. But everything got cooked!
Vicky and I took Dottie for a longish walk around noon, because I wanted to show her the new set of infographics the Sciencenter has installed along Cascadilla Creek. We also went past the three outermost parts of the Sagan Planet Walk, which has been slightly refurbished in various ways this year. The inner planets, upon reinstallation in the Commons, have had their windowpanes changed. They used to be clear(ish) plexiglass with teeny-tiny dark dots in the center to show the relative sizes of the sun and the planets in question. (The walk is based upon the idea of the sun being the size of the circular windows; all distances are proportional. Alpha Centauri is in Hawaii.) But that's really hard to see, not to mention the glass had gotten scuffed and discolored over time, so the inner planets now have yellow panes with pinholes to show the size of the planet in question. I haven't checked Jupiter and Saturn recently, but the three outermost planets have merely received updated infographic plaques. Pluto's now talks a little about dwarf planets as a category, and it has the gorgeous photos from New Horizons for both Charon and Pluto itself. And Neptune's plaque no longer lies and says that Neptune hasn't made a full circuit of the sun since it was discovered. (1846 plus 165 = 2011; note that it is currently 2015. That had been annoying me for a few years and I'm glad it's been corrected. *grin*)
Tangent: apparently there are plans to extend the exhibit even further than Hawaii -- they want to put a plaque on the moon, to represent exoplanet Kepler-37d! I am not sure those plans have (or will) actually come to pass, but isn't it an amazing idea?
Anyway, we ate Thanksgiving dinner around 3:30, after which Vicky suggested we drive to Cascadilla Glen Park and walk up the gorge for a bit, admiring the Cornell Plantations' repairs and improvements to the trail. Aunt Cara has bad knees and it was getting dark, so we only went up to the Stewart Ave. bridge, but the general consensus was that I live in a ridiculously scenic area. Which is not exactly news, but hey. Local pride for the win!
Dessert was pumpkin pie and apple cake. Dessert on previous nights was birthday cake, since Aunt Cara's birthday was Sunday. We did not manage to get organized enough to do a blind wine tasting. Instead, we did a lot of crosswords. And I do mean a LOT. I had a crossword book, Vicky had a crossword book, and Mom brought clipped crosswords from various issues of the New York Times Magazine.
After my parents and Aunt Cara left for the night, Vicky and I watched two episodes of Jessica Jones, so I have seen through ep. 5. It's always fun to be able to squee about stories with my sister, and since we're not on the same page as often as when we were kids (this is partly because she's not as strongly genre-oriented as I am, but mostly because of my audiovisual media issues), we make the most of it when we happen to overlap. Thus far, we agree that it's an awesome show, and we can't watch more than a couple episodes at a time because of paranoia overdose.
On Friday morning, Aunt Cara left early to drive home to Chicago. Meanwhile Mom, Dad, Vicky and I had breakfast at the local Friendly's, after which Vicky and I went briefly to the mall (she needed a computer monitor that could double as a television; I needed new sneakers) while Mom and Dad went back to my apartment to divvy up the food and pack all their stuff. In the event, they ended up accidentally stealing my leftover French toast and leaving a pair of Dad's gloves, but if that was the only glitch? I will take it.
All in all, a successful holiday! :D
