Why in the world am I feeling stressed out? I’m not taking any finals. I’m giving finals. I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning, grading. At some point delirium is sure to set in, isn’t it?
Oh, and the broadband connection at home is down. Accessing the Internet through dialup is like trying to breathe through a cocktail straw.
Two weeks from today I give the last exam of the semester.
Until then, I still have a stack of stuff to grade sitting in front of me.
I had a very difficult, hour-long conversation with someone who’s known me my whole life, though I haven’t spent any significant time with him in person or on the phone in years and years. Alone on Thanksgiving, and after a few drinks, he decided to call me for company and solace. Hoo-boy. I think I felt full-strength doses of all the emotions in the human repertoire one by one, and I was drained after we were done.
So to get my mind onto something else, I took our out-of-town guest, L’s sister R, on a tour of Kansas City. We went to the City Market and walked out to take a look at the Missouri River and the work that’s just started on the Kansas City Riverfront Heritage Trail. We toured Columbus Park next, probably the most diverse neighborhood to be found here. Then we headed to the 18th and Vine district
(check out these pix from the Kc Public Library), home of the American Jazz Museum as well as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, a place I suspect Chuck will want to see when he comes to visit. From there, we drove through the Crossroads District, home to many studios and galleries of artists in KC’s creative community, on the way to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Community Christian Church; unfortunately, it’s not really anything all that exciting compared to the other Wright buildings I’ve seen. Finally, we rented a couple of videos from SRO Video: Eddie Izzard: Glorious, and Thunder Road.
Whew!
So how was your day?
|
Just kidding. We don’t really eat tofurky. Here’s what we are eating. In addition to the aforementioned carrots and turnips, we’ll be having cranberry sauce; baked sweet potatoes stuffed with cranberries, pears, and pecans; green beans with dijon mustard and caramelized pecans (in this month’s Gourmet Magazine, not yet archived at Epicurious); bread dressing with dried apricots, pistachios, and mint; and bourbon-orange pecan pie with bourbon cream. I know, I know. The same old same old. But we thought we’d avoid anything too fancy this year. |
A Kansas City Thanksgiving tradition is the lighting ceremony at the Country Club Plaza. The following is what the Kansas City Star has to say about tonight’s shin-dig. (Typos recreated from the original for your amusement):
Plaza Lighting Ceremony Tonight
- Ceremony starts: 7 p.m. Gert there before 6 p.m.
- Switch is flipped: 7:30 p.m. by Kansas City’s own Kate Spade, New York fashion designer.
- Musical entertainment: A Broadway theme, including show tunes and holiday favorites, plus the Plaza Lights Orchestra. The stage is at Nichols Road and Wyandotte Street, near Mark Shale.
- What to expect: To be in a crowd of about 250,000, which is like three full Arrowhead Stadiums and then some.
- Where to watch From the street with the crowd — which is both exciting and slaustrophobic — or get a more panoramic view from the tops of the garages near Saks Fifth Avenue, Mark Shale and Halls.
I won’t be going because I tend to get slaustrophobic myself in large crowds. But I think we’ll check try to gert there tomorrow night after the hoo-ha has died down.
Press the re-set button. Wait for the machine to start back up. Enjoy a cup of coffee while you wait.