Christmas at DePaul

I kept my camera off for most of the event. But if you’ve never been inside, it’s well worth a visit.
I kept my camera off for most of the event. But if you’ve never been inside, it’s well worth a visit.
For me, I’m going back to the Mart – a place where I worked for an age, an age ago.
My first day at the Mart was in 2002, and my last day there was in 2007.
It’s been 22 years, since I first set foot in that building for work. And today, I’m headed back.
I spent my time mostly at the craps table, learning the rules of the game. Had a fun time betting, and feel like I did pretty well. That is, up until I lost all my chips.
Craps seems like a seductive game. There’s a lot of momentum with it, and a more cooperative game that I”m used to (versus something like Blackjack or Poker).
“Hey angel, consider your position
Framed to be consumed
Savory
Savoring your sympathy”
As you can imagine, ours was quite the popular area after the tasting. It was lovely to see Lauren and Max again, and we met a ton of new Society members.
We headed north from Hyde Park, and Liz showed me some of the paths she took when she was doing her marathon training earlier this year.
While the two of us ran five miles while we were at the lakehouse last week, it didn’t quite dawn on me the actual distance.
We’ve got several batts of soundproof insulation, just waiting to be put in. And with the work I did previously, we were a bit closer to install.
Daisy’s been struggling a bit more, lately. She’s had some trouble with arthritis, and tends to favor one leg over the other… but lately, she’s been having difficulty moving around. In a few instances, she’s fallen over and hasn’t been able to right herself.
Liz and I attended a tasting tonight, at Warehouse Liquors for Single Cask Nation.
As far as independent bottlers go, we both have enjoyed a lot from Single Cask Nation – and were curious to try out some of their newer offerings.
In 2013, as we were cleaning up the basement, I found this old set of keys. Someone had left them on top of the existing duct work, and it took until then for us to discover it.
I made a post about it, citing the details on the keyring and the reference to the Reynolds Metal Company in McCook, Illinois.
And then I got a comment about it. And then another. And slowly, over time, people began stumbling across this post… and started to talk to one another.
One fun tool: a right angle attachment. I first saw one of these from Bob, back in 2016, when he was working on a complicated fitting. And again saw it earlier this year, when he was squeezing in some tight ducts in our basement.
“Bones, sinking like stones
All that we fought for
Homes, places we’ve grown
All of us are done for”
“The mask? Because we were never ugly
enough. Because our ugliness was epic.”
I was (pleasantly) surprised to see a slogan of “Love for all, hatred for none” on the side of a semi-truck. Looks like this was a vehicle from Advance Trucking Solutions, Inc.
We all had a late dinner, and then ended up playing a cooperative murder mystery game at the dining room table.
This went on for a bit longer than we expected, and towards the end of the night… someone realized that the sewer line had started to back up into the first floor shower.