Thanksgiving Weekend in Livermore

We never remember to take a photo before the turkey is carved!  It still looked appetizing when Frank carried the platter of sliced meat to the table on Thanksgiving afternoon.

The huge turkey platter is the very same one that Frank, as a child,
brought home on the bus as a Christmas present for his mom.

Dan, Carrie, Vivian, and Snoopy had endured an arduous, heavy traffic laden, drive up from SoCal the night before. That behind them, the weekend turned more enjoyable. We had ten for dinner: Frank, Alex, me, Dan, Carrie, Vivian, and a family of four. The added family was a mom, dad, and two kids who were friends of Dan and Carrie from Southern California who were stranded in San Jose during their travels up north due to some car problems. They joined us at the last minute, were a great addition, and we still had tons of food to spare. We ate the standard combination of turkey/stuffing/gravy/cranberry-sauce, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, corn casserole, and broccoli casserole.

All that is missing from this scene is the turkey and people sitting down to eat it.

Vivian, who is 7½ months old, was all bedecked in her Thanksgiving finery, complete with her turkey cap. She made sure she practiced her standing and pre-cruising skills near our large ottoman in the living room.

Vivian's shirt reads "mommy is THANKFUL for me".
Grandma is very thankful for her, too!

Think Vivian will be walking soon?

Vivian, had her first cookie ever at Grandma's house, shaped like a turkey, of course.

"Hmmm... What is this? "

"I think I like this!"  It was the first time Carrie let Vivian have anything with sugar.

Here is the vintage Hallmark Cookie cutter used to shape the turkey cookie.
I have a collection of Hallmark cookie cutters spanning all the holidays.

The cookie recipe came from Aunt Maxine and it is one I have used for years. She got it from her son Glenn's nursery school in the early 1970's. It's a classic.

Not very fancy but very yummy! A holiday tradition for us.

The food processor I used to make these cookies is also a classic! It is a Robot Coupe food processor that I take out from the bottom of my island cabinet several times a year only to make these cookies at the holidays. I came across a 2005 blog post by someone with a photo of my very same processor. I kinda got a kick out of that post. That processor was abandoned in someone's garage but I still use mine several times a year for these cut-out cookies. The Robot Coupe had its start in the 1960's in France and paved the way for the introduction of the Cuisinart into the United States in the 1970s. (See this Wiki link.)

My trusty Robot Coupe is on the left. The one abandoned in a garage in New York in on the right.

We did activities other than eating over the weekend (though not many). Carrie ran a 10K Turkey Trot Thanksgiving morning and I forgot to watch the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade as usual. Alex was content to do puzzles while watching videos throughout Thanksgiving Day. The rest of the weekend we just relaxed. We took a stroll in downtown Livermore. Dan and Carrie went to a movie and did some wine tasting while Frank and I watched Vivian. Frank and Alex went bowling. Dan played the piano a bit. We played a game of Farkle. Vivian had a quite lengthy phone conversation with Aunt Maxine, yammering away in baby dialect with voice inflections and all.  She was very vocal in the tale she had to tell but its details were very much left up to the imagination and interpretation of the listener.

With the occasional encouragement to "tell me more", Vivian "talked" for quite a while.
Dan and Carrie will have no phone time when she is a teenager!

The weather was gorgeous. Frank and Dan kicked back some out on our back deck. Carrie got a stretch of some uninterrupted time to work on her photo album on our computer.  

No. I do not know what they were looking at, but I thought the picture was a funny one of father and son.

We are very thankful for family and the good visiting time we had this Thanksgiving 2014.

Frank, Dan, Carrie, Vivian, Alex, and me on Thanksgiving Day 2014.
There is a sneak peak of our not yet decorated and first ever artificial tree in the background.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 

Puppy Patio Palooza

The Saturday before Thanksgiving had been a busy day for Alex. In the morning Frank picked him up and took him to the Great Train Show at the Pleasanton Fairgrounds. Then, in the afternoon,  I took Alex to Livermore's first ever Puppy Patio Palooza. Although rain was threatened all day, the sun came out bright and shiny for the four hours of the dog event in downtown Livermore.

This is the logo for Livermore's first ever Puppy Patio Palooza.

We shared the sidewalks with dogs strolling about with their owners.

Most dogs were very willing to pay attention to and be petted by Alex

Many pups willingly approached Alex to be petted.

In the morning, the tree artists had removed and donated their tree sweaters. I'd bid farewell to the German Shepherd sized afghan that I'd installed late September. I donated it to the Valley Humane Society for use as a canine comfort blanket. 

The afternoon was more focused on noticing sweaters worn by the dogs. Alex and I admired the costumes of some of the pooches.

These dogs are ready to see Santa Claus.

Some owners were quite willing to have Alex give their pups a quick smooch.

One family let Alex have quite a tête-á-tête with their pup.

At first this pup was leery.

Then it was curious...

... and finally settled down quite companionably next to Alex.

During one early summer evening this past May, Frank and I had taken Alex to Danville Doggie Night and we'd had a great time. It was fun to have a similar experience available closer to home.

Ponder Post: Judging a Book by Its Cover

I just finished reading the book Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. I like the books these two brothers write, but I especially love the covers that look three dimensional yet are not. You have to run your fingers over the red parts of this cover to convince yourself that the red embossed tape is not really on there, just an image, complete with that bent upper right corner on the top label. You can't get that experience from an e-book!

This book was written in 2010.
I am not known for my timely selection of reading material.

These labels were once so ubiquitous I think most everyone can recall them.

The Heath Brothers' 2007 book, Made to Stick, had a 3-D illusionary aspect to it too, only with a piece of slightly wrinkled grey duct tape. I'd read and liked Made to Stick and reviewed it in my post for April 19, 2014. Aside from the cover, I'd liked the writing style that was simple to follow and gave tons of examples to convey the content. But, I digress from the book at hand.

The duct tape image on this book cover is so real looking.
It also conveys that a person must be able to relate to an idea for it to stick.
Who has not crossed paths with duct tape at some point in one's life?

Switch addresses the topic of making a change, at a corporate or a personal level. It is presented in a style very similar to Made to Stick. The metaphor throughout Switch is that of a rider on an elephant traveling along a path. The rider is the thinking part of the equation, the elephant the emotional part which can often overpower the rider. The rider makes PowerPoint presentations and delivers intellectually convincing facts but the elephant inspires at the gut level. The path is a clear vision of not just where to go but how to get there. I attached a summary sheet from the book outlining that to make a switch it is necessary to

Direct the Rider  ➔  Motivate the Elephant  ➔ Shape the Path

Revealing the summary sheet does not at all spoil reading the book. The variety of examples throughout and the conclusions of the many cited experiments are fascinating. I very much enjoyed reading this easy-flowing, non-fiction book.

A summary page from the book Switch is sprinkled with bracketed
 [phrases designed to help the reader recall the associated examples within the book].

In my recent November 18, 2014 post about three books, I mentioned that one can not judge a book by its author. I suppose one cannot judge a book by its cover either. Liking both of these covers did not assure I would like the books but it was fun to have that little optical/tactile illusionary pleasure along the way.

I suppose that to judge a book you just have to... are you ready for this?... read the dang thing!