Couple of family pictures from Thanksgiving

Wednesday night, Ric and I met with a group of friends from college. We haven't seen most of these folks in 10 years, and some of them maybe not since graduation. And most of them are the same way with respect to each other. Pretty sad considering most of 'em are St. Louis residents, and have been ever since college, or maybe went away to grad school / med school for a few years and then came back.

Anyway, it was really good to catch up. One of the guys was in town from CA where he works for Pixar - we always knew he'd have the most interesting, or most exotic, life. He was in a bar band at Mississippi nights for a while after college, and we all spent a fair bit of time there... He also toured with Jimmy Buffet for a while as a roadie or some such. Loves his work at Pixar but it's cute to watch him pull out the pictures of his 4yo twin daughters and talk about them.

Some of these guys I remember mostly from the amount of time they spent playing cards in the In Town Students lounge, or from parties attended and .. beverages... consumed. When we got together, the talk was of work, and kids, and dishes being prepared for Thanksgiving and such... I think maybe there were half a dozen alcoholic beverages consumed, total, among all of us, and the last of us left at about 9 pm.

Seems like most of the personal stuff I've seen online today (blogs, message boards, and similar) is polarized to one of the following extremes regarding Obama's win:

1) He's the next thing to the anti-Christ

2) He's the next thing to a Messiah

(I'm in neither of those camps.)

I am, however, irked by some of the local issues that did or didn't pass here in St. Louis...

The youthful offender has a job and seems to have made a turn-around in attitude - no more obvious lies or deviousness about where he's been or who he's been with.

David has completed his program at Job Corps in Indiana and it sounds like he will be going to Job Corps in NJ to become Microsoft Certified - an excellent fit for his interests and abilities, we think, and a neat opportunity for him. He'll be close to East Coast big cities, and he'll be able to get around because there is - gasp - accessible public transportation there! I think it will be a great experience and a big help in the growing up department - plus he'll have a skill that will earn him a comfortable living wage when he's done.

Mary's talking about enrolling in Job Corps in St. Louis. We'll see if it goes that far, but it would at least be a safe environment, with accountability and encouragement for her to get her GED, hopefully followed by job training. We keep telling her "six months of good behavior and accountability" before we'll talk about her moving home - this could be a good start on that.

On a lighter note, Pete could never wear a lot of David and Henry's hand-me-downs because they were "slim" sizes. Pete wasn't heavy, but he's never been a skinny guy, either. Until now. He is about 5'9" (or he was a month ago - it could have changed again by now!) and I'm buying him 30 / 32 pants - and there's still room at the waistline. Henry needed black pants for work the other night, so I told him to borrow Pete's new pants I bought him for orchestra concerts. They're the same inseam as Henry wears - but they were too tight for Henry. This cracks me up - that Pete is taller and thinner than David and Henry. We always knew he'd be taller - but thinner?? It's going to be entertaining when David and Mary come home at Thanksgiving.

One 17 yo. One skipped band competition. Zero driver's license.

One set of parents gone for the day.

One joyride.

$1700 in damage to my car.

Eight stories about how it happened.

Two visits and a phone call from the police.

One visit to the friend's house who supposedly caused the damage but didn't, and one confession. (Priceless.)

One visit to the girlfriend's house, who wasn't involved, and one face-to-face confession to the girlfriend's large father, who deserved to know. (Priceless. Really priceless.)

One new job, coming up, at minimum wage. Zero soccer or other extr-curricular activities until the debt is paid. Plenty of walking to work for exercise.