To the edge of madness (or maybe just the end of the Green Line)

The weather was so autumnal this weekend that it prompted Thanksgiving Dinner Lite from the Old Man yesterday: stewed turkey legs, cranberry sauce, mash and gravy, and broccoli. I wonder if I'll be as fond of the food when it's resurfaces in hot open-faced sandwiches on some 30ºC day. I think I will be. I meant to go for a stroll, but between chores, calling my brother, and watching a 2+ hour Quebecois coming-out film (C.R.A.Z.Y., recommended) there wasn't really time.

At least I got out on Saturday. A dear college friend was celebrating her "Hitchhiker's" birthday, so I dragged my lazy ass to Oak Park. Traffic downtown was much worse than I anticipated--I thought the unseasonably cool weather might be keeping people off the streets, but tourists don't know any better. They also don't know any better than to drive in the Loop, making the 147 Express something of a poor choice. But it is just so much more pleasant to ride in than the Red Line that there's really no comparison.

In all, about 1 hr 50 mins there and 1 hr 30 minutes back for a journey Google Maps says should take 33 mins by auto--which can only mean that I did pretty damn well with the timing (despite delays on the Green Line due to some poor wretch having to be hustled out of my car). Only got two games in--Family Business and Wise or Otherwise (the proverb-writing game the same host first introduced me to ages ago), but I ignored the new people there so I could catch up with the college buddies I too-rarely see.

I'm reminded again that I really need to come up with a better canned answer to, "So, how's life?" It's basically good but not in any way extraordinary, which makes for bad conversation. The last big news was monshu's pending retirement and I can tell how stale that is by how everyone seems to assume it's already happened.