Darn good weekend.  Stacey made a kick-ass Shabbas dinner Friday night, and the Princess made the table all pretty and autumnal.
 

I found this centerpiece so evocative of the gathering darkness of the season and "gathering-in" that we do in response that I couldn’t help but just contemplate it for a while.

Saturday was yet another successful Beer & Badminton.  B&B has turned out to be one of my better ideas.  We’ve enjoyed regular company every Saturday for the past month, gotten some extra exercise, enjoyed some fine beers, and even had some guests join us for Pizza & RiffTrax afterwards on a couple of occasions.  We’ll continue to host Beer & Badminton as long as the weather holds, so if you haven’t joined us yet, come on up!

Saturday night’s RiffTrax movie was The Day After Tomorrow, one of those movies I can’t imagine sitting through without commentary.  Oh no, we’re trapped in a public library and the temperature is dropping!  Quick, grab some books from the WOODEN bookshelves, being careful not to trip on any of the WOODEN furniture, and use them as fuel!  It’s our only hope!  I can understand the director and producer being too full of Meaningful Artistic Vision to catch that detail, but as one of our guests noted last night, you have to imagine that one of the grips or camera operators had to have pointed out "you do know wood burns, right?".  No doubt he was fired on the spot.

Sunday was productive.  Went for a leisurely fall walk at Nixon park with Stacey and Kashti.  Took the Lad to his soccer game.  Got home and took the carpet cleaner apart, fixed it, and put it back together again (always the trickiest part). Took  the Lad to his Soccer team pizza "party" (does only four kids make for a party?),  where I discovered that Moby’s has an air hockey table.  Good to know.  Got home, cleaned the basement carpets with Kashti riding in the snugli.  Turns out constant motion + loud white noise = insta-sleep.  Also good to know!  Spent the evening burning RiffTrax shorts to Video-CD and watching them with the kids.  Good times.

This week: work work work, with hopefully a break for a trip to some nearby mountains for some folliage hiking.