"Knock me your lobes!"

When I started writing this on Tuesday, it was only going to be a brief update, either before or after the story and photos of last week's visit to the Horicon Marsh. But the update kept getting longer and longer. They tend to do that. I finally decided to do the marsh story/photos later. This time, just an update.

My wife is back home from her trip, and life is getting back to normal. Some of her friends on the trip drove her home--I didn't have to drive to Ironwood to pick her up last Saturday.

They arrived just in time for the first snow of the season. Over here, we got two inches of very wet snow Saturday morning--much of it had melted by that night, and the main roads and highways were just wet. But my wife reported the parking lot in Ironwood was very sloppy with several inches of slush--she had wet feet and pants from wading through it to their car. You just don't think about packing along your snow boots for a trip like that.

She had a good time on the trip but is happy to be back with me and the kitties. Of course, the kitties and I feel the same way. One apparent casualty of the trip: the charger for her Tracfone, which must gave gotten left behind in her motel room. I just ordered a new one for her.

In fact, she was happy she had the phone. She called me at home (or wherever I was) nearly every night, and we sent texts back and forth. It was the first time she had texted--I showed her how to do it before she left. It was a handy way to send her a fast update. I updated her a lot about the storm that was nearing us. The main part wound up going west of us--Minnesota got the worst of it.

Normal life resumed this week. She was with the quilters on Tuesday.

It also appears that my string of six straight Thanksgivings at the state football finals is in dire jeopardy. Our team won its regional title game last Friday night, but it lost its top player to a knee injury; he was such a major factor in the team's success that the playoff trail could well end this Friday night at the dome in Marquette, at the state semifinals.

So, for the first time in seven years, I may be able to stay home for Thanksgiving. Or not. We _may_ drive down to Detroit for a _relaxed_ visit with my older son and his GF; no final decision can be made until the team's fate is decided and I get a better idea of the Turkey Day weather forecast. We talked over the situation with him the other night. The truth is, much of me just wants to stay home and relax. These last few weeks have been demanding, and some extra rest would be very welcome.

I didn't feel rested when I visited N this week--our first visit since my wife and I had dinner with her just before my wife's trip started. She could see I was looking tired, so we took it easy and laughed at some DVDs. We watched the Marx Brothers in "Animal Crackers"; several silent shorts featuring Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton; and several episodes of "You Bet Your Life."

One YBYL entry featured 1950s hipster comedian Lord Buckley, a tall, well-dressed, aristocratic-looking man who was invited by Groucho to give the audience part of his hip version of Marc Antony's funeral oration from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar." It starts, "Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies, knock me your lobes!"

Oh, yes! I am definitely going to have to learn more about Lord Buckley.