On the morning news

What a fun and chilly morning yesterday! WGN Morning News' "Around Town" crew met us Historical Society folks at a local cemetery to talk about our 33rd annual Cemetery Walk this coming Sunday.

So excited to meet Ana Belaval, the host. She's as nice and fun in person as she is on TV.

We had two of the volunteers who will be acting as cemetery "residents" on Sunday.

Unfortunately, the producer who set up the segments with me wasn't able to be there today. However, we did get to see "Sweary Mary," one of the camera persons, who is mic'ing our actress here.

Very interesting to see the TV crew in action.

And she interviewed our executive director who gave all the details about the walk. We did have a scary moment when filming at the Haymarket Martyrs monument. A man who lives nearby came walking toward us and started telling us that we need to tell the viewers the cemtery is on a Native American burial land. My coworker and the woman actress did a great job talking him down while I walked over to the film crew and my boss and motioned that we might have a problem. Ana asked me what was up and I told her the guy wanted to talk to her. She did talk to him and told him that information was interesting and that she would mention it (we were done filming). Anyway, the man was happy he got his say and calmly left.

Here she is with all of us history folks.

Not my flowers!

It's been over a week since I brought these flowers home from the church's soiree. They still look good (starting to wilt) and apparently August thinks they taste OK too.

Back from Cali

Andy got back tonight from his anual "work" golf outing in California. They shot golf balls out of these bazookas. Hard work, for sure.

He got this medal for having the longest drive on a cerain hole of his foursome. It's almost like he's an Olymoian lol.

I asked him to send me some pictures and all I got was golf things.

Preparing for the frost

We're supposed to get our first frost this week so I had to bring in the hanging baskets. By spring, they look dead but once I set them outside again they tend to thrive. At least I've had decent luck for the last few years.

This one is huge and I even cut some pieces off. It was from the nursery by Julie's house.

While most of the flowers in my yard have already died for the season, these petunias perked up and are blooming.

Hershey puzzle

A puzzle of chocolate? August likes this one, especially the box.

And when he's not in the box he's laying on the puzzle itself. Interesting pose.

This was a fun one. The Hershey bar was the hardest part, which B helped a lot on. Ended up with two missing pieces though.

Blast from the past

I had a meeting to attend the other day and asked if anyone at work had a small pad of paper I could take if I wanted to take notes. I was handed this paper pad with the village logo from, oh, at least 20 years ago. Andy thinks it's from the '70s. It is a history museum after all.

I took this picture of students on a recent field trip. I thought it was funny how they're all standing in similar positions.

And this was set up for a presentation by a local political cartoonist. We didn't realize it was so big!

I took a picture of one of our volunteers with it but didn't want to ask anyone to take my picture. I tried to get a selfie but my arm wasn't long enough and the lighting bounced off of his face.

Scary man?

Andy was getting his things together for a work trip. I stepped on the back porch and caught this "figure" in the corner of my eye. I thought it was a scary, short person! Not a good place to store the hat.

Happy 36th, Margaritas!

Last night was the start of Margaritas' 36th birthday weekend, so we had to go! Allison joined us.

We've been going there for at least 25 years. The hostess asked about the kids and couldn't believe how old they are now.

Dinner was delicious as usual. Andy always asks for the spicy carrots and they happily oblige. They used to put them on every table but maybe people weren't eating them? Just more for Andy, I guess.

They had the restaurant decorated for Day of the Dead and added some festive birthday balloons. I just wish they would have had music or free dessert lol.

The archaeopteryx

While L was battling a hurricane in Florida on Wednesday, it was an absolutely beautiful day in Chicago.

Andy and I went to the Field Museum for a Founders Council talk on their newest fossil, the archaeopteryx.

We had time to walk around before the talk and saw this. It might be new. A little bloody for the Field.

Waiting for the talk to begin.

I got a sticker lol. It's the small things that amuse me.

The talk was interesting. It's nice they tell us about the exhibit we're going to see so we know what to look for.

And there it is, about the size of a crow. The scientists were super excited about it, of course.

Andy takes a close-up look. It was found in Germany. I'm not sure how it ended up in Chicago.

We went to look at the fossil before going to the reception. Big mistake. I grabbed a couple of caprese skewers and two chicken skewers from this table while Andy got us some wine. The arancini balls were already gone by the time we got there and soon after I grabbed the skewers, everything was gone. Bad planning, for sure.

We did get a decent amount of cheese but they ran out of desserts too. Really? Maybe they'll make up for it by having ample food at the upcoming holiday oarty.

On the way home we saw the Blue Cross building lit up with a ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

We swung by Pete's on the way home and bought a couple of hotdogs for a late dinner. It's two blocks from our house and I haven't been there in years. Still the same with higher prices, of course.

Riding out Hurricane Milton

L was thrilled to learn on Tuesday that she was chosen to work on the hurricane "ride out" team. I think part of that was wanting to be around others who have already been through hurricanes. She arrived at Disney with her bag packed Wednesday morning. Disney closed its parks that afternoon but there were plenty of guests at the resorts.

She was given a room at the Yacht Club with two roommates. Meanwhile, T is home with the cats, possibly a friend and a generator. Their apartment is on the third floor so at least flooding won't be an issue.

This is her room view. It was already raining Wednesday morning.

Ready for her hurricane shift, 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Then she'll sleep and be back at work 11 Thursday morning. She said staff is calm so that's good.

Dinner provided by Disney.

Yes, she's a magic maker.

Edited to add: L was leaving wotk today at 2:30 p.m., done with her hurricane duty and wearing her "runner" uniform.

Crazy squirrel season

Hard to see but there's a squirrel in my hanging planter.

And these two squirrels were playing tag on our front lawn and steps for quite a while. The neighbors, whom we call "the kids" because they're young enough to be our kids, sent us a video of a squirrel swinging in their hanging basket. We're all on crazy squirrel alert.

Christmas surprise

This doesn't say much for my housekeeping, but I found a Christmas Hershey Kiss on the living room the other day. I'm guessing it fell behind the sofa and August found it and carried it to the living room floor. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Smashing soirée success

Sunday was soiree day and I got all of these things out of my house and reclaimed a corner of my dining room.

Andy and I and the rest of the planning committee started decoarating at 2 p.m.

The room looked great.

Ready to party.

Jazz band during cocktail hour. Local high school kids and they were great!

Our keynote speaker, a former pastor, who baptized E!

Andy with his law partners.

Me with the planning committee.

Fun with friends.

The JBA crew.

Nancy and I were both in polka dots.

Quite a good turnout. We did have a problem with the nametags not sticking enough to stay on people's clothes. I even noticed one on the floor in this picture. Oops.

Pastor Colin, former member and golfer Tim, and Andy.

The place setting. Yes, I brought a vase of flowers home. See L and B in this table display picture? We had quite the table of VIPS - Andy's law partner K is a River Forest trustee, his other partner R is the honorary consulate for Latvia and the Oak Park village president sat at our table. All three were called out during the VIP acknowledgements. People were joking after dinner that we had all the VIPs at our table. We had an interesting dinner conversation of how the village is handling migrants.