Abby's Alley

Around the Taylor living room fire, we counted up the points for the day. Without a doubt Thorpe got the most. She made the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, salad dressing, and sweet potatoes. She swept the kitchen, served mulled cider, and employed Hiromi—when the grad student came out of her room for air. Thorpe also directed the clean up. (But technically all Thorpe’s points belong to me because she is my servant. I like to let her feel like she’s earned a little here and there for herself. But if she ever tries to cash in her points, she’ll discover the truth.) Grandma Taylor and Teri’s scores closely followed Thorpe’s. They provided the green bean casserole, ham, pickles, rolls, bubbly drinks, breakfast bacon, tea, salad, olives, and pumpkin pie. Grandma Taylor also gets points for directing the after dinner Yoga exercises and for sticking around until 7ish when we ate at 4:30. Phil got a point because he’s my husband, and Papi got a point for leading us in a round of than

Tonight Phil and I watched the airplanes as we constructed a frame for our bathroom mirror. The cumulous had the weatherman telling us it would rain, but we didn’t feel a drop. The planes however were unusually low. They wove in and out of the clouds as we watched. Phil and I felt like we were whale watching in Baja, except we gazed up for a glimpse of a 747’s belly. The weather was perfect for being outside: sunny and blustery. But we spent the morning indoors trying to figure out how to move a light switch and plug over 5 inches. The original switch/plug location was directly under our off-centered bathroom light, which is next on the list to move. Our plan is to hide the old light hole with our mirror frame. But this meant we had to move the old switch/plug over 5 inches. We had a pretty good idea how to do this, but when I pulled off the light/plug cover, I found madness. I drew a detailed diagram and called my dad before trying to do anything else. He made sense of