Back Again + Weekend Update + Thinking about 2013

I am back again after a week of no blogging. Our dear friend Michael Evans is recovering in the intensive care unit, and it looks like he's going to make it. He isn't out of the woods yet. Today he gets his gallbladder removed. When it rains for Michael it's a flash flood. This must be his 64 year tune-up.

Life does go on, no matter what happens. My good friend Erwin always says to me in his lovely Austrian voice, "I have a felling Marcel, that the world will go on just fine without me." and indeed it will. It won't miss a beat. It just keep on spinning.

This weekend Geri and I bicycled up to visit Michael in the hospital and into Berkeley. We got lunch at a street fair, bought a few trinkets, and then rode back home again.

Our dear friend Barbara and her husband Arthur made us a wonderful vegan noodle meal with 4 different kinds of sauteed mushrooms,  and a great salad.

Last night we rode over to Alameda with the East Bay Bike Coalition for the annual Christmas bike ride through Alameda. We started at the Fruitvale Bart station in Oakland. It was the highlight of the weekend. There were about 80 cyclists with 2 boom boxes playing Christmas carols.

The ride culminated at Christmas Tree Lane, which you can see on YouTube. There was a woman by the name of Kristin Todeschini who made the best chocolate peanut butter truffles I've ever had. I'm hoping she'll send me the recipe so I can share it with my little world.

The year is almost over, which will cause many of us, myself included, to reflect how the events of the year have it's impacted  our lives. For myself and my wife this was a roller coaster year. Big highs, big lows. If my ciphering is correct I think we're on the high side. At least I am at the moment I write this dumb blog. Thank god for Alice. Bottom line is you've got to tough out the hard times, and hope for the best.

We have a peewee Christmas tree on the mantle amongst a single string of colored lights. We've got two holiday door mats out. I've sent out two cards thus far, and I don't think I'll send out any more.

If someone asks me why I keep on keeping on my answer is invariably the same each time. There has to be another good meal left in this life, and that's worth living for.

Life is what happens in between meals.

Peace,

Make Food/Not War