Sibs

Two of my out of town sibs came for Thanksgiving, reuniting all four of us for the holiday. We took full advantage of the time and did a number of things together, such as spending a day in Cleveland at the West Side Market and then Little Italy, and a day in Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Museum, which had an excellent show of the architectural drawings of Andrea Palladio, among other things. After the museum, we found a nice local coffee joint and settled down on a cold rainy night for a warm cup of coffee while supporting a nice local Pittsburgh establishment across the street from a Starbucks. We then had dinner at an outstanding Syrian restaurant up the street from the café where we all feasted on splendid Middle Eastern cuisine. It was quite a treat spending a day in a city that I had forgotten was so beautiful. When we arrived, we ate lunch at the Macy's downtown in a nice little restaurant called "Tick Tock" that has some really neat clocks on the walls. What a great city that is, and I had forgotten how magical it is coming out of the Duquesne Tunnel right almost into the heart of the city. You come out of it to this spectacular skyline and it's a bit like arriving in Oz. What fun!

We also took what I jokingly refer to as a "Thanksgiving Day Death March" through Towner's Woods, a nearby park with beautiful trails through some really lovely terrain. We were blessed by some really nice weather that day so it was a perfect day to take a good long hike and build up a healthy appetite for dinner. My sisters flew home on the following Tuesday but my elder sister will be returning in about 10 days or so to spend Christmas with us, so that will be very good to have her back so soon. Having the four of us sibs together is such a rarity that I have to enjoy it while I can. I do not know when my younger sister will return home, possibly spring, maybe summer, as her oldest daughter will be completing her secondary education and will no doubt be starting to consider where she would like to attend college, so there may be some campus visits in store for next year, or she may just want to get a job and work for the summer or something, Wisely, she plans to take a "gap year" between high school and college, something I probably should have done myself had I the inclination to do so, but I went right into college out of high school and finished in exactly four years with a largely useless degree in Theatre with a minor in Anthropology. Anyway, I'm sure my younger sister will be back here to visit sometime next year, just don't know exactly when. But in the meantime, my older sister is coming back in less than two weeks, so at least three of us will be together for Christmas, and that will be a very good thing indeed!