crazy weather and good friends

The weather has been absolutely insane the last few days. Wednesday night it started raining. All day Thursday and Thursday night it poured. We must have gotten 2-3 inches of rain. On Friday it rained and the wind was literally roaring. It sounded like a 747 jet buzzing low overhead. Today was cold, but simply gorgeous, with this glorious blue sky that just compelled you to go outside! Other area of the Midwest/Great Lakes had a horrible ice storm, huge snow dumps, and even some blizzard conditions. Supposedly that stuff came within a two hour drive to the west and northwest - but all we got was heavy rain and wind. And today was a lovely winter day.

Thursday my buddy Jim achieved perfection on his quest for making good pasties. He had tried before, and was never happy with the result. This time he had obtained a family recipe from a Yooper who works in anesthesiology. These babies turned out perfectly. Man, they were as good as any you could find in any pastie shop up in the U.P. He used equal parts of potatoes, onions, meat, and rutabagas, with salt and pepper as the only seasonings, and used premade refrigerated dough. Oh, they were perfect!

Yesterday afternoon, Steven and I listened to the wind roaring, drank hot chocolate, and watched good movies. It was a good afternoon.

And then Dan took me out to dinner at this really good Italian restaurant in Ann Arbor called the Palio. Downtown Ann Arbor was filled with groups of Christmas carollers and with small brass bands playing holiday music. It was a lovely evening, very charming. I loved it. I love the holidays!

When we got home we watched movies and relaxed, and had a peaceful night at home.