My Weekend

My weekend started early, with a great Indian dinner on Thursday with Kristen and Neilson. Good food, snarky comments, beer. Lots of discussion of the wonders of kitties. Nice.

On Friday, Neilson and I went to a Trafalgar Night Dinner thrown by one of my colleagues. Trafalgar Night, of course, celebrates the British victory over the French and Spanish and honors the memory of Admiral Nelson, who died in the effort. Highlights included Beef Wellington, port, and a chocolate cake shaped like a ship.

On Saturday, I rode on a bus to Wilkes-Barre, PA, with other CUNY professors and canvased for Obama with the American Federation of Teachers. I was paired with a nice young mathematician from Medgar Evers College, who rivaled me in baby-facedness, and I think we looked so nonthreatening and goofy that people were very friendly. We managed to get 3 people to put signs in the lawns, which apparently was quite impressive. Only 3 of the 50 houses we went to were openly for McCain, although one of them did tell us Obama was a terrorist and we "were just too young to understand." We did get some undecideds, which seemed like code for 'I won't vote for an African American'; one woman, who was for Obama, pretty much confirmed this and said everyone on the block would have voted for Hillary. After we were done, the union fed us a tasty lunch of chicken, rice and cheesecake.

When I got back to NYC, I went over to Neilson's sister's for a family dinner, as Neilson's father is in town. Neilson had taken care of the food selection, which is always for the best, and he imported many delicious dishes from Chinatown. But the most exciting news was that I had an Otis breakthrough. I reported last winter that I had at long last gotten him to make eye contact with me, but I have never been able to get him to really play and interact with me. But last night the two of us had a great time crawling around the floor (forwards and backwards), practicing standing, and reading books that Otis picked out.

Yesterday I tried to catch up on all my work. A Coke helped.