Wednesday before

What a beautiful moment: the day before, the eve before. You're ready for whatever comes next, no more fretting, you've run the clock and, like the garden in early spring, the eve presents no disappointments. It all looks good! Ready for the next day's bash!

So, I always loved The Eve. And indeed, the whole day of The Eve. As a young family, we had rituals for Christmas Eve Day. And of course, there's New Year's Eve Day. And, too, Thanksgiving Eve -- the day of it. Always on that Wednesday I would do the last huge and comprehensive swing through the grocery store. The girls would come with me -- not to help necessarily, but to wander through the store, the two of them, admiring holiday foods, looking for free samples, sneaking off list items into the cart. I'd be checking off a long list, hoping not to exceed some theoretical number (like, the bill from the previous Thanksgiving), but inevitably succumbing to the thirst to make this one perfect, so maybe picking up a special cheese isn't such a ridiculous idea. Say what? $15 a pound?! Well, it's Thanksgiving Eve after all. (The next day, I will have smiled at the stupidity of that reasoning. As if anyone would notice a special cheese on a day when there is so much food!)

And this morning, the Day of the Eve, I felt the same thrill. Even though I will be cooking precisely zero foods tomorrow, and Thanksgiving is all about food and a table packed with people and ours wont have the crowd either, I still felt the thrill.

So after taking care of the animals...

I drove to Madison Sourdough Bakery. The store's packed! Everyone wanting some of their bread product, maybe a cake, maybe a pie, maybe just those best ever croissants.

(always the gorgeous loaves...)

I had gone to sleep last night trying to decide if I should maybe go to another bakery, with foods that I dont typically bring to the kitchen table, but what the heck, I like the bread product at Madison Sourdough, so this is what I pick up now: croissants, pain au chocolat, a morning bun. I'll sort out what to eat when later.

The morning temperatures keep dropping each day and the highs for this Wednesday aren't all that high. We're topping at 42F (5.5C), which is very appropriate for November. What I notice driving home is that there are still two sandhill cranes by the newly restored wetlands across the road from us. I'm totally sure that they are the last pair that I will see this year. Most Sandhills depart right around Thanksgiving and the fields where they congregate have suddenly become very empty. Except for these two.

Hurry up and fly. It's not going to get any better than this!

Breakfast -- so cozy it hurts! Thankfully (that word!) Ed is not sensitive to the light whiff of Kobo's Rustic Pine.

We have not moved much in the last few days. It's as if that hike we took over the weekend was big and bold enough to carry us through a bunch of days going forward, but of course it doesn't work that way. You cant store your movements and spread them out into the future, so we agree to get back out there today. But doing what? Ed asks -- can you bike in this weather?

There's a bit of a wind and so the ears feel cold and the eyes pour out water, but yes, I can do it and it really feels good!

When you are basically lazy about going out, biking works a magic that hiking cant compete with. In 45 minutes, you have done your work! You are golden for at least the rest of the day! We return home proud and happy.

This is when it feels good to settle in for a good read and I pick randomly Zadie Smith's story in the week's New Yorker and it is so good! I gave you a link and if you're like me, who loves great coming of age writing, you will want to click and read it. (You might also want to read it if the teenagers in your household are driving you nuts with worry and exasperation. It's a good reminder of who you yourself were back then in those years.)

I do have one very important Thanksgiving errand to do today and that is to pick up our dinner at Merchant -- a restaurant downtown that is offering a whole Thanksgiving package for two. It sounds delicious! I'm on it!

Sunset, across the road from us: dramatic, at 4:28 p.m.. If you look closely, you can see a flock of cranes, heading out.

Still later, I heat up yesterday's dinner soup and I let Ed pick our viewing pleasure, because tomorrow I want so very much for us to watch my choice -- something I have been saving up for days now. But that's tomorrow. Today we are on the Eve of Thanksgiving. A happy, peaceful and so very beautiful Eve, when the New York City balloons get blown up to their full size, and the harried cook puts the last pie into the oven, and the rest of us just sit back with the pleasant thought that tomorrow, food will rule our day and we will truly be grateful for all the wonders that once were, and that are still to come.

with love...