What's a hour among friends?

Ah the extra hour of sleep that accompanies the end of daylight savings time... how sweet it was. Of course, as I arrived home in near darkness at not much past 5:00 last night, I thought a bit differently. Time to get ready for hibernation.

We had a fairly busy but somehow relaxing weekend. Friday was reserved for sleeping. Saturday morning we got up early to go out to Oak Park to deal with the logistics of taking out a loan to pay for cooking school for Gina. More on this in a later entry, but let's just say that it's frighteningly easy to borrow large sums of money when you 1) own a house and b) have a decent amount of equity in it. 

After teaching all day Saturday, I came home and soon thereafter we set out on the October installment of our ongoing "surprise dates" series. Gina and I take turns each month planning a surprise date for one another. Past dates have included concerts, dinners, cooking class, and even weekend getaways. This month, I went for something a little more laid back and we ate dinner at Charlie's on Leavitt (near our house) and then walked across the street to the new wine bar Cork.

A good time (and good wine) was had by all, and we especially had fun costume watching. After drinking in our glorious extra hour of sleep, we headed up to Rogers Park to attend my Bubbie's (yiddish for grandma) 90th birthday party. The full complement of relatives were there and the highlight was easily the birthday cake with (I kid you not) 90 candles that the diminutive Bubbie succeeded in blowing out. 90 years... and she's doing pretty darn well, aided by her children (my father, two uncles, and one saintly aunt who lives in the same building on the second floor) who have really put into place and executed a plan to break up the work of caring for her and allowed her to continue to live "on her own" for longer than most could manage.

After the party, we sped home to catch the dramatic end of the Bears' game and then took care of our usual Sunday shopping augmented by a trip to Target. Is it me, or is there some sort of $75 minimum at Target? Regardless of how little we set out to buy, we always seem to spend at least $75, but that may have more to do with my wife's "gift" for finding things we "need."

Speaking of things I need, I am so behind on buying CDs, it's ridiculous. Just shameful. I've been meaning to pick up, among others, the new Chocolate Genius, one of the new Ryan Adams' discs, the last Rufus Wainwright (which came out last year I think), the Suffjan Stevens Illinois album... and I've already got my eye on the forthcoming live Wilco record as well.

Looks like I've already got my Christmas list made up.

jbg