The Game

The the air has turned crisp, the leaves are turning firey colors, and I am wearing a moth-eaten Yale jersey saved from my days in New Haven. Yes, it is that day of year again, when Mother Yale pits its glorious football team against that of the finest technical college in Eastern Massachusetts. This year, we decided against watching the Game at the Yale Club, and instead hosted our own party in Alameda. Who knew that this matchup would be available to us on basic cable?!

At times the game looked like it was being played in a Pop Warner league. But that does nothing to take away from storied football tradition of the Bulldogs. A little known fact about Yale football: until recently, it was the winningest football team in the history of football. (Mostly due to the fact that it has placed the most games.) A few years ago, Michigan overtook the top spot after threatening for many years.

I will not delve into the details of the on-field play, or the final result, since both were unremarkable. What I will say is that we had a great group of Yale friends with us to celebrate, various breakfast delicacies from guests all over the bay, stiff bloody marys, and a wonderful time.

Bernadus and Big Sur

Leslie and I recently had a chance to have a little parents' getaway. Her firm had some unused rooms at the Bernadus Lodge in Carmel Valley, California, which it made available to associates. So with the help of Grammy and Pop Pop (babysitting), we snapped one up and were able to get away for some mommy and daddy time.

We made a point of visiting Big Sur, which continues to be one of the best places in California. We drank a few beers and ate lunch at Nepenthe, the Big Sur restaurant perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. By luck we wound up with the best seats in the house, right on the rail outside facing southwest into the Pacific coastline. Here are a couple pictures from our lunch.

The hotel was just what the doctor ordered. We kept it pretty simple: sitting in their warming pool, playing tennis, hanging out in our room by the fireplace, and reading and eating crackers in bed. The highlight was breakfast in our room the following morning (eggs benedict, but of course).

On the way back we made a pitstop at the Gilroy Outlets for a little early holiday power shopping unencumbered by squirmy family members. It was a great success.

Kee Kee

It is a well-known fact that Virginia loves pets of all kinds, especially kitty kitties. Basically as soon as she could learn to walk, she would treat walks down the street as her opportunity to scout for neighborhood kitties. She quickly became familiar with the kitty hotspots and now regularly insists that we visit them. (It happens that one such hotspot is the backyard of our next door neighbor, home of an crotchety old tabby cat named Touche. Virginia would trespass every day to visit him if she could.)

A while ago, when my cousin Katie Jane returned from time abroad in South Africa, she returned with a little stuffed leopard for Virginia. Over the last four or five months, it has become an essential item in the Harvey house. It is just her size and perfect for carrying around. Virginia takes it pretty much everywhere she goes. She also sleeps with it in her crib and feeds it Goldfish crackers. It is the closest we have to a family pet.

Halloween

Halloween in Alameda is awesome. An island of victorian houses, it automatically is two steps ahead of the rest of the area in getting spooky. Our neighborhood is well known for getting dressed up for the holiday, and we had been advised that we should be prepared for a crowd of trick or treaters.

Virginia, our little pirate wench, made the most of it. She did do a little trick or treating on our street, heading to the houses of a few neighbors. But for her, the highlight was actually staying at our house with us and passing out candy to visitors. I would estimate that we had over 400 trick or treaters that night. She camped out at the doorway -- which was rarely closed during the height -- and then dutifully transferred candy from our cauldron to everyone's bags. It was for her an operation in logistics, and she approached the work with the utmost seriousness.