Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

My brother showed up sometime late Wednesday night, and put his VW into gear and quietly pulled out of the driveway Saturday morning (approximately). This was our first true long period together in over a year (since when, last thanksgiving? Oh yea! The fridge died... I remember that!)

It was great to see him, and, uh, we didn't do much. We talked a lot, and I spent all day Friday at work so I would have enough vacation for thanksgiving and christmas. We are almost out of alcohol, so it couldn't have been too bad. We cooked a lot. Surprisingly, we spent no time playing computer games or chess, though he did determine that my FreeNas server simply won't mount FAT32 drives without a lot more pain that I'm willing to belly up. I believe I made grilled cheese while he did that.

He made vegetarian meatballs. I'm not sure that's the best name for a dish that celebrates a food that the parent gastronomic culture is in blatant denial of. I am trying to accept such eccentricities as a fact of life, and besides, it is somehow more descriptive than fried tofu breadcrumb mush.

He did spend some quality time with the dog. Twice he had the joy of yanking my overzealous mutt of some poor bicyclist, as well as helping yank his snout from a snout snapping jack russel. I find it amazing that after haveing his nose bit, went to go for a second sniff...

He also spent a day with The Girly, I gather they had a good time as no one was seriously injured when I came home from work.

We also engaged in the usual mutual photography session.

I (heck, let's be honest, -we-) have been quite nomadic for the past, oh, 9 years. I find it quite odd that we both landed within a few hours drive of each other in situations that can be described as "for the foreseeable future". I get to see him again Wednesday, and again for Thanksgiving. It's nice to have family in the vicinity.

Since he's family, he's also one of the few people who will get out and argue with me about something. We have vastly different views on image processing and printing calculators.

We have spent a lot of time considering the current job situation. I do not know whether to consider ourselves special or lucky to have had -multiple- job opportunities to pay the bills. In contrast, I can think of many colleagues and friends who have been empty handed for years now. While the options were not really all good, at least there were some palatable ones in there. It beats starving. However, now we are watching the world spin and wonder, a little, if the new found gravy train will stop.

I also think we are a dismayed that opportunities we had hoped for are not easily had right now, if ever again. We had some warning that things were going to be changing before the recession, but it is very hard to grasp the shape of the change. For gen X and Y, this means having to scale back expectations. Some tit-for-tat exchange of goals and realities has to be made to keep bread on the table. Or simply accept that there is no free lunch. We have microwaves, natural gas heaters, and flush toilets, thus enjoying what is probably among the most decadent existences known to humans, so there is some wiggle room. At the same time, part time work that would allow community involvement and some alternative definition of balance seem to be out of the question at the moment. The wisdom of un-ending higher education seems pointless in the face of staggering unemployment. It's all inside out and not working as planned.

Oh, I made a pretty good loaf of whole wheat, too. Even though I put in 3 times as much sugar, so it rose twice in about on hour.

Fresh bread and wine go very well together.