TeamReedBlog.2020

In the annals of our friendship history, John Vielee will no doubt have his own chapter. A couple weeks ago, he announced that we are not going to let cold weather stop us from safely socializing as we work through what we hope is the tail end of the coronavirus pandemic. "We'll be doing this in the snow," he declared a couple weeks ago as we gathered around their firepit. Lisa and I, layered, blanketed and huddled around the fire, debated how long we'd last as the mercury drops. "I think we'll acclimate," Lisa claimed.  I'm a chronic complainer in the winter because I really hate being cold, but I nodded along in solidarity but also drew so close to the fire that I may have scorched my knock-off  Uggs. We have a chimenea, which is great for maybe three people, but won't allow bigger, safe gatherings, so Jeff and I went firepit shopping. He was already planning a beer share as the weekend was unseasonably warm, but I thought we should act before ...

 If I were a bear, I'd be in great shape for a long winter. But sadly, I am not a bear, and the last couple of weeks have seen me at perhaps my dietary worst in a very long while. Pizza. Pumpkin roll. Pie. Those are just the "p" examples of my culinary excess.  And it has all been delicious. Perhaps the best was yesterday's trip to Zionsville to redeem "Duchess Tea for Four" from the Serenity Cafe & Tea Room .  I'd won the treat in a charity raffle for New Hope of Indiana , which helps people with disabilities live productive lives. Kate Shepherd had told us about the charitable opportunity, so I invited her, Niki Lohrmann (who gets photo credit) and Jen Dunlap, two other longtime friends who live kind of on the way to Zionsville. We'd tried to go earlier, but it was cold and rainy, and we wanted to sit outside for safety's sake. It did get a little chilly, but it was also lovely and I've never had anything but a great time with those lad...

 I don't remember the origin of the Bickel Family Cookbook, and I don't remember how some members of my Bunco family got copies of it, but they did. Last night at a socially distanced gathering in my garage and back porch, Amy brought newly printed copies of the booklet to distribute because, according to her, some disenfranchised Bunconians had groused that they didn't have copies.  I have my original one, but I flipped through the photo-copies just to be sure it was what I was thinking, and just based on who contributed, I'm certain my cousin Lori had to be the impetus. I have no recipes in it, so maybe they were trying to coax me into cooking? Lyn sent me a note asking if my mom was a baker, based on the fact that 2/3 of the recipes are desserts. She wasn't, so much, but the contents of the recipe book is definitely a clue about the origin of my fat cells. They took root many years ago and have resisted my many attempts to evict them. In addition to softening my...

 We've been having some fun as fall settles in, giving us glorious warm weather an excuse to be silly. This particular project is the result of me complaining for years - literally - about three scrubby evergreen bushes that were taking up space in one of the window boxes that frame our front porch. I chopped off the limbs and then tried to rip out the remaining stubs but found they were more deeply rooted than I'd expected. Jeff spent some time with them and a shovel and we finally got them out, then created this seasonal masterpiece, which he used to post a review of a Halloween-themed beer on his beer nerd app. I'm itching to go buy more decorations. I may not have a little one to entertain, but we have been continuing our Lido Deck gathering at the end of the work day, so it's kind of a home improvement project, right?  In other fun news, Bob and Kathy Johnson introduced us to pickle ball and we've been playing a bit, both as a couple and me with some girlfriend...

 After what seems like interminable confinement, we had a run of outings that I'm hoping none of my clients will discern once the work week kicks back in. We had a great dinner (outside) of course on Wednesday at Diavola with John and Sara; followed by a beer share on Thursday where John Dimmick brought lasagna, the remainder of which he thankfully took home; followed by Book Club on Friday with an amazing pie from My Sugar Pie in Zionsville that somehow stayed here; followed by a birthday party Saturday with people who've become family, deep in the woods of southwestern Indiana where we started early and didn't leave until well into the night. We're just now back from West Lafayette where we brunched with our favorite Boilermaker, who took us on an 8-mile bike ride that included a little jaunt through Celery Bog, which made us all think of Grandpa Reed. (He hates celery.) We went back to Bistro 501 , which is so worth the drive. We brought up a few things Ali needed an...

The Captain has introduced me to some might fine people from his law school class, and I don't feel a bit bad about stealing from them. In this case, it was John and Vicky Christ's intellectual property. More precisely, their idea of how to manage through the pandemic. Like us, they're both working from home and have been for most of the year. I've been working from home for years and love it. It's new for the Captain, and he chafes a bit at the lack of other people. He's also better at painting bright, clean lines around the work day and the play day. The Christs put him over the edge last week when they told him that every day during the work week, at 5 p.m., they meet for a martini on the Lido Deck. For those of you not familiar with cruise ships or The Love Boat, that was the party deck. We launched our Lido Deck on the back porch, but it's floated to the front porch, too. It's been fun, and a couple of times, neighbors have stopped by, so it has the...

There are peaks and valleys in life, my friends, and these past weeks, TeamReed forged a path so jagged-y, it might be close to a record. Our longest summer ever finally came to a close as Ali went back to Purdue. She'd mentioned recently that this summer seemed longer than others. "That's because it started in March," I reminded her. Purdue had gone online after Spring Break, giving us almost five months of free time with her.  We tried to make the most of that bonus time, and last weekend, we jumped in the Subaru for an impromptu day trip where Ali was going to show us around Dunes State Park. Upon learning we were heading his direction, our good friend Clay Miller suggested that instead of exploring a public beach on the shores of Lake Michigan where crowds might be of concern, we could visit his strip of private beach instead.  That's Baxter bottom right. He's a very good dog. If you're on Facebook, you maybe know of the music lessons I received while...