Tryptophan and Tranquility

I'm back from a four-day Thanksgiving vacation out in the Brown-county-ish area. (Technically it's not in Brown County. It's about twenty minutes from Bloomington). The cabin we stayed in was called "Absolute Tranquility." Uh-huh, except for the wonderful sound of leaf-blowers in the distance, it was pretty quiet. The cabin was full of antlers, everything that could possibly be made out of antlers was made out of antlers. Door handles, coat hooks, drawer pulls, light fixtures...the first night we were there, I made the grandmotherly observation that eventually someone was "going to poke an eye out," and sure enough, my mom and at least two siblings were speared on the former deer headgear. Even the toilet paper holders were antlers. I believe Mark went and did a point count on all of the antlers and totaled them at something like 111.

I think I counted eight or nine on the Spinning Chandelier of Death suspended above the dinner table. At high speeds this thing might get dangerous.



As rustic as the antler-constructed cabin sounds, it was far from roughing it. We were equipped with satellite TV, a hot tub, and a PS2. I made good use of the television and won the vegging-out prize, something like a day and a half of lying on the couch watching television (although that might be a slight exaggeration.) I did, of course, watch the Macy's parade. The hot tub was nice and I got to pretend to be a demon from hell when I stepped out into the cold air and steam went everywhere.

I read a lot, too, as usual.



On Friday we went and walked around the IU campus for a while, revisiting places from when my mom and dad were in college (and high school; where they met at an IU philosophy camp). The IU campus is really pretty, especially in the fall. We visited a grave in a little cemetery that read something like this:

(Woman's name)
(date of birth) - 20 1999
"She was an optimist."

Poor woman. She almost got there.