Slight Detour: It's a Wrap; On to the Next Holiday

Time to get to work again. I've been slacking and couch potato-ing a lot over the past four days and have no regrets.

Don't know how many hours of Feast Week sports I watched, but I know that it was definitely double figures.

I enjoyed every minute except maybe the Gonzaga loss to Purdue. Gonzaga, however, earned some redemption yesterday when Duke lost to the same team the ZAGS had played the night before by ONE more point.

ZAG loss to Purdue: 18 points

Duke loss to Purdue: 19 points

Gonzaga's loss produced an abundance of fodder for the tweeting Twitter Coaches who love to criticize the first time something goes wrong. Some are even ready to jump ship in November.

After reading all the pontificating on the ZAGS, I'm wondering what the Twitter brigade of self-appointed coaches had to say about Duke's loss to the same team.

Seems like a common denominator there: Purdue is very good, not only with their giant but also with their overall skilled teamwork.

Two great teams lost to an even better team.

Anywho, the ZAGS came back last night and notched another heart-thumping, breath-snatching win against a scrappy Xavier team.

I also wasn't thrilled when Seattle lost in overtime yesterday.

Still, the sports offerings over those four days were phenomenal, and I didn't feel one bit guilty about sitting and watching many of the games.

Bill and I spent a lot of time outside too. Happily, Mother Nature has been easing us into winter, so it was nice to just enjoy the outdoors and the beautiful new scenes created by moderate snowfall with a sunshine chaser.

This morning, it's a bit colder, so the snow was both crunchy and glistening, even in the darkness.

It was definitely a quality and enjoyable weekend with the holiday gathering and feast and the laidback nature of each day.

Now, it's time to look toward Christmas and start the annual plotting of how everything is gonna get done: baking, buying, writing cards, decorating, cleaning house, wrapping and the usual daily chores.

I try to break it all up into little segments to be completed each day. That takes discipline but it also saves on stress.

In the meantime, Annie is still having a great time in Rome. I've posted several photos below, along with an iconic tune associated with Rome, the Eternal City.

Enjoy!

And, Happy Monday.

From Rome with Annie and Simon:

Simon Evans' Perspective on the Day: A fantastic full day in Rome and the Vatican City with Annie. A spot of Geocaching in the Vatican and little be known to us was at the time of the Sunday Blessing by the Pope. Being raised Roman Catholic, I have never seen the Pope before so that was quite a special moment to see him.

There is also the tradition of sending a post card from the Vatican with the unique stamp and also the postmark celebrating the events of the day.

It was also an honour to meet a friend of Annie's called Cindy who works for the Catholic News in the US and spends a lot of time with the Pope.

Fascinating stories and information about Rome in general as well as life during one of the harshest Lockdown in Europe. The fact she only was here for 3 years turned into 33 years shows how much she loves that jib. It was really interesting to hear about how approachable the three different Pope's were too.

We Geocached and Adventure Labs our way around the city as we have both been here before and also took an electric scooter along the River.

Finally we met up with another friend of Annie's for dinner called Sara who works at an International school and has been here the last year and a half.

Interesting to get her view on Rome and also have a walk around exploring Rome at night before another enjoyable meal. It was certainly a very good day.

Annie's Perspective on the Day: Simon and I tried to go caching in the Vatican today and got interrupted by the Pope. Once he was finished speaking we got back to caching.

Had a wonderful lunch with a family friend from Idaho. Then cached some more through parts of Rome I didn’t visit last time.

Met up with another friend and former roommate, Sara, and wandered through the city and had another great dinner.

Tomorrow is the last full day of the trip and I intend to make good use of it.

Photos by Annie: