Halfway through November

The wind has finally died down. Correction: It has quit all together. So it is a mild mid-November day in southeastern South Dakota. So at 12:30 p.m., what am I doing? Sitting at my computer, watching the score of a state tournament volleyball match change before my very eyes. There were days when the only way to get the result of a state tournament volleyball match was to get a phone call from somebody who was there or wait until the TV sportscast in the evening. Now with the modern technologies that are available, one clicks on S.D. Public Broadcasting (you guys do great work!), and the score changes, the statistics are available, and one knows in Vermillion instantly what is going on in Sioux Falls.

Of course the Lady Govs are playing. The #1-ranked, unbeaten Lady Govs, who until the last couple of years never ever had a winning volleyball team. I can only imagine what the Arena is like in Sioux Falls at this moment. As usual, the folks from Pierre---you strangers don't know that I was there for many, many years---are on hand in record numbers, standing at their seats in a wave of green, supporting the girls. That's the way Pierre does things for its teams---basketball, football, hockey, soccer, track, volleyball, wrestling, etc. I was intending to drive up I-29 today to see this opening match, but I needed to take Oliver to the vet clinic. Unfortunately the vet is gone today, so I can't get him in until Friday morning. He has been scratching himself silly for the past week. Now he has opened a couple of sores on his back where he has been scratching too vigorously. I'm going to try to keep him moving enough outside today so that he doesn't have time to lie down and scratch.

All right, baby! Good news! #8-seed Huron gave Pierre a good game, but the Lady Govs prevailed, 25-21, in the first of the best-of-five match. So all is well so far. Hopefully Pierre will reach the finals, and then I can watch the whole championship match live on television Saturday night.

Other things on my to-do list today---write to a couple of folks, both happen to be in the Twin Cities; pick up some items at the grocery store (right now I'm gorging myself on pumpkin bread from the Vermillion Hy-Vee store . . . it is to die for, especially when heated in the microwave with butter generously applied afterward), catch up on a couple TV series I watch religiously (isn't this neat these days how we can click on the network's website and watch the episodes we have missed?!), and get started on next week's Midweek Update.

The latter, for you who are strangers to me, is an e-mail newsletter keeping present and former Pierre folks informed as to what present and former Pierre folks are doing and where they are doing it. I write it here at home (this is the ninth year!), send it to a computer firm in Pierre, and they send it to everybody on the mailing list. Next week's Thanksgiving issue is traditionally a list of a ton of things for which I'm thankful. It's fun to write, therapeutically for sure. In addition to sending it out via Midweek Update means, I'll post it here next week, too, for readers around the world (yeah, right, as if to think people anywhere are going to be reading this blog!) to ponder.

Now to get on with the day. But first one question . . . who are you? Another question . . . where are you? . . . Yet another question, how did you end up here? Post your comments. I'd enjoy reading what you're thinking today.

And how did it get to be the middle of November already? A week from right now some of us in the family will be gathering to enjoy a meal together on Thanksgiving Day with a keen eye to the TV set. Can anybody remember a Thanksgiving Day when a Detroit Lions game was a meaningful one? Wow, this year it's Detroit vs. Green Bay, a battle for first place in their division.