November
Smells of Autumn is always good. I'm thinking how many times we still could ride outside.
(See the very bottom photo? The last November-rides-number looks nice.)
Here are our past November.
2024. 2023. 2022.
2021 was the first Nov after my husband's injury.
There isn't the blog page since I started the blog in March 2022.
Entry#495. 11/30/2025.
Did you watch the movie "Wicked: For Good"? How did you like it? I remember that I wrote about it on Entry#327(11/22/2024). Just because Nessarose caught my attention. Also I learned something new. Like here.
"The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by author Gregory Maguire, The Wicked Witch of the East is known as Nessarose Thropp. She is the beautiful but physically handicapped (born with no arms in the book and paraplegic in musical) sister of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West)."
Then I found some videos I love. Comparison of these same title songs is just fun to me.
P.S. Did you read the news about Marissa Bode?
"Marissa Bode Wins 2025 Christopher Reeve Acting Award For Wicked Film Performance."
This news made me smile.
Entry#494. 11/29/2025.
Next questions.
Do you know the difference between Heavy cream and Whipping cream??
Do you know the difference between Cool Whip and Whipped cream??
When I tried to bake some cakes after I moved to the States in 2001, I always used heavy cream. Because Japanese cake recipes have “heavy cream” in them. I haven’t questioned it at all until this time. I haven’t questioned about the products “Whipping cream” next to Heavy-whipping-cream.
About Cool Whip. Since there is nothing such as Cool Whip in Japan, I haven’t used it much by myself. Do you use it often?
P.S. My Thanksgiving cactus pots are fully blooming. Do you think they would keep blooming until Christmas Day??? How about yours?
Photo#2 is the big pot #2. The view from the above. I'd call it "The Thanksgiving cactus Wreath".
Entry#493. 11/29/2025.
I have questions for you (again). Funny, it sounds like I always have some questions about random things of our regular lives. This time, it’s about a Pumpkin Pie + whipped cream. My favorite pie.
I say it’s my favorite pie, but I never knew an American style pumpkin pie before we moved in the States in 2001.
According to ChatGPT/Googe AI mode, the American style pumpkin pie did spread out in Japan around 2010. 2010, it is! When I was young in Japan, our image of pumpkin pie was like these photos. (They are from internet.).
Yes, it looks just like a “handpie”, doesn’t it? So if you ask your Japanese friends of my generation and older about “Pumpkin Pie”, they would have an image of handpie-shaped pie in their head. Interesting?
Okay, then, here you go, a question.
Do you refrigerate Pumpkin Pie filling before baking? How long?
This is an article about it. Title: Why You Should Refrigerate Pumpkin Pie Filling Before Baking
https://www.tastingtable.com/1400498/refrigerate-pumpkin-pie-filling-before-baking/
Like I wrote about it before, I have two special recipe books with me. They have many wonderful sweet memories in them. Contributed by my husband’s research/biology related people, in Manhattan, KS and in Oxford, OH.
I baked a pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving using a recipe from the one of the books. She got her Doctoral degree in my husband’s lab and she is a professor of UNC Asheville now. (She researches using water bears = Tardigrades.)
I used her recipe. I love her (and her husband) pumpkin pie very much.
According to her recipe, yes, the pie filling must be refrigerated for 2 days. I haven’t known about the reason. So I had to read the article and got the idea about it. (Now I got more curious, I need to reach out to her and ask her “why 2 days?”)
FYI (for your information), in Japan, we don’t have cans of evaporated milk at grocery stores. No, not at all. See? Interesting.
Coming up: a question #2.
The video below is "How to make Japanese pumpkin pie". (No English. In Japanese.) As you can see, the recipe has NO evaporated milk.
Entry#492. 11/28/2025.
I was not a cyclist before we started Paraplegic life (Spinal Cord Injury life). I had no idea about indoor cycling trainers, not at all.
Even I thought an indoor trainer was not my thing, not at all. I wrote about cycling trainers before. (I need to look back my old writings.)
My husband already set up his indoor trainer for cold weather season.
Our son set up his ‘temporary’ indoor trainer set, just for a shot period of time.
On Thanksgiving day, Zwift announced they had a special event called “T-day Ride with MVDP!”. It was a virtual group ride that anyone could join in as long as you have a Zwift account. (MVDP = Mathieu Van Der Poel)
This context is for cyclists only. Forgive me, if you are not familiar with cycling.
I was excited about the virtual group ride because.
1. MVDP is a hero, legend, super star in cycling world.
2. Actually I had no idea about Zwift group ride since we haven’t tried it yet.
3. At least we could be able to see the starting lineup if we logged in this special event on Thanksgiving Day.
The Thanksgiving day arrived. The event starting time was 11:00am. Both my husband and I didn’t plan to do “actual work out” = real indoor riding session at this moment. I just wanted to peak the event.
Using our son’s indoor trainer setting, we logged in anyway. There were about 5000 cyclists there at the starting line!! (After all there were 8000 participants according to Zwift record.) Do you think that we got to see MVDP??
No. Unfortunately we didn’t see him. And we stopped the session after 10 minutes. But it was still fun. It was an exciting morning on Thanksgiving Day 2025.
I was not ready for a ride, you know? I dressed up for “Thanksgiving Day” anyway. Then all the sudden, my husband said “You gotta pedal right now. The race is on.” Next moment, I was on our son’s bicycle.
We have to laugh. Too big size bicycle for me. Too big bike shoes for me. See?
Here I am. The most funniest outfit for cycling. It was a good laugh indeed.
11/27/2025. Happy Thanksgiving!
It was too cold to wheel out for us today. (It means “cycling”.) It was a slow-calm-giggling-nice day after all. Thanksgiving day reminds me of several things specifically (which are odd to most of you, I assume).
Thanksgiving makes me want to watch the movie “Scent of a Woman” my favorite movie.
Thanksgiving makes me think of difference between Japanese pie crust and American pie crust.
Thanksgiving celebration doesn’t exist in Japan. But I do love this US tradition very much.
I’ll put some my “favorite” things here just for fun.
My favorite pie: Pumpkin pie
My favorite quote: Let’s make lemonade out of lemons.
My favorite English word #1: scrumptious
My favorite English word #2: improvise
My favorite singers group/band: Pentatonics. Walk off the Earth.
What is your favorite English “word”? Just one word??
11/26/2025.
How do "your Christmas lights" look this year? Mine is simple, small and shiny.
Entry#491. 11/25/2025.
I'm originally from Japan. (I was born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan in 1973. 札幌(さっぽろ) 北海道(ほっかいどう) Well, I got married in 1999 then moved to the States in 2001. Our son was born in Manhattan, KS in 2002.
Around 2001, I was not so familiar with American cooking tools, styles, and recipes, not at all. All I was thinking about cooking was "I want to cook with Japanese methods and styles". Yes, at that time back then, I tried cooking with Japanese tools. Funny. Of course, I got used to use an American huge oven. I loved it very much, more than Japanese small size. I can talk about this theme endlessly.
This time, I'm showing something very "rare" (I assume). Or I need to Google about latest version of bread-machine, maybe later.
Afrer I moved here from Manhattan, KS in 2008, my Manhattan-bonded friend was about to move back to Japan. Then she sent me Japanese Bread machine by mail(!) And guess what? It was sent with "Step up & down Transformer VC-1000J"!!
Do you know what this is?
Japanese electrical appliances are 100V appliances, did you know that? Europe countries are also different setting.
So if I use a 100V Japanese bread machine, I need to covert from 120V to 100V using this Voltage Converter. See?
My dear sweet Japanese friend sent these to me by mail service even though these are pretty heavy(!)
I’m sure you are laughing now. At that time (around 2008), I was pleased to have these Japanese bread machine set and I enjoyed baking breads with it. However at some point, I stopped using it. (It has been sitting in the shelf quietly about 4-5 years.)
Then here I was today, I set it up, I was making sure how to use it, I turned on the switch, and I pushed the start button.
It still worked fine. I was joyful and I thought about my old friend + our mutual friends from my Manhattan, KS era.
P.S. My husband pointed out about the latest Bread machine in the States. They look like popular items. Is that right? Do you have one?
11/24/2025.
I'm slow but it looks a little bit like a Holiday in our house. Slowly but cheerfully.
Entry#490. 11/23/2025
Sometimes it’s fun to “search” photos with keywords. Do you do that? Today, I put “November 23” in a search bar on photo app, seeing what’s coming up.
11/23/2021. My husband had his first driving lesson using a hand-control with a wonderful instructor. (Coincidentally we learned her husband was paraplegic. We became good friends.) Nowadays our minivan (Toyota Sienna 2019) is my husband’s everyday-car. Yes, it’s modified for a hand-controlled system.) We could travel comfortably with this van.
Do you see his wheelchair? It is a hospital loaner wheelchair.
11/23/2023. We (obviously) biked outside. It must have been very cold because you see our outfits from the top to bottom. Funny looking.
And did you notice? My bicycle is a red-vintage rode bike = my first rode bike ever.
And today (11/23/2025), yes, we biked outside with gorgeous sunshine. (Oh, it was a 32mi ride.)
Entry#489. 11/22/2025.
At last I was captured in a photo holding my first barn quilt project; two sides “Double aster & Jay/Cardinal”.
Reread about this project on Entry#485 (11/08/2015). (Just scroll down.)
When I saw this two-sides barn quilt block, I was astonished about the idea, it could be hanging under the mailbox post(!) I LOVE the idea. And I have it now thanks to my bow-hunter friend in Olsburg, KS.
I need to check the size+space underneath my mailbox for my two-sides barn quilt. (I’m too lazy. I’ve not done it yet.)
I’m a bit worried about the bracket of mailbox post. It might be blocked the space for the barn quilt. Our mailbox post was built by my husband and son a long ago. They built it from the scratch with their own design.
Looking at the old photos of mailbox post, it brought me old-fun-memories = COVID stay-at-home-project. It was Spring 2020 (right before our son’s high school graduation time). I’d love to share the story about it.
It started just like this. (Did I tell you this story before? I forgot.)
Are you getting curious? During Stay-at-home/pandemic time, I wanted to do something fun everyday and wanted to feel connections with people. So I had a wooden board, white paint, black marker and some imagination. I started put a board under the mailbox everyday.
It was so much fun more than I expected. I kept writing the message on and on. Even my letter-font evolved (!) See?
I think I stopped on 100th day. You like the idea?? Which one is your favorite?
Entry#488. 11/21/2025.
As you keep reading my blog, my wonderful longtime friend in Olsburg, KS appears several times in my writing. The latest one is about her Barn Quilt = our ‘together’ project.
Our connection gets stronger each year, it’s wonderful. She sends her stories to me and we compare them each other. It’s so fun.
Once she sent photos of street-murals in KS to me. I was impressed and happy to see them.
The story was here in 2/09/2023.
I have to tell you here that “she is a real bow-hunter, so as her husband and son!”
Just recently I realized that I had no knowledge about bow-hunting at all. Even she shared photos of the beautiful bucks that she hunted by herself. I just didn’t think about “how to hunt” part seriously before. I never thought. Bad me.
So this time I asked her “show me your TREESTAND” which I haven’t seen it before.
Now you need to laugh me out. I imagined it looked like these, all the time, even it’s called “tree stand”. Somehow my imagination was stuck with “ground blind”. (I learned this term for the first time.)
She shared photos of her treestand with me. She blew my mind (!) I was amazed, impressed, even shocked. Whoa, so that’s the way to hunt with bow. From a tree! Climbing up the ladder to a tree stand position. (Do you know about it? Is it so popular? Everyone knows it? Hmmmm.)
I admire her more than ever. She might giggle. Forgive me not knowing about the details. Now I kind of know.
In honor of her bow hunting (and her husband’s and son’s), here are some photos (2022 and 2024) of her and the website (gallery). (You see her, her husband and son there.)
http://www.bruiserwhitetail.com/p/gallery.html?m=0
I am also learning more from YouTube videos.
It’s nice to learn something new, you know?
(The first photo is from internet, I'm guessing she has a similar one. The second one is hers.)
Now I have more questions for her. Her email says "He (= her husband) has hunting management plans that he wants to let most bucks grow to 5 1/2 years old so their antlers grow to full potential."
How do you know buck's age exactly?? I need to research this. Are you laughing?
Entry#487. 11/19/2015.
Do you remember about the one-man show “Every Brilliant Thing”? It happened here in my town, Oxford, OH in April 2025.
I wrote about it here Entry#398 (4/27/2025).
It was a very unique act/play to myself. It was a wonderful experience to me after all.
Then I saw a news.
Title: Daniel Radcliffe Sets Broadway Return With Solo Play ‘Every Brilliant Thing’
Yes, 'that' Daniel Radcliffe will perform the show of "Every Brilliant Thing"(!) Interesting.
The official website.
https://everybrilliantthing.com/
I thought about my teacher-actor-singer friend. I’d want to ask her “how do you think about this?”
I still love watching the video. (2016 YouTube)
11/18/2025.
I think the view from the above looks like a Christmas wreath pretty much. I'm talking about my Thanksgiving cactus. Are you giggling? This is one of my two big pots. You should come over here to see them with your own eyes. You would like it more than seeing photos. Yes?
When you receive a photo of Christmas cactus from your longtime close friend in Olsburg, KS, you would get beaming smile. I couldn't stop smiling. Especially this Christmas cactus is her new addition in her house last year.
11/16/2025.
If you watch this movie, let me know how you like it. My husband and I are curious about it and very interested in it. It's related to "Japan, Japanese culture and people in Japan". See? You might get curious about it now. The movie title: "Rental Family"
11/16/2025.
Sometimes, our son is in another state all the sudden. This time, in Tennessee (near Memphis)(!). It was quite an interesting report he texted us. He helped out on collecting research samples in the river. Collecting "clipped tiny pieces of fish fins". Sounds interesting, doesn't it?
Entry#486. 11/14/2025.
Do you remember that I used to be a dancer at modern dance/ballet groups when I was a tiny little human. Re-read here. Entry#173 (10/24/2023)
I wasn’t at all in the classic ballet world, I still have no idea about classical ballet. In fact, I have not watched “The Nutcracker” yet. (Bad me.)
However I started learning about The Nutcracker a bit by bit thanks to my ballerina friend.
See here. 11/24/2024. Entry#355 (1/30/2025)
My sweet ballerina friend still has been living in Lisbon, Portugal to attend the ballet school. She is Japanese, but I’m pretty sure that she speaks in Portuguese by now.
She is a ballerina and the holiday season is coming. I couldn’t resist to ask a question to her. “Which part/cast/role did you get this year? She had several parts last year, one was Chinese dance.
Her answer was very simple. “It’s Sugarplum Fairy.” On the other hand, my reaction was “!!!!!!” because “that is the hardest role in The Nutcracker”!
Of course, I got so excited about this news. I will send a cheer to her from here.
Allow me to express my excitement here. Here is a photo of last year’s show. The small arrow shows my dear friend who did Chinese dance. The bigger arrow shows the Sugarplum Fairy. See??
So this gorgeous Sugarplum Fairy will be my sweet ballerina friend this year!! Woooo hooooo. (I do hope I could get a group photo again from her.)
11/14/2025.
Little women the Musical update;
Are you ready to attend/watch THS musical show at the first weekend of December (I assume)?? I'd love to visit. I found another tune I'm liking. The title is "Take a chance on me". What do you think?
11/13/2025.
If you see more than 20 Black vouchers all together in your yard, how do you feel about that? Sometimes, flying above you, circling around and around, trotting on the ground and resting on branches. Yes, this is my backyard.
Also my "battling" with tons of leaves is still "on". However I'm pretty much feeling settled because of the view of my backyard.
P.S. Also I was astonished at the VISIBLE view of Aurora!! It was visible unbelievably. Plus I'm impressed about iPhone's camera ability. Is it an auto adjustment feature??!
11/13/2025.
My Thanksgiving cactus update; Well, one of my big pots are already blooming. I guess it's almost 100%. See? Do you think they can keep blooming till Thanksgiving Day? Hmmm.
11/11/2025.
A random topic for the day. I just saw an advertisement about Lion King the musical in Cincinnati. They are coming back in Cincinnati next June. That's exciting. Then I saw this video. I just keep watching it again and again. Especially "that Cheetah's face/head moves"! At first, I thought "How can she do it?" Then I learned there were two "invisible strings" attached. It's amazing! That movements look so natural and so real. Whoa. I LOVE it.
11/10/2025.
The very first Snow of the season! I love snow. But it was so different in my yard because of tons of tons of leaves. I have many trees and they still have leaves up there on their branches. (Yes, temperature had kept warm.)
I need to "deal with leaves" first, anyway. I'm looking up trees in my yards, both front and back, talking to trees "Hey, you can just shake them off, all of them." We will see how much I can handle them.
Entry#485. 11/08/2025.
My mind is full of excitement, happiness and joy in these several days. You gotta see how I look in my house. You have to giggle.
It started with this package from Olsburg, KS(!). Do you remember? We used to live in Manhattan, KS (2001 — 2008). Olsburg is the town about 30min driving from Manhattan north. I have a longtime friend there. She sent me the package.
We email each other and text each other.
A bit before the arrival of the package, I wrote to her “I wish I lived closer to your house. So that you could teach me how to paint a Barn Quilt.”
I wrote several posts about her and her Barn Quilts (plus her Quilts) before. See these links.
She is the original founder of Flint hills Quilt Trail. (It all started in year 2012-2013 according to articles.)
4/26/2022
10/26/2023
Entry#203. (1/13/2024)
9/3/2024
We moved to Oxford, OH from Manhattan, KS in 2008. So Barn Quilt was not a thing during my Manhattan times. After my moving, she sent her creation of a barn quilt by USPS, yes, she shared one with me. I was thrilled to have it as my own. The title she wrote in backside was “Kansas Sunflower”(!). See the purple color?? That’s K-State color!
Since then I kept seeing her creations each years, a lot. She just keeps making them, painting them for people, community and more.
Her paintings have been evolved a lot, I can tell. It’s amazing and astonishing all the time.
I awed deeply seeing her outside sides of the house. See? I fell in love with these paintings.
So that’s why I told her “I wish I lived closer to your house. So that you could teach me how to paint a Barn Quilt.”
Now guess what she sent me??
It was “Paint your own Barn Quilt ‘DIY’ kit set”!!
She packed all stuffs (a block-board, paints, brushes, a roll of tape and more) for me. She did the first coat of primer, painted one side completely, painted parts of the other side, and taped for the next step which I will do by myself. Wowza!!
When I opened the box and found the instruction of her handwriting, my eyes were twinkling and I was happy as much as I could be. This is super awesome. See the whole inside of the package?
YES! The complete side was "Cardinal & Bluejay duo"!!! My most favorite.
Then next, we did FaceTime for the first time ever. Funny, we talked on the phone a few times, but we never tried FaceTime. She showed me how to blush using her practice board.
I felt just like “Oh, yeah, I’m taking a personal online Barn Quilt class!” It felt so fun and great.
I was super curious about Barn Quilt always, but I never looked into it deeply about how to paint it. Once I started painting, I understood many of details and figured out which parts were tricky/hard + important. I never knew that until I actually tried to paint it by myself. I was thrilled and excited very much.
The taping part and removing tapes part are most critical/important. Also “patience” (= waiting for complete drying each steps) is a must. Did you know that?
Okay, here are step-by-step and the result(!) How do you like it? I am feeling so satisfied and am loving the result. YES, I did it!! Woooo hoooo!
This is special and meaningful to me personally very much. I loved the whole process and concept. I love the creation that my friend and I made together!
You gotta check this. See the photo below? It's me and my sweet friend in 2021 at her house. See the barn quilt left below? Yes! She has one, and I have now the same pattern/design one here in my house.
You might wonder now "why two sides paint designs?" Because I could hang it under the mailbox or hang it with a hanging bar/pole in my garden. Cool, isn't it? I will think about it later, finding a perfect place.
Meanwhile I put it on a windowsill. Then I figured it looked nice both from inside and outside. See?
11/07/2025.
When your sweet friend gave you flower bouquet, you couldn't stop smiling all night long.
It was a joyful day all day long. I was able to chat with two wonderful ladies. We talked about old memories at TMS. Laughed hard, sang together, and more.
In the afternoon, I made it to stop by Miami University Graduate Research Forum (GRF) to watch poster sessions.
Entry#484. 11/06/2025.
I want to add one more information about our son who chats with my husband more often than with me. Funny.
Ohhh, I have one photo. The latest one he just sent us.
11/05/2025.
My Thanksgiving Cactus (3 small pots) are blooming well. They look gorgeous with sunshine very much. How about yours? (My 2 big pots will be ready for Thanksgiving Day, I hope.)
11/05/2025.
Sometimes I accidentally find a very positive cheerful video on social media. There is one. I just cannot stop watching it. I wanna share some with you all. You'd love it.
How do you think?
Entry#483. 11/04/2025.
Let me tell you about what our son works for, part 2.
I am learning some realities in local areas in India (which I never imagined).
Partnership with Conservation Initiatives (CI) in India
In India, Cincinnati Zoo has partnered with Conservation Initiatives (CI) to engage community youth in positive interactions with elephants through an educational video game called “Heroes of Elephantia.” This initiative aims to reshape the way young people perceive elephants by providing them with a better understanding of elephant behavior and habitats. The game teaches positive ways to interact with elephants, helping to unlearn harmful behaviors such as chasing and harassing them. The game will be introduced alongside awareness programs in schools and local tournaments. This initiative is expected to instill a deeper understanding and appreciation for elephants among the youth, fostering a generation that values coexistence.
Entry#482. 11/04/2025.
Let me tell you about our son (age 23, who has BS degree in Biology). The part of what he works for right now. As my understanding, he has several projects to work on, mostly analyzing huge amounts of data.
I’m learning something new from him which is really interesting and educational to me personally. I like the concept and idea he is involved now.
Okay, at first, we need to know about 3 organizations.
AmeriCorps
Cincinnati Zoo
Vulpro
Note 1:
AmeriCorps is a federal agency that connects millions of Americans to service opportunities through local, state, and national programs to address community needs in areas like education, the environment, public safety, and health.
(Unfortunately this difficult time in the States, it’s so unclear about AmeriCorps grant money. The website says “AmeriCorps is closed”.)
Note 2: About Vulpro (a nonprofit organization in Africa).
Since 2007, Vulpro has been changing the way the world sees vultures.
Vulpro is the Africa’s only organisation solely focused on vultures. Their website says;
"Annually, we survey wild populations at breeding sites and maintain a re-sighting database using camera traps, photographs, and public reports. This data allows us to track both wild and rehabilitated vultures, as well as ex-captive bred individuals, beyond the lifespan of their transmitters."
Note 3: You might know and be familiar with Cincinnati Zoo.
Thanks to these 3 organizations’ connection, he works on Vulture populations in Africa. It’s one of his projects he started working on this year.
Here is a news page from Cincinnati Zoo posted September 2024.
I copied one section from the page. Because I learned the importance about protecting wild Vultures in Africa.
————
Vulture populations are declining in most of the world and in several African species there has been an incredible 95% population decreasein just the last few decades. Vulture numbers are dropping due to several factors including poisonings, power line collisions and electrocutions, lack of nesting sites, collisions with wind turbines, toxic veterinary drugs for livestock and even a shortage of food in some areas. Vulpro is working to rehabilitate and release birds that are found suffering from many of those issues. One of their newer and exciting efforts involve a breeding program where non releasable vultures that they have rescued are able to pair up and produce chicks that can then be released into the wild. Those chicks are fitted with GPS trackers and Vulpro will be able to get even more data from them, while they live their lives as wild vultures. The money Vulpro received this year from the Cincinnati Zoo was used to finance trackers that are fitted on vultures released from both the breeding program and vultures that were rehabbed and releasable. Over the last few years we have been able to support VulPro in a variety of ways, including supporting the impact evaluation of VulPro’s community education programs around vultures with survey design expertise. We can’t wait to continue growing this relationship with this amazing conservation organization!
————
It is really interesting now. It seems that our son has been analyzing the data of vulture chicks with GPS trackers in Africa(!)
In fact, I have no idea about actual data (numbers) and how to analyze them. (Wow, he has been doing it for real, doesn’t he?) Anyway, this is one of his projects in this year.
See? Did it make you curious enough?
I am happy for him that he is involved in the big project which is related to wildlife conservation.
It’s a bit different situation because he doesn’t need to be in the actual site (on site), rehabilitation center in South Africa. (However, if they would offer to give him an opportunity to visit the facility in South Africa, that would be fantastic. That is what I would feel.)
I will write about his another project later. You would like the other one also.
Entry#481. 11/02/2025.
We drive by Hamilton often. We see the new-ish Ice Cream /Chocolate candy store often. However we’ve not visited there yet. We should.
My husband found the news about them, about their fun event.
Here is the news site. Title is,
Cincy ice cream shop is hiding golden tickets in chocolate for 'Willy Wonka'-style tours
Now your eyes are wide open? Golden Tickets!! See? It sounds so much fun. And we should try this fun event. Yes, we will visit Hamilton store to buy one box of “assorted chocolates”.
As they say in the article, it’s going to be exciting to open the chocolate box! Oh, let me know you won the prize.
According to the article, there are only 5 golden tickets (for 3 locations stores). This event will be on until the end of December. Hmmmm, let's see, 2 tickets in November and 3 tickets in December, maybe? There are 3 locations, though. Does Hamilton store have only 1 or 2 golden tickets, probably?? Even so, we will go and buy one box, yes, we will. (What timing will be the best??)
Entry#480. 11/02/2025.
My husband and I bike together a lot. (I believe so. But real cyclists might say "your mileage is not 'a lot' yet.") We have several routine riding places. We bike often there, we see several "regular" cyclists there. It is fun to recognize each other, waving or nodding on the bike trails.
Recently we were able to greet one of cyclists. I made it to take a picture!! You know? We were totally stranger. During our ride on the road, we cannot talk to cyclists who are riding toward us from the other direction.
There was a coincidence that he finished riding when we were preparing to start riding at the parking lot. Then we finally greeted each other, saying "I saw you riding fast several times."
This photo is kind of a treasure. Our bonding is "cycling", that's simple and cool.
Entry#479. 11/01/2025.
We, able bodied people, don't notice some parts, especially entrances of restaurants. When we visit new restaurants, we need to prepare for any "surprise" = the possibility of "impossible to enter".
We hope they are accessible for wheelchair users. In these days, we learned something more.
At the one restaurant in Pittsburgh, their front entrance was not accessible at all. They said there was an accessible door at the back. We tried that. It goes into their kitchen directly. Obviously it's not the walkway for customers. And it was very tight width of doorway (we almost gave up to go through). But we were able to go into the dining floor.
The restaurant in Columbus had a revolving door entrance. They offered my husband to use another door. They have a nice ramp inside which felt very comfortable to use for anyone.
Yes, I know we have to play by ear sometimes. I got interested in "going through kitchens" part lately. Very interesting, isn't it?
I think it really depends on "How often the restaurant have wheelchair users /stroller users". There is a bit uncomfortable feeling when I go through kitchens, that's obvious feeling to myself.
One restaurant in Cincinnati didn't have any sign for another entrance at the front. I had to go inside to ask about it because their steps at the front door was not accessible at all. One guy escorted my husband to the side of the restaurant. There was a ramp. After all, this visit was good.
Entry#478. 11/01/2025.
I have to say our October 2025 was the busiest craziest month ever. We both, my husband and I, feel the same. We both agreed on that. I'm glad that we managed and survived. I am proud of him and his efforts. He challenged with his 100% energy and effort.
I want to report about the last event in October. He attended the conference which he had never attended before. It was a very new atmosphere to me as well. It was a good experience.
He was a speaker. There were 3 other presenters in the session. The organization set up the ramp for him to the stage. It was nice. However it's tricky sometimes. This time, the screen setup was not so ideal for everyone. After all, all presenters talked on the floor next to the screen. (Because they didn't see the screen from the stage.)
I really enjoyed the whole session this time. This conference itself is for undergraduate students mostly. I assume that was why I felt comfortable more.
FYI: https://www.sacnas.org/
I am not a real scientist but they allowed me to attend as a supporter of my husband. I was grateful.
(Oh but did you know? I have a BS degree. That is good enough to attend the conference?)
Go back to Home.
Go to the last month.
Create Your Own Website With Webador