Winter sets in

I guess winter has come to stay for a while. I have been battling a cold for about a week and it seems to have subsided enough so that I can comfortably play tennis four or five times a week again, but full strength is still a day or two off. The temperature dipped into single figures today. Yesterday was a little warmer and I went in search of flowers. The Como Conservatory is always an option, but they were changing the flowers in the main display area - the sunken garden - and it was closed. There were a few blooms in the tropical plant area - see below - among the spice trees and fruit trees far from their native soil. It was enough to help my downtrodden spirits. Voila, a purple flower.



I have shoveled snow once, but the weather creatures seem to think that I should do it again tomorrow. Herb and PP are off to Chicago for the weekend, where PP is taking a Japanese language test. It's at the Japanese government offices in Obama's home town. Herb will be visiting the Shinnyo-en temple and doing a lot of driving in the snow. I'm playing tennis at Wooddale twice this weekend. Saturday with Jerry's group and then Sunday evening is a USTA mixed doubles match.

Tennis statistics for November: I played on 17 different days, a total of 36 full sets and 11 partial sets, a total of 382 games, 216 won and 166 lost. An average day was 22.4 games. No serious injuries.

And the economy continues to crumble. The Minnesota state budget is 5.2 billion bucks short of balance. A pittance actually compared to what the big three auto makers are asking for from Congress - I've heard 35 billion green backs needed to keep them alive a while. I wonder when I get bailed out.