A very eventful weekend

I know it's Wednesday, but I took last week off and it takes a few days to go through all of the e-mails and answer them, and get back into the swing of things at work.

Thanksgiving was great. We had 35 people at my brother Fred's house. Jessica, his daughter, counted.

We ate and ate and then sat around and talked. Then we ate some more. It was the usual Okamoto holiday dinner. We love to eat.

Last week, I wrote about the things I was thankful for. And I forgot to thank the doctors who took care of my mother when she had her quadruple bypass in July. Her primary care physician, Dr. Shabbir Motiwala; cardiologist Dr. Samir Mewar and cardio-vascular surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Travis, all worked together and she came through with flying colors.

Now, she's doing cardiac rehab at St. Francis and those physical therapists are working with her. I'm not so sure she's as diligent as she should be. She absolutely hates going to exercise three times a week. But I know it's good for her and we want to keep her around a little bit longer.

So I'm very thankful for those good people.

Getting back to my original thought of an eventful weekend, we did go shopping (the second best thing the Okamoto family does best). And on Friday, we went back to Fred's house for dinner. My mother refused, saying she didn't want to eat left-overs.

We had more than just left-overs.

On the way back, a deer came out of nowhere and ran into my sister's car. This is Dorothy, who lives in Charleston, S.C. Again, I'm thankful my mother decided to stay home.

Dorothy and I were not hurt, but really shaken by the accident.

And you really need to be careful -- we were driving down Woodruff Farm Road toward Forrest Avenue. It was close to the apartment complex that's on the street and very close to the soccer fields.

It was a huge deer. My brother said it was the perspective, but he's wrong. It was a big one.

Dorothy pulled off in the soccer complex and the woman who was driving behind us followed us to make sure we were OK. She said her son screamed that a deer was running in the street just before it hit us.

She offered to stay until the police got there, but with those small kids in the car, I told her to go on home. She was very, very nice.

Dorothy got on her phone to call 911. I called my brother and our other sisters, Nancy and Patty.

Fred came from his house. Patty and her husband, John, who were also at dinner at Fred's and left the same time we did, came back to help us.

The car was not driveable and the officer called for a tow truck.

And since it was Friday, there was nothing Dorothy could do over the weekend. She had planned on leaving Sunday, but spent Monday on the phone with her insurance agent, an adjuster, the impound lot and North Columbus Collision Center.

Patty had to go out of town to work, so she suggested Dorothy take her car and go home.

She did yesterday, where I believe she's still on the phone with all those folks I mentioned earlier.

I'm really glad it happened in town and not out on some rural road on her way home. She did say she's very paranoid now!

On a more lighter note, I'm so glad Helio Castroneves won "Dancing with the Stars" last night. When they announced the stars a couple of months ago, I predicted he would win. I'm so glad I was right.

NightWalk 2007

I survived another Nightwalk!

My brother, Fred; his wife, Cheryl; my sister, Nancy; Cheryl's niece, Jami Wilder, and I went to Callaway Gardens' Fantasy in Lights last night.

I always say it's the best way to see Fantasy in Lights. I've been told that Bo Callaway hates it when I say that, but it's true.

Of course, it won't take two hours to drive through FIL unless it's really, really crowded. It took us two hours to walk it this year.

It usually doesn't take that long, but we had some slow people with us this year. As usual, Nancy power-walked her way through the route and was sitting at the Robin Lake Beach Pavilion with her hot chocolate for about 30 minutes before we got there.

Fred and I would start walking at a normal pace and then we'd stop and wait for Cheryl and Jami.

By the time we finished the initial five miles, my back was hurting (I have a ruptured disc in my lower back) and Fred was limping. He hurt his toe when he was trying to cut down a tree in his yard. And last year, he had surgery on his ankle.

So for the first time in a long time, I didn't walk the entire seven mile route.

Jami said next year, she's going to walk the whole loop.

The temperature was fine, but there was this drizzle that never got us soaked. We were a little damp, but it wasn't bad at all.

The hot chocolate was really hot and really good. I didn't have any cookies this year, but Jami said they were good.

March of Dimes executive director Linda Szabo seemed really pleased with the crowd. I'm sure she'll let me know how much they made from the ticket sales. The proceeds are shared by the March of Dimes and the Ida Cason Callaway Foundation.

So if you missed NightWalk this year, go through the Gardens in your car or the Jolly Trolley. It's loads of fun either way. And you can mark your calendar to remind yourself to sign up for NightWalk next year.

By the way, at the Beach Pavilion, there are plenty of carnival food booths. There are funnel cakes, smoked turkey legs and roasted corn. That's beside the usual food available at the Pavilion and the Fantasy Cafe inside the big Beach Dome.

And you've got to go to the Christmas Village. It's chock-full of goodies for your home. If you can't find a gift for that person who's hard to buy for, then head to Callaway Gardens.

OK, Rachel Crumbley, are you happy with this blog?

Cooking

The more I get to know Jamie Keating, the more I like the man.

I first met Jamie, who was the executive chef for Milliken up in LaGrange, two years ago. He was the head judge at the Steeplechase at Callaway Gardens' Galloping Gourmets competition.

He was amazing. Just his knowledge of food was mind-boggling.

I told him I had him on my list of people I needed to interview.

Well, it took another couple of years for me to get around to talking to him. It was when he decided to reopen the Columbus Museum's The Place for Taste Cafe.

The plans he's got for the Bibb Mill, where he opened his first restaurant, the RiverMill Cafe, is going to be the talk of the town and the place to go.

Sitting in the little sunroom of the RiverMill Cafe, you get this glorious view of the Chattahoochee River. It's simply gorgeous.

Then he showed me where the main dining room is going to be once the planned hotel goes in. Wow!

Until then, he has the two lunch-time restaurants, and he's conducting cooking classes.

He's got one 6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday at the RiverMill Cafe, 3715 First Ave.

Jamie's going to demonstrate how to make holiday appetizers and give tips on how to cook a turkey and other "big" items for dinner without stressing yourself out.

For $25, you get to listen to Jamie, taste the food and get a booklet of the recipes.

It's not a bad deal.

Call Cathy Stout at 706-302-8208 and let her know you're coming.

I've been bad

I haven't kept up with this blog like I should have. But you've got to understand that I'm from a completely different era than my co-workers. I'm at least 20 years older than most of them!

My friend Troy Heard keeps encouraging me, and I thank him for nagging me ever so gently!

The past two weeks, I've been on vacation. And then when I got back, I got bogged down by work. And, OK, it's been almost three weeks since I last wrote anything.

Vacation was wonderful. My brother, Fred, and his wife, Cheryl, own a time share and this year, decided to vacation in North Georgia. They picked a resort called Big Canoe, which is near Ellijay.

The first day, we went to Stone Mountain Park. It's been almost 10 years since I visited the park and I've never actually walked up or down the mountain. This time, we rode the cable car up and walked down. It was easier than I thought it would be, but you just have to watch your step.

This is my niece Jessica, on top of Stone Mountain. She just turned 20, and is a junior at the University of Florida. We picked her up at the airport in Atlanta before going to Stone Mountain.

The next day, we went to Big Canoe. But we stopped at the Ellijay Apple Festival first. I don't know why I didn't take photos there. Actually, it was a big arts and crafts fair with not much to do with apples.

On Sunday, we drove up to Blue Ridge, Ga., and rode the historic train to McCaysville, Ga. It was an absolutely gorgeous trip. The weather was perfect.

And then it was time to drive back to Atlanta to take Jess back to the airport so she can start classes again. It was raining Monday and it continue to rain on and off the rest of the time we were up in the mountains.

We went to Amicalola State Park one day. We ate lunch at the lodge and decided to walk down to the falls. It turned out there is the Upper Falls and the Lower Falls and each area has a parking lot. We were parked at the top. So we walked down to the bottom of the Lower Falls. This is Cheryl and Fred at the middle point of our walk.

I may have been able to walk to the middle, but I doubt that I could haved walked all the way back up. Cheryl is in worse shape than me, so we made Fred go back up and drive the car down and pick us up.

Isn't that what brothers are for? But then, we had to listen to him make fun of us the rest of the trip. I didn't care. My legs were really wobbly and I was tired. Besides, I'm almost a senior citizen, so I think I did really well.

On the last day, we stopped at this little farm and fed the animals all the veggies and fruit we had left over -- carrots, cabbage, apples. Here's Cheryl feeding the horse.

You'd think we'd never seen livestock before.

That's what I did on my fall vacation.

It's actually the first time I took a whole week off this year. I don't know what I was thinking!