Mayor Thomas M. Menino will once again be hosting meetings with his cabinet members – but in the living room of his Readville home rather than a board room at City Hall.

The mayor, who underwent emergency knee surgery Nov. 9 — six days after he won reelection for a historic fifth term — to repair a torn quadriceps tendon, got discharged from the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital this morning and returned home to recuperate, according to the mayor’s spokeswoman, Dot Joyce.

She said the mayor, who is outfitted with a brace on his left knee and is using crutches to get around, will begin meeting with his top aides at his home in the coming days. “It wouldn’t be the first time” he’s held staff meetings at his house, she said.

Between meetings and phone calls with department heads, Menino will also be undergoing intensive in-home physical therapy. The mayor, who injured himself tripping on stairs at his son’s house, will not be moving around much, Joyce said.

“He has to keep the left leg straight and outstretched. It’s a little difficult to maneuver. If it gets banged or bumped, it’s very painful,” added Joyce, who offered no date as to when the mayor might return to work at City Hall.

Thomas Menino, the mayor who keeps on going, is off to warmer climes this week to get some rare R&R and recharge his batteries after his hard-fought battle to defeat Micheal Flaherty and his unofficial running mate, Sam Yoon.

Menino, who usually works seven-day weeks and rarely misses a parade or ribbon cutting on a weekend, left town today for a rare five-day vacation — his first extended break since January.

“He will be someplace warm and not very far – only two hours away,” said his spokeswoman Dot Joyce, adding that the mayor similarly took a trip to Puerto Rico after his 2005 election. She declined to say where the mayor was vacationing.

The long campaign trail, coupled with the fiercest competition he has faced in 16 years as mayor, did leave the 66-year-old incumbent a bit tuckered out the morning after Tuesday’s election.

“I’m tired, but tired in a different sense, like coming down from a high,” Menino told the Herald Wednesday before walking into a Dunkin’ Donuts in Grove Hall. But his spirits quickly lifted as he opened the door and was loudly cheered by coffee-pourers and customers, alike.

“There’s no way in the world anybody was going to take out someone as good as you, Mayor,” Donald Scott, 45, a mechanic from the South End, told Menino before mentioning that his father had worked for him long ago. Menino remembered the man, asked how he was and said, “Tell him I say, `Hi.’”

The mayor soaked it all up, beaming as he bantered with the patrons and workers who, between congratulations, shared with him their personal stories of how he had doted on their kids at a Halloween party or invited them to sing at a rally.

The following day, Menino was back in his usual grove, upbeat and smiling, as he stood on a line with hundreds of other volunteers tossing 15-pound frozen turkeys.

“He was in great spirits. You could tell he was happy, he was energized, he was excited,” said City Councilor Rob Consalvo, who stood across from the mayor Thursday at the Greater Boston Food Bank’s annual “Chain of Giving,” a bucket-brigade of sorts to help unload thousands of Thanksgiving birds to be given to the needy.

Suffolk Sheriff Andrea Cabral, a friend of Menino’s, said the mayor has a “symbiotic relationship” with Boston’s residents and the fact that so many across the city voted for him — 57 percent – has given him new focus and extra drive. “This is a guy who doesnt know what a walk in the park is,” she said. “I think now he will be (tackling things) with gusto.”

Larry DiCara, a former City Council president, said the mayor’s “upbeat, positive, forward-looking mood” following last Tuesday’s election bodes well for Boston.

“That is good for him, and good for the city. We want a mayor who is not mired in what he has done before but wants to bring in new people, energize city government and take bold steps,” he said.

Geraldine Cuddyer doesn’t have high hopes for long lines Tuesday at Boston’s 156 polling locations.”I am scaling down my expectations. I hope I am proven wrong,” said the chairwoman of Boston’s election commissioners.The reason Cuddyer is not overly enthusiastic for a big turnout at the polls — despite what many feel is the most competitive mayoral race in nearly two decades — is because what she called an “abysmal turnout” for the Sept. 22nd preliminary elections. “Not only did we have a hotly contested mayoral preliminary but there was an incredible number of candidates for two open (at-large) seats on the City Council, and that never happens. There was a wide variety of candidates and positions. There was something for everyone.”Cuddyer figured that at least 30 percent of the city’s then 353,683 registered voters would have turned out but just under 23 percent, or 81,322 voters, casted ballots. “I was surprised that more people did not get out to vote. I thought we would have seen a lot more interest.”Maybe its apathy. Maybe a lot of people are just caught up in their day-to-day lives or maybe “people could be satisfied,” she wondered.  Boston’s rolls of voters have since grown to 356,453 voters since September.  Tuesday’s weather is expected to be partly cloudy with seasonable temps in the mid 50s. Cuddyer is hoping that 28 percent, or 100,000 or so voters, will make it to the polls. But she is prepared to be underwhelmed.       

Kevin McCrea said the decision to back Michael Flaherty over Mayor Thomas M. Menino was no slam dunk.

The maverick ex-mayoral candidate, who stepped out of his padded motorcycle protective suit to reveal a business suit before the start of a press conference announcing his endorsement of Flaherty, said he had a dinner with the mayor and both their wives after his defeat in the September preliminary election.

“We had a wonderful meal, a wonderful talk. We connected on a number of levels: things we have gone through in the past. The mayor is a very empathetic person. We both dealt with alcoholic family members growing up. I think it shows in how the mayor cares about the homeless population here in the city,” said the South End developer.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same Kevin McCrea who was a thornbush in the mayor’s side during the run-up to the preliminary, assailing Menino’s administration as “corrupt” and accusing him of orchestrating backroom deals between fat cat developers and the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

But McCrea, standing before the gaping pit that was once Filene’s and is now a scuttled construction project called One Franklin, said he gave serious thought to endorsing his number one punching bag.

“What Michael is promising to do is better than what the mayor is promising to do,” said McCrea, sporting new sideburns and a stylish haircut as he stood alongside his two former rivals, Flaherty and Sam Yoon, who joined forces last month.

“It’s not about personalities,” he continued.  “It’s not because I like Michael or Sam any more than the mayor. It’s because they’re calling for real institutional reform that we need here in the city of Boston: two terms for mayor, elimination of the BRA and total transparency at City Hall.”

Unlike Yoon, who will get the post of deputy mayor if his endorsement of Flaherty helps the so-called “Floon” ticket defeat the mighty Menino, McCrea was not promised a job.

He just got another chance to publicly lambaste the BRA and to ride his beloved motorcycle through downtown Boston.

Tito Jackson – a “man of action” – has a soulful campaign song and a YouTube video. John Connolly has a commanding lead and a massive warchest. Andrew Kenneally, well he has two really dedicated parents and the “Kenneally Mobile.”

“We take it out in the morning. We go down to the Dunkin Donuts shops to meet and greet people,” Tom Kenneally, 74, a retired industrial engineer from West Roxbury, said from behind the wheel of a small, tricked-out Chevy pickup that has been turned into a moving billboard for his 34-year-old son.

Kenneally can use all the help he can get in getting his name out to voters before next Tuesday’s election. The candidate is among eight people vying for four at-large seats on the Boston City Council.

In September’s preliminary election, he finished fifth among a pool of 15, grabbing 12,632 votes and making the cut off to advance to the final round. A gap of 4,214 votes separated him from fourth-place finisher Ayanna Pressley. Jackson finished sixth, with 112 votes standing between him and Kenneally .

By comparison, Connolly, who is running for his second term, finished in first with a hefty 35,115 votes.

That’s where the Kenneally Mobile comes in. The truck, whose flatbed is outfitted with a giant sandwich board advertising his name, along with a spinning triangle that does the same, is on loan from Bill Trabucco. Trabucco, who also ran for the at-large race, no longer needs the roving advertisement that he built after he finished second to last.

On any given day, the Kenneally Mobile can be seen zipping through the streets of Boston, stopping at busy spots from Hyde Park to the Back Bay.

“We take it over to Kiki’s over in Brighton. It’s a Laundromat. A lot of good people from Brighton go there,” Kenneally’s mom, Janice, 71, a Boston public school nurse, said as she sat in the passenger seat of the Kenneally Mobile with her husband while parked outside the J.F.K. Presidential Library during the recent mayoral debate there.

“We go to all the forums for the candidates. We were in all the parades with the little wing ding spinning around,” she said. “We have so much fun because it makes people laugh.”

The way Tom Kenneally looks at it, any candidate who is clever enough to coax his parents into driving a pickup truck all over the city for him deserves to win.