good news at our house

I think I mentioned that Robert was away in Colorado last weekend. Just before he left, his best friend and favorite coworker mentioned that a job had opened up at her new company. After Robert returned last Monday, and just before we both fell over from exhaustion, he updated his resume and I helped him edit it.

Dawn (aforementioned favorite etc) handed it in Tuesday morning, she reported that the document had two levels of management drooling, and an interview was scheduled for Thursday.

Apparently things went well; Robert verbally accepted a verbal offer today. He will accept in writing when we return and (presumably) a written offer is in his hands.

There are many good things about this move; one of them is that Robert's commute will be significantly cut. I believe he's currently on the road (or train or subway) for over three hours a day. This will be a good thing. And a nice note on which to start our next adventure.

up in the air, on the seas, and on the road again

On Tuesday, we leave for another trip, this time to Greece. We fly into Athens, tour around a bit, then step onto a boat that will be home for a week while we sail around some of the islands. In the evenings while on the boat, we'll dance. Presumably there will be time for naps somewhere in there.

Then, back on land again, we'll tour historical sites west and north of Athens (some of those sites were just barely spared by the recent fires). And then we'll head to Barcelona for four days. My brother and his family just moved there, and we're looking forward to seeing them in their new place.

We'll be back in three weeks. Our dear friend Cen will stay at the house while we're gone and look after Miss Koa and Mr. Theo.

A few new pictures are posted here (click Slideshow); more when we get back.

guardian angels

I don't usually lift things from other blogs, but this was too good to pass up. It's by Madeleine L'Engle, and appeared in Penguins and Golden Calves, as quoted by Sheila O'Malley in The Sheila Variations.

Children are often better believers than we are. A young friend of mine who works in a day-care center one day overheard a little boy say, "I want to die," and he meant it. She swept him into her lap to try and find out what was wrong that he should feel and say such a thing ... Everything was wrong. His parents were drinking, fighting, screaming, throwing furniture. His anguish at the violence at home had focused into a terror that someone was going to come take him away in the night. My young friend said to him, "I'm going to fix that for you. I'm going to send four guardian angels, one to stand at each corner of your bed. They will spread their wings around you, and you will be enclosed in their love, and no one will be able to take you away."

The next morning when he came to the day-care center she hurried to him, asking, "How did it go last night?" He responded very seriously, "I think we can cut down on the angel guard. One will be enough. The flapping of their wings kept me awake."

So for each of my readers, I wish for you exactly one guardian angel, quietly flapping her wings, watching over you as you sleep, keeping you safe. And if you're extra lucky, perhaps there will also be a beloved dog or cat standing guard, assisting the angel.

new pictures

Robert and I recently went walking in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. My pictures looked fairly good in color but I thought they looked even better when taken back to another era. Click here to see them; I think they're best viewed in "Slideshow" mode. The last picture brings you right back to the present.

new mouse

I am hoverin' over ur desktop preparin' for takeoff

bad news and good news

Yesterday, I learned that my broker died rather unexpectedly last week after suffering a heart attack a few weeks back. Professionally, he gave good general advice and recommended a few other professionals I've had the pleasure of working with.

He was not a close personal friend, but we'd worked together for several years and we had great conversations. I always felt like it would have been a pleasure to get to know him better, to actually count him as one of my friends. So the news came as a real blow, because of both our professional and personal relationships.

Our last conversation had plenty of business content, but we also talked about his recent trip to Ireland and to the Berkshires. I told him about some of the places we enjoy out there and he took notes for future trips.

During the breaking of the news yesterday, I mentioned to the head of the office he worked in that if he charmed his coworkers half as much as he charmed me, they must have just been reeling. The person I spoke to tried to let me know I'd have resources in her office during the transition, and I tried to reassure her that now is not the time to worry about it. I suggested that we should all get through the first part of dealing with this news -- there will be plenty of time to think about the business aspects later. (She seemed shocked and said that some customers have said "that's really too bad. what does it mean for me?" Yuck.)

It was reassuring to hear that this all started just shortly after he returned from his trip, and that he was in a very "happy place", relaxed and refreshed from his travels. I hope the end came peacefully for him.

I received the good news shortly after -- a coworker's wife had a baby girl yesterday. I've worked with the coworker at my previous company and at my current company. Earlier this summer, I gave his wife some editing assistance while she was in the last phase of writing her doctoral dissertation. In fact, she handed her thesis in just a few weeks ago (talk about working right up to the deadline!). I'm so happy for them both, and the news came at an especially helpful time. Welcome, little girl, to this world and to this new life.

it is done!

After dropping Robert off at the train station this morning, I came home and started working on the wood pile. A friend in town wanted to see me and offered to help. Together, we finished up fairly quickly. I admit it looks like a disaster ready to happen, especially from the other side (which I'm pointedly not showing you). But, my theory is that the disaster will all pull inward and at the very worst, we'll end up with a teepee of wood right in place.

I might also note that every single piece of wood was hand-carried over to the pile in bundles of two and three logs. Wood is supposed to warm you three times -- once in the cutting and splitting (which we always skip), once in the stacking, and finally in the burning. I'm looking forward to that last phase, but not til it gets colder outside.



Robert is away for the weekend, attending a surprise 50th birthday for an old friend in Colorado. I'm keeping the home fires burning, but not literally unless the temps plummet.

got books?

The other day, one of the top shelves in my bookcase collapsed. I'm sure it had nothing to do with certain animals trying repeatedly to get up there. I put the shelf back and rearranged the books, leaving a gap. Both Koa and Theo have figured out how to get up there and they relish being in that high space. I must say they have good taste (or limited options) -- this particular shelf holds books and manuals for which I am either author or co-author.

David Letterman might call this "stupid spouse tricks"

Between a big trip we're about to embark on and the seemingly short wood "season", it seemed like we had to get our wood delivered this week. And Robert will be away this weekend. So the stacking will all fall (well, let's hope not literally) on me.

The good news is that ok, yeah, I'm addicted to ibuprofen, but (a) I'm able to walk today -- thanks to that first point, I'm sure -- and (b) the tiny pains I'm experiencing are incredibly isolated and few in number. And also that I have less than half the job to finish up, with a good stacking structure already in place.

Last night, after the first stacking episode, I was grumbling just a tiny bit about needing to do the whole job myself. Robert looked at me and said "But before you met me, you used to do this job by yourself every year. What changed?" And all I could think to reply was "I aged 16 years."

demanding day. i'm tired

I haven't been swimming in over two weeks. I got really sick and when I recovered, I felt like my lungs had been replaced by someone else's. Just walking on a flat surface left me gasping for breath. That's improved, thankfully, but then the pool closed for two weeks for its yearly cycle of cleaning and maintenance.

So today I went swimming, and yes, I remember how, and my time was fairly respectable, given what it was when I stopped. But still, I was hungry and tired when I finished.

Soon after lunch, it was time to go to the farm. I haven't written much about the farm, but we're in our twelfth week and last week we were totally overwhelmed with "the tyranny of vegetables," as my share-mate calls it. This week was not so bad, or in other words, was far more reasonable. But still, together we picked 3 quarts of cherry tomatoes, two quarts of beans, some raspberries, and some fresh flowers. To that, add the 4 pounds of regular tomatoes, 1 pound of peppers, huge bunch of basil, two heads of lettuce, chard, okra, beets, mozarella cheese, summer, and winter squash, and half bag of apples (I'm sharing an apple share with someone) that we took away with us. I'm sure there was more -- oh, a small watermelon, a canteloupe, and a "jewel" melon and a bunch of edamame. Oh and fresh corn, too. Dinners around here have been really tasty lately.

And then, we had one-and-a-half cords of wood delivered. The guy's truck holds half a cord, so he made three deliveries. I got through stacking almost two-thirds of it before I decided that my back would be happier and I'd be more able to stack the rest another day.

So I made dinner. And had a lot of ibuprofen as a chaser. But I'm kind of pooped and will probably go to bed fairly early tonight.

And dinner was as follows:

• Boiled, salted edamame
• Fresh corn (microwaved)
• Salad of fresh lettuce, tomatoes, basil, spicy green peppers, and fresh mozarella
• Fruit salad of canteloupe, watermelon, apple, raspberries, and fresh mint
• Wine, bread, chocolate

Yum.

big heads

When we were in the Berkshires earlier this summer, we attended an open house at Jacob's Pillow in Becket.

On the patio, we came across a little kid who had earlier become very excited when his older brother received an ice cream cookie sandwich and had appropriated it for himself. I snapped pictures while his mom waited in line for a second ice cream for the original intended recipient. The mom was mortified that her younger son was attracting so much attention; I think she felt at that moment like she had failed in her teaching of good manners (or at least that she had a lot of work ahead of her). I offered to send her the pictures but I haven't heard a peep from her.

When she finally brought an ice cream to the amazingly patient older brother, this little guy wanted that one too. They tried to distract him with popcorn; I'm not sure how successful that effort was.


A little later, a pickup truck went by with a garbage can in the back. I asked the driver to stop so I could record the scene. He said that there used to be a full head of hair but his dog hated this thing and had tried to destroy it.



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