It's beginning to feel a lot like

Christmas!  Vacations have begun, and it's cold outside.  Cookies are eaten almost as soon as they are made.  There is even a little snow on the ground.  We're approaching the Rochester and Chicago levels, as the weather shows snow almost every day in the last couple of weeks for Fairport and Dundee is not far behind.  We may have snow here on Christmas.

Annie is coming home tonight, if all her flights are on time and pat-downs proceed smoothly.  Margaret's on vacation, Joe is home and Mary starts her vacation tomorrow!!  

Joe and John spent last week in Pittsfield, with plans for getting all kinds of work done.  But Mary's cousin John Hayes was sanding floors, so our ability to create dust and dirt was severely restricted.  So we fell back to the next best thing.  Baseball.  We got in the car and spent the afternoon in Cooperstown at the Hall of Fame.  Lots of good exhibits on baseball's beginnings and its integration.  I think we liked the modern day rooms the best; interesting to see how they approached the steroids era, including exhibiting the ball which Barry Bonds hit, with an asterisk carved in it, as voted on by the fans.

We did do a little sanding on the staircase banister, and the floors came out looking great.  Radiators also played into the week as Johnny helped with their placement of slightly raised floors, and then Joe hurt his back as we tried to carry one up the stairs.  He is out of commission for a few weeks but looks like he's feeling better than he did that first day.

We had what could have been our most memorable anniversary.  Margaret put together a collage of photos and Joe made us a big Middle Eastern dinner, and we were joined by James and Tamara.  Special.

A couple of Christmas parties and attendance at a presentation of Handel's Messiah have rounded out the weeks.  I imagine and hope everyone else is having similar, eventful occasions.  

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!   Love from down here.

Travels

Why am I surprised that it gets cold in December?  Because it seems like it was just October, or August.

And here we are at the second Sunday in Advent.  Time to catch our breath.

Last Friday, after Thanksgiving, we drove up to Pittsfield, dropping Grandma off in Hightstown on the way.  We had a couple of house meetings (kitchen and bank loan) so Mary came along and flew back home on Monday evening.  We went out to a new pizza place with John and Marilyn and then over to their house to watch a movie on the Cuban missile crisis (good).  They are into advance planning for a trip to China in March.

I stayed up to try to do a little work to get rooms ready for sanding the floors.  Danny called up from Stonington offering to help paint and, never one to accept company -- and free labor -- I of course accepted.  Had he not come, I think I would still be there.  But besides sanding and painting, we went out to a yoga retreat for a vegetarian dinner and had long breakfasts at a local "joint".  We also saw a movie to put on your "miss it" list:  The Tempest.

Joe arrived home from his extended trip to Lebanon, Syria and Turkey with photos and stories and insights which go against the grain of what we are to think about that part of the world, such as Christian enclaves and Crusader castles.  He is now back to a job search as his AID offer still hasn't materialized.  Margaret is busy at work - she bought a cage for her dog who is getting into trouble at home when no one is here - dropping presents for us around the house.  And we talked to Annie this morning - she too continues to interview and plans to move to a new place.  Check out her new blog: http://3rdculturekidinthe3rdworld.wordpress.com/.  Looking forward to her trip home in a couple of weeks. 

We talked to David and Andrew this week.  Snow and jobs.  Andrew also told us that Billy has completed his degree. Congratulations!  And Grandma told us of her adventure trying to connect with Sean so that he could pick up a couple of lounge chairs.   No we know what we did in a world without cell phones - we waited and waited.

And to top off the week - Mary is the last person in America to sign up for Facebook!  She already has four friends, three not including me.  

Happy December!  Love from down here.

Happy Thanksgiving

The paper this morning said the heaviest caloric intake today is pecan pie.  And that's what I made yesterday.  And ate yesterday.  And plan on having more today.

The paper today carried about ten pounds of flyers for sales tomorrow.  We are stratergizing our plan of attack.  Toys R Us opens at 10 tonight; Macy's at 4am tomorrow; Sears at 5am.  Saks doesn't open until 8am (slackers).

But that's not really the news.  Grandma is here.  We spoke with Joe in Aleppo Syria yesterday and Annie in Beijing today, both courtesy of Skype.  Smaller world.  Joe is heading to Istanbul the day after Thanksgiving, and Annie is planning her Thanksgiving dinner for Sunday (she had to work today).

We went up to NJ on Saturday and had our tailgate party with Grandma at Meadow Lakes before heading over to Princeton for a football game with Peter. We watched with Peter, that is, although I thiknk he could have helped the Princeton team.  It was tied for a while.  But not at the end.  31-0.  Ouch.












After the game we headed back to over Pennington to chill at Peter and Janet's house.  We saw Johanna and her new dog, Molly.  Our faith in the current state of college undergrads was restored with a thoroughly delightful "Triangle" show, which we took in after dinner at the old Rusty Scupper.

Sunday we packed up the car and returned to Maryland with Grandma.  It's been a quiet week, with lots of trips to the grocery store.  We did have dinner on Monday evening with Jeffrey and Melodie, and Margaret and her friend James.  We heard the latest on wedding plans.

We spoke with Andrew and David as well, who filled us in on their Thanksgiving plans.  Lots of family visitors they are expecting. 

Hey!  I almost forgot!  The biggest news is the Bengals are finally playing on Thanksgiving.  I can picture you all, sated with turkey and enjoying the Terrell and Ochocinco show!

Love from down here! 

Letter from Damascus

A Dickson made it to Damascus...and the authorities here have blocked Pop's Weekly Letter. So, our blog has joined the storied list that includes the New York Times, Twitter, and Facebook. Little did we know that we are being watched.

It's a little more than a week into my trip from Beirut to Istanbul by land, most of which will be spent in Syria.

I arrived in Damascus two days ago after a week in Lebanon where I saw a Middle Eastern country unlike anything any of the others I have seen: free press, women in mini-skirts, locals drinking beer, active criticism of the government, posters lauding Ahmadinijad everywhere, and a very cosmopolitan restaurant scene. Our trip took us to the swanky Beirut bars, through the beautiful Lebanese mountains (where they ski in the winter) and impressive Roman ruins, and finally to a museum dedicated to the resistance during the Lebanese Civil War at their former headquarters in the south. That alone was a story into itself. Everyone was wonderful to us, even though they knew I was American.

My travel companions left on Monday to go back to Denmark, and I continued on to Damascus. Without meaning to sound corny, I have wanted to visit this city since I was in high school, and I can't describe my excitement at finally being on a bus going there. When I lived in Amman, I was turned away at the Syrian embassy for a visa, and since then, it's been too expensive to come over here.

It's difficult to capture this city's history, but Mark Twain said when visiting Damascus (I took this from my guide book): "no recorded event has occurred in the world but Damascus was in existence to receive news of it. Go back as far as you will into the vague past, there was always Damascus...She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies." Muhammad is said to have looked upon Damascus from the mountains surrounding it and refused to enter, saying that he wanted to enter paradise only once.

Obviously, both are a tad dramatic, but the history is impressive. The main street in Damascus named in the Book of Revelations (the Straight Street), as Paul was converted on the road to Damascus. References to the city are mentioned in the Old Testament numerous times (Isiah is one example). The main mosque, the Umayyad mosque, was originally an ancient pagan temple dating back to 9th century BC, then a pagan Roman temple, turned into a cathedral by the Roman empire sometime in the 4th century, and then a mosque after the Muslim conquest in 636. The walls are covered by beautiful green mosaic depicting either paradise or some ancient city, no one knows for sure. It's the only example of living things being represented inside of a mosque. It also houses a shrine to John the Baptist (revered by Muslims as well as Christians) and Imam Hussein, the son of Ali and the first Shia muslim. I've read about and studied this mosque since college, and being under those mosaics, seeing the shrine to John the Baptist, the under-stated tomb of Saladin (who was based in Damascus), and watching the throngs of Iranian pilgrims to the Hussein mosque was quite the experience.

Everyone seems to have wanted to conquer Damascus. Innumerable ancient civilizations have crossed here, the Crusaders tried no less than four times, always getting to the city walls, but never taking the city. The Mongols raped the city twice, the last time under Tamerlane, who took all of the artisans back with him to Central Asia. As Sean will remember from our many, many times watching Lawrence of Arabia: the Arabs tried to start a united Arab state in Damascus after the first world war, only for internal divisions and colonial machinations to prevent it.

The rest of the city is a magnificent display of an old market town: hundreds and hundreds of stores along the pedestrian streets selling everything from touristy trinkets to vacuum cleaners to lingerie (it's quite funny seeing veiled women shop for lingerie without caring at all about the people around them).

Yesterday, I went to a Turkish bath. To give more another example of the history: it has been in existence since the 13th century. It took two hours, and involved a sauna, followed by a very steamy room where you wash, then a very strong man takes essentially steel wool and rubs off all of the dead skin, then more bathing and a massage. In the end, you are wrapped in towels and sit and drink tea. I've never felt more clean. Too bad, then, that I left to walk through the streets, some of which are covered in blood from the killing of sheep for their Eid celebration. This is the second biggest holiday in Islam, which celebrates the pilgrimage to Mecca.

If anyone wants to visit the Middle East, come here. The people are wonderful, the streets are clean (except during Eid), everything is cheap, the history is unimaginable, and the city is beautiful. And that's just Damascus.

I'm off to the north on Sunday, to stay in a monastery for the night. Then to a city called Hama, which I will use as a base to see a couple of Crusader castles and the mountains of Syria's west. One of the castles was a base for the infamous Hashasheen, from where we get the word "Assassin". These Shia fanatics perfected the suicide-mission in the 12th century and caused fear throughout the Muslim and Crusader middle east. From Hama,  I'm heading north to a city called Aleppo, another ancient Middle Eastern city. After a couple of days there, I catch the train to Istanbul, where I'll spend three days before heading back to DC.

Hope to send another note in Aleppo or Istanbul. Pictures to come soon.

Love,
Joe

Restoring sanity

Two days after the mid-term elections and last Saturday's rally on the mall seems so far away.  It is probably too much of a naive hope that some civility will creep into the political conversation now after the elections and after the rally.

But we did have fun!  Janet and Johanna came down the night before (Peter couldn't come as he was preparing for a day in court).  We headed off in the morning for a pre-rally brunch at Jeffrey and Melodie's.  There we met their friends and warmed up since it was kind of cold (thanks so much.)  Jeff and Melodie are steeped into wedding planning and looking to nail down place and timing soon.

We walked down to the mall and made our way to the back of the crowd 4-5 blocks from the stage.   We lost Jeff and Melodie and their friends in the crowd but found a spot within sight of the last jumbo-tron and loudspeakers.   Margaret and her friend James had tickets to join a spot up front where they had eyeball view of the stage (not via big screen.)  And despite the massive cell use, we did hear from Joe that he was there, somewhere in the crowd.  We later learned that Grandma watched the whole event on tv but couldn't see any of us!  The time moved quickly through skits and music and speeches, and it was all very well done.  Part of the show were the signs people were carrying, creative and absurd and fun.  Lots of highlights, and only a couple of criticisms.  

That night we joined up with Margaret for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then home to watch a scary movie - day before Halloween!!

Other than rally and elections, Mary had a four-day weekend as schools were closed for the elections.  Margaret is hosting a group of Iraqis these next two weeks and had an eventful arrival where security held up most of the group making them miss their connecting flight to DC.  Joe finished up his short contract and spent a couple of days in western Maryland with his friend Tamara.  We heard from Annie a few times, and she continues to tutor and interview for longer term prospects, as well as take Chinese classes.

I spent the prior week up in Pittsfield doing odd jobs and just being on call for the contractor.  Dan Boyle had stayed in the house (with hardly any heat) as he had come north for this college reunion.  We had a nice day driving around Adams and Williamstown, including a visit to the beautiful art museum on the Williams campus.  Progress on the house continues as the contractor is trying to seal it up for the winter.

I also found the second tick of the season on me, so I am heading off momentarily to the clinic to get checked up.  And. I almost forgot, we sold the Subaru so we are down to just 3 cars in front of the house!  Phew.

Hope all is well with you all!  Love from down here.

It's cold

We had our first frost two nights ago and then our second one last night. The days are warm but it's chilly when the sun is down or behind clouds.

The workers here are trying to close up the addition before it gets even colder. That would be good since the old house has open spaces to the new addition. Progress includes work on the garage foundation, the porch, plumbing and closets. I've been painting and pruning.

But it seems quiet compared to Bethesda where we've had a steady stream of visitors. David and Paula came down for Jeffrey and Melodie's engagement party. Joe and Margaret represented us since we were still in Pittsfield. Peter and Janet were there last night as they were attending a wedding. And in between an Irish friend spent the night.

Mary should be right now on her return flight back to Albany, pending the weather. She was up here last weekend for her high school reunion (40)! Marj and Lew came up and stayed at this construction site. It was the first time I had gone to one of her reunions and I earned a ton of brownie points which I intend to cash in for many years to come. While here we went for a hike in the October Berkshires. Beautiful.

Joe is busy preparing a proposal for an aid project in Iraq. Margaret is busy preparing for a conference with Iraqis in Virginia. She had gone up to New Jersey with her friend James and stopped in to see Grandma. Annie went to Hong Kong and met up with my college roommate Bruce Von Cannon.

Nature notes: We think we had a bear in our garden. What else could have smashed the fences, left big footprints and eaten the sunflower seeds? Sasquatch. Also we saw a big, fat owl on a hike. He looked at us as if we might be lunch and then thought better of it and flew away.

We're looking forward to the Restore Sanity rally at the end of the month. Johanna and Janet are coming down.

Heading back to Maryland on Sunday. What's next? I make it up as I go along.

Love from up here.

Foliage and Nostalgia

The road trip is over, and thanks to all who hosted us and met up with us in Grandma's week-long tour through upstate New York, western Mass, and eastern Connecticut.

We packed a lot in, returning to familiar sites and places connected with family and extended family.  Our connections seemed to have one constant: FOOD!!  But it was wonderful to see everyone.

Our send-off was dinner with Peter and Janet the night before we packed up the car and took off.  Our first stop was Old Chester Road, a last-minute diversion from the already boring interstates.  There were plenty of apples on the ground Andrew.  And after 40 years, it's nice to see many things untouched - including an old stables and the back-door walkway/entrance.  Having just put on a new roof, I zoned in on this house's roof and think I saw the same roof which was new back in the 1960s.  Looks like it is time they invest in a new roof, but I will not volunteer to clean up the removed shingles.

On our way to David and Paula's, we stopped in the Poconos for lunch a Friendly's in Tannersville and one of had a milkshake!  

We arrived in Fairport in time for DINNER and Matthew joined us.  Saturday we went on partially successful shopping missions (Grandma couldn't find the red blazer but David got a new toilet seat!)  In between Yankees/Red Sox games we played pinochle where Paula and Grandma took advantage of the fact that I was a novice.  Sunday was a major birthday party dinner for Paula and Tina, and we were joined by Matthew, Tina, Oliver, Tina's parents, and Paula's brother-in-law.  Niiiice. Happy Birthdays (and to Johanna)

We headed east on Monday and got to Pittsfield just in time to see the house, settle Grandma in at Jiminy Peak ski resort and head to dinner with John and Marilyn.  They had just returned from a trip to India and confirmed that the poverty, the number of people and the Taj Mahal were the most remarkable features of that country.  The next day was a quiet one and we mostly checked out our house and Jiminy Peak, as a place where we might want to congregate next summer.  

On Wednesday, we returned to Pomfret.  A beautiful day for that spectacular drive down route 169 from Sturbridge.  The colors were just coming out and you all will remember what that was like.  We drove around the town, the school and went up the driveway a couple of times to "inspect".  Things looks the same, but with some major changes -the garage out back is a now a stables; they are putting a fence in for a horse right now.  The bench and the sign on the porch the same, but gone are a few of the fruit trees, including the pear trees on the front walkway.  David, I think it's time for some pruning and clean-up out back and the shutters clearly miss their annual painting friend.

We had lunch at the Harvest with Gloria Glenn, Joy Nelson and Margi Huoppi, who bought the house from Grandma.  We talked of house renovations, of Pomfret people but not of politics.

We did talk politics in Mystic and Stonington where we spent the night and had dinner with Dan Boyle at Skippers Dock right on the water.  A beautiful sunset which forewarned the terrible weather we were about to get.

Blinding rain was in store for us as we headed to Greenwich for lunch with Aunt Georgia and Rell at the country club.  Georgia had just finished putting in a bedroom on the first floor and was getting ready to de-camp for Florida for the winter.

The final leg to Hightstown and then onward to Bethesda came under the threat of weather and tornados, and then some actual rain and wind.  But we both made it home safe and sound.

Grandma seemed tired by the end of the week.  She has a hard time seeing and gets out of breath easily but is alert and remembers camping trips and children's and grandchildren's exploits proudly.

We are now planning our next road trip.  Chicago?  Washington?  Alaska?

Love to all.  

 

You can go home

And Grandma did. Looks much the same with some changes. But not the sign on the house.

Christmas cookies

Get your hands out of there

A roof

And just in time. It's getting cold up here. Johnny came over and reattached radiators and turned on the heat.

Mary and I came up last weekend since she had a couple of days off. We primed the new bedroom and closets and mowed the lawn. Looking more normal. Still a long way to go and lots to do.

We as usual stopped to see Grandma coming and going. She had had long chat with Aunt Ruth and Debbie. Sarah is getting married soon.

Scattered. Joe went to Baghdad for work right after Labor Day. He's written saying he's bored. That sounds good to me. He was supposed to go to a project outside the Green Zone on 9/11 but they canceled the trip. Any guesses why? A certain pastor in Florida.

Annie wrote and she had her first Mandarin classes. Fun. She has started tutoring a couple of children at the international school as well.

Margaret was thinking of going Maine for Labor Day but stayed here since her friend from Peru was coming to town. They went out a couple of times.

And Johnny and Marilyn went to India yesterday. And Peter and Janet and Johanna went to San Diego.

Big news in Dundee. Claire is first oboe in the orchestra and won 17 straight points on her serve in a recent volleyball game. Daniel is setting his sights on the NFL as a tight end!

Spoke with David and they are getting ready for the big visit next week when Grandma and I take off for Rochester, Pittsfield and Pomfret (and even Greenwich). Foliage and nostalgia.

On the social circuit we have seen friends from Peace Corps, Mexico and Princeton in the last few weeks. I drove to Boston twice to see college roommates Steve and then Bruce. Fun to see them again.

For cultural and intellectual stimulation we saw Bruno. And the Patriots beat the Bengals in the season opener. Ouch and love.

Progress

We have a frame, roof and walls! We have two sides painted. It's starting to look normal. Been a long road.

I came up here on Tuesday and stopped to see Grandma for lunch (and a short nap). Been keeping myself busy around the house mostly, but last night went to see Tom Paxton play at the Guthrie Center. He had
some choice things to say about Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and company.

Mary's back to work and has a week under her belt. Students start on Monday. She'll be teaching students from four grades. Lots of planning. Joe has gone back to work for Chemonics and has a trip to the Mideast planned. We spoke with Annie a few times and she has lots of job prospects and is looking at taking Chinese classes. Margaret continues to work long hours.

We saw Peter at Grandma's. Janet and Johanna were out getting ready for their big trip to San Diego.

Up here the nights are cool and the days gloriously sunny and temperate. Days pass quickly, probably because they're shorter!

Been a fun summer for baseball (for me and Reds fans). What would I do with this Iphone if I wasn't following baseball?

Hope you all are thriving. Love.

Annie's in China

And we're home. We hustled home in order to see Annie off. After the airport check-in problem of having a 90 day visa and no ticket leaving China within that period, we're glad we did come back. But we got an e-mail yesterday morning saying she had arrived, exhausted.

It was a few days of drama as Joe heard from AID that they won't be hiring until 2011. He had hoped to start in November. Then Margaret's office was evacuated after an electrical fire and explosion yesterday morning. We think it was connected with a big storm in the morning. She has a day off today.

We got home Sunday evening after a straight-through drive from Dundee. Happy to report that all is well there. We went to Bill and Jen's for an evening on their pontoon boat and a glimpse of their new puppies (like Mac and Sandy).

The highlight for one of us was a visit to Wrigley Field and spectacular seats a few rows from the Cincinnati on deck circle. The Reds tries hard to give the game away on the 9th but pulled out a squeaker. Thank you Andrew!

We drove up to Pittsfield yesterday and stopped in to see Grandma. We had lunch and then pushed off for an easy drive in comparison with what we've been used to the last couple of weeks.

Lots of progress on the house but we'll save photos for later. This one is at Mi Rancho in Silver Spring for Annie's farewell. Love!

Summer reading

Stopped on the way back to read my favorite book at Carleton College. Did you know they have a children's book collection in the library? We did and it has a plaque with Grandma's name on it.

Scenic views

Or more scary driving. This photo from the Going to the Sky road in Glacier park. Thanks to federal stimulus money they are repairing the road. Unfortunately for me they weren't hiring. My dream job is to spend every day on the side of a cliff in an excavator.

We spent one night in the park, getting the last campsite available, after getting shut out the day before.

We bought bear spray and went to a bear ranger talk before going on a hike guided by a park ranger who also had bear spray. She was worried Mary was going to spray her. We saw a chipmunk that didn't stand a
chance.

The Move (The Sequel)

Saturday was Johanna's moving day, and all four of us pitched in.  We put some of Johanna's stuff into storage, picked up some stuff out of storage, picked up a large rental truck with a very bouncy suspension, packed up stuff at home, drove into the city, packed up all of her stuff in the old apartment, drove three blocks to the new apartment, and with no small help from her new roommate (who, we are all ecstatic to report, is normal, as these things go).  Sean came downtown to help out, thank, you.  The weather wasn't bad, warm but not hot or humid.  Kudos to Johanna for being all organized and packed and ready to go.  The new apartment is roomy, quiet – and having a normal roommate helps.  However, the apartment is a fifth floor walk-up, which made things a little tough.  We all were tired by the time it was over, but anything for that Gothic Horror Story on Orchard Street to end.  The new roommate is Kirsten Solberg, whom Johanna roomed with in London and who was also an intern at McCarter a couple years ago.  Did I mention she is normal?

119 Ludlow Street, Apt 5R
New York, NY 10002

Birthday in Oregon

A busy 24th for the birthday girl - pancake breakfast, air and car show, wine tasting, phone calls, bloody Mary, bike ride, German chocolate cake! Not in that order

And now we know why they call this place Sunriver. Lots of sun

Nice to visit with our Ottawa friends, Rob and Sandy.

Quiz

Which one's old faithful?

Off the trail

Today's organizing principle was the world cup final - where could we situate ourselves to hear/watch it

That meant we had to kill time to be on the road to listen to it on the radio. Then with any luck we could catch some of it in a bar/restaurant.

Luck had it. A long drive to the Yankton Sioux museum and then west to the Black Hills gave us the time we needed. Passing by the Badlands we decided on a detour drive and it was well worth it. Imposing geology and geography. And the world cup final started while we were
there.

Our arrogance led us to expect that no one in Rapid City South Dakota would be watching the game. We saw a sign for the Firehouse Brewery and headed there. Wrong. We joined a big crowd and saw the second half and the overtimes. Spain won; most were rooting for the Dutch but were happy for Spain

Them drove to and walked around Mt Rushmore. Impressive - 14 years and 400 men to carve. Our pyramids

We were unsure about camping because of the crowds and threatening weather bit we found a national park site and set up. And then it poured and turned miserable. Then it stopped and we started a fire. A cold night.

Off the Lewis and Clark trail day. Tomorrow, a day to back track and head to ND.

First Lincoln, then Lewis and Clark

Photo is taken at Lincoln home in Springfield IL.

We had two great days with the Dundee folks where we celebrated an anniversary and a birthday! Everyone is well and busy. Summer fun. We watched Jeff and Melodie's video - congrats!

Last night was our first night of camping and we made it! Graham Cave State Park. No rain (yet) and even got a fire going and even had some veggies for dinner - them we had smores.

Independence

We are starting our fourth straight day of barbecues.  Life is good!  And we may even have one tomorrow if we make it to Dundee in time.

We came back to Bethesda this morning following an early wake up call in Hightstown.  One of our barbecues was with Grandma, and would have been even better had we not left the grill At Annie's house.  So we cooked the brats in the toaster oven.  Still tasted good, and because of the heat we probably saved ourselves a gallon of liquids we would have had to have replaced.

Grandma looked good, in red, white and blue.  We cashed in on some Dairy Queen coupons and talked about a September trip, to Rochester, Pittsfield and Pomfret, perhaps.

We had finished two weeks in Pittsfield, and the days were starting to blur together, so I started a running account of our activities each day.  Still, our work boils down to having painted one side of the house.  That means of course, scraping and priming and fixing the eaves.  (sort of)    Our contractor has started work, dug the hole, poured the footings and started the foundation.  And, we have two teachers -- one of whom we found out worked at the same high school as John did in Clarement NH -- who are renovating what will be our master bedroom.  Looks nice.

We spent a weekend in Rhode Island, near our old haunts in Charlestown, and went to the beach there and even the ice cream place.  We were visiting Marge and Lew who have been renting a spectacular house on a salt pond while their house is being renovated.  (There is no truth to the rumor that we are racing them to see whose house gets finished first.)

And..... drum roll....we met ...Elsie Ray! A beautiful, petite, sweet baby who is just about 1 month old. We had a morning visit with Maura; Steve was out getting his new fish shop up and running. We also watched a World Cup game with Dan, and later had a visit with Mary and Patrick.  Annie came down for a day at the beach and we watched the U.S. come close but lose in world cup soccer.

Lots of developments back here while we were away.  Joe finished his job in anticipation of a nice long layoff before he starts a new job in November.  So he moved out of his current digs and set up a base back home.  He arrived the day after....

Matthew and Tina and Oliver left.  They had come to show Oliver the nation's capital!  But we were away (sigh).  They got their capitol tour from Jeffrey and then after two nights here went on their way to Norfolk Virginia.    

Margaret played hostess to them (thank you) and also to a group of Iraqis who had been here for most of June on the project she's working on.  

And this week is Annie's last week at work.  She has had a tough year with a very tough population of autistic children.  She has a hiking trip planned, a trip to Pittsfield for her birthday and then a drive down here before her flight to China in August. And yes, we had a barbecue at her house in Natick on Saturday, with her roommate's parents.

Other notes:  we saw John and Marilyn most days as they checked on progress and gave us plumbing and closet tips!  Aunt Mary stopped by for a quick visit and inspection. She looks like she's 55 and acts like it too! (She is closer to 81.) We went to see Roseanne Cash who was terrific, and then bumped into her at a bar a  little later on!  The contractors said it was unusual how many rocks they had to dig out so we did the New England thing and made a stone wall.

All for now.  I will try to write from the road on our progress.  Love from down here.

Elsie Ray

It's hot, but it's supposed to break tonight, and be cool for a couple of days anyway.  We love air conditioning.

And so do a lot of people, including Grandma.  Whom I saw a couple of times last week, on trips up and back from Pittsfield.  She complained of lack of energy, and I couldn't even persuade her to go to Dairy Queen.  Didn't stop me though, as I enjoyed a Blizzard, Reese's Pieces variety.  Life is pretty good.  What's your favorite blizzard?  I saw it's the 25th anniversary of that delight, and I only found out about it in the last couple of years.  Got some catching up to do.

First, though, I have to work out before I earn one of those calorie boosters.  Last week it was finishing up the work on the master bedroom walls including insulating and the dirty work of tearing down the ceilings.  Fell on top of me.  John came over and helped move radiators and an outdoor faucet, and Marilyn gave her interior design sense to the situating of closets.  There are lots of mysteries in tearing down walls.  This week's had to do with seeing if the wall we want to remove between two small bedrooms is a load-bearing wall.  Underneath the ceilings are some very old, large wooden beams.

On the trip north, Peter came over for lunch with Grandma, having had his court appearance for the day cancelled.  He said he and Janet had gone to reunions and danced the night away!

Mary finishes school this week, and after a short visit with Peter and Janet for their annual ( we hope) crab break, we are off to points north and west for the summer.

Joe was in San Francisco last week for a short vacation.  He's still waiting to hear from his future employers (USAID) and has some imminent decisions to make, but that all depends on hearing from USAID.  He is a little frustrated .

Margaret's big news had to do with her car.  She was able to convince a judge to drop the fines for tickets she got for not registering her car, but had yet another setback in the actual registration process.  She needed my signature.  So on Saturday, we met at the DMV in DC and finally got the license plates.  Quite an ordeal, lasting over a year.

Annie is planning her hiking trip and is looking to take an on-line English teaching course to get ready for her move to China.

But the really big news belongs to Maura Boyle Smith, Dan's daughter, who had a baby this week, and is now home with her daughter, Elsie Ray.  Congratulations!

Love from down here.

Tour of Rural China-a post long overdue

Here are some pictures of my trip to Greg's hideaway-a small town in rural China named Pengtun. The first picture is of another town in the area (a rocky 3 hour ride up mountains sans guardrails). The next one is of a two-day trek Greg took me on called Tiger Leaping Gorge. And that's me, on the top of that frightful cliff. As you can imagine, my fear of heights did not make the already difficult hike go any faster. The last picture is of a pagoda a mere 4 minute bike ride from the school where Greg teaches in Pengtun. You cannot see it, but there was a group of domestic tourists who borrowed me for a 30 minute photo shoot. Apparently curly hair is not a big thing in China.

Also, check out the Travel section of this weekend's Wall Street Journal, specifically "Castle in the Air"-Greg wrote it!

Love!

Annie

Summertime

First week of retirement is under my belt.  And it was active and busy.  Hope I can upload the video which in 25 seconds gives a flavor of the week.  Jim Dickmeyer, a friend who joined the Foreign Service with me, decided to end it with me as well.  He is going to continue working though.

Anyway, Jim and I spent a week of work and play in Pittsfield.  We tore down walls in what will be the new master bedroom, and we put in a small garden, complete with fence after we saw woodchucks and rabbits.  We also canoed across the lake to go to Mr. Donut for coffee; drove up to Mt Greylock, the highest point in Mass; went to a Pittsfield Colonials baseball game; took in some live music at the Guthrie Center (formerly Alice's Restaurant - really) and the Dreamaway Lodge; and did a culinary tour which included the last two establishments and Theo's hot dogs and Jimmy's restaurant.  Lots of errands and spent a little money.  And that's not all.  John and Marilyn invited Jim to play golf so they went out to the links for two rounds.  My own personal history of golf in Saratoga and Stratford remains seared in my psyche so I did not join.

A mystery. The car smelled terrible; Jim said it was his leather golf bag. When we got home, Mary also thought it smelled of a dead animal. After the car was all cleaned out, I looked in one of the wells in the back and found a dead mouse. How did it get there?

And Mary stayed behind and had to work.  She has just two more weeks of work before her summer break.  She was not idle at home as she cleaned up our office area, to make room for her new rug-braiding materials.  

We stopped in to see Grandma going and coming.  She reported on long conversations with Dundee and it sounded like the Illinois crowd had a great week at Green Lake.  Also talked with David who had tracked me down on the road, on my first full day of retirement.  Grandma said they are heading out to the Vineyard soon. 

Margaret spent the week in Kansas City at an international student advising conference, which usually draws about 20,000 people.  She was with the group of Iraqis who are setting up international student advising centers, and had some reverse cultural insights with people experiencing the U.S., most for the first time.

We also spoke with Annie who is winding down her job and planning on coming to Bethesda for a weekend in a couple of weeks.  Then, she will get her visa to move to China.  Yikes!

And we got a text message from Joe who was in Denver (?) and an e-mail saying he made it to the next level of the Foreign Service test.  He is in his final weeks of work.  

So, some busy weeks ahead, of driving anyway and trying to do a little work on the house.  And then I really need to start planning our trip out west.  

Hope you are all well and enjoying the start to the wonderful season.  Love 

Take this job and

Say goodbye.  A little over six years ago I became eligible for retirement, but had been thinking about it for a few years before that.  But, it took until last Friday to make the leap.  I had to give them three months notice, but I had until Thursday night to change my mind.  Two years ago I did decide to retire, but then chickened out.  So, it's been on my mind for quite a while.  Poor Mary has had to listen to all the hemming and hawing for years.  She deserves a license to practice therapy.

There was the playlist (Never Comes the Day, I Shall Be Released, The Thrill is Gone, Don't Come Around Here No More); there were the movies (About Schmidt, Burn After Reading); the presents (flannel shirts and work shoes); the books (Cabin, Self-reliance, Pruning, Walks in the Berkshires).

Anyway, Friday was the big day.  Mary gave me my new business cards ("Jubilado", available for odd jobs, hours 10-noon) on my way out the door.  Packed up, turned in my Blackberry, said goodbye.  The longest weekend.

Joe and Margaret joined us for dinner at Mi Rancho with Peace Corps friends.  Annie sent an e-card, and Joe gave me a rope belt.  And that was that.  Now, onwards.

What else?  We went up to Pittsfield last weekend and saw the first concrete progress, as they tore down the two old additions.  We stopped as usual going and coming and chatted with Grandma who was well and eager to hear all the news.  We saw John and Marilyn a couple of times including dinner at their house (with an ice cream cake to die for).  We saw a small ad in the paper for an "acoustic" concert in Pittsfield and decided to go.  Our surprise was that the show was put together by Mary and Johnny's cousin, Connie Boyle, and featured the national flat-picking champion.

And the news includes Joe giving notice to his current employers having heard word that his security clearance for a USAID job came through.  Margaret is in Kansas City for the NAFSA (National Association of Foreign Student Advisors) where she is escorting a group of Iraqi student advisors.  Annie has been working flat out to make up for time off while she was in China; we understand but have not seen yet, that there are some pretty hair-raising pictures of her in the mountains of western China.

We spent some time (and cash) at the REI sale this weekend, getting bikes and gear for our trip out west later this summer.  Yesterday, Mary and I went for a bike ride along the national mall at twilight; very moving on Memorial Day.  Also spent a fair amount of time in this garden here, trying to push back the weeds before taking off for most of the summer, and then returning to more weeds!  Hey what else am I going to do?  While gardening, I came across a nest of small, tiny newborn birds that look as if they had just hatched.  It was my excuse to stop working, at least there.  

Tomorrow, Mary goes to work and I go back up north, with a friend who started the foreign service with me.  We both need a little time to bang at and tear down walls.  

So, that's it from here; love.  

No turning back!

This morning I wrote to our contractor asking him if he got the fax I sent last week, giving him the final go-ahead to start.  All he wrote back was YES.
 
This afternoon, we got photos from Johnny showing they had indeed started, and the two additions that were falling down are now down.  Permanently.
 
I'm excited.  Mary's nervous and scared.  Maybe it's the same emotion.
 
Anyway, we'll see for ourselves this weekend when we go up. 
 
We forgot to tell the contractor that we need to get into the basement, but that door is now boarded up, since the only way to get to it previously was through the now torn-down kitchen.  Can't think of everything.

Love from down here
 
 

Iraq

Margaret's home.  Yeah!  Sounds like she had a memorable visit.  She said people were very nice, delighted to see her there and ready for her to come back (except her parents!)  She had gone over as part of a project to train educational advisors for Iraqis who would help students who are interested in studying at U.S. universities.

I hope she will write something for you all.  She was in northern Iraq - Kurdistan -and there were terrible incidents of violence while she was there, in Baghdad and in Kurdistan as well.  Everyone she met had had some terrible ordeal.  Anyway, we're glad she's home and I don't want to pre-empt anything she will write.  One of the photos here is of the Citidel in Erbil, the town where she was staying.  It is the oldest continuous lived-in city in the world.  The world.

Joe came out this morning for brunch and we started planning our summer trip out west.  He bought a return ticket from Denver on July 23, so we know that date anyway.

We expect Annie to be home within a day or two.  She had called on Mothers Day and sounded like she was having an amazing trip as well.

Sean came down and spent the night with us this past week, in anticipation of a job interview here in Bethesda.  Hope it went well Sean.  And then he hustled back home for his birthday celebration!  He must be getting close to being 14, right?

We got news that our contractor is going to start on our Pittsfield renovation any moment from now.  Keeping our fingers crossed.

We also went to talk to a financial advisor and he advised me not to retire.  Too late for that.  So it looks as if I may have to do some part-time work for a while.  Who knows?  The sermon today at our church touched on retirement, and the minister remembered a mentor who retired and went to a new home which he called "Meanwhile".  Nice name but I like the name for 5 Hancock Rd better:  "Everywhere you look"

Two more weeks.

Did you all have beautiful weather this weekend like we did?  That meant chores, including my favorite annual job:  cleaning the gutters.  Joe held the ladder for me.

Mary went to a rug-braiding class this weekend near Philadelphia this weekend, and stayed with Grandma on Friday night.  Thank you Grandma!

Did anyone notice?  The Reds are in first place tonight.  

Even if you didn't notice, have a great week ahead.  Love from down here

May Days

We just pulled up to the curb (since there is no driveway) from a night in Pennington/Hightstown where we saw Grandma, David and Paula, Peter and Janet.  Mary said we really only got to Hightstown 26 hours ago.  It seemed longer as we had a lot of chat and eating and then start all over again.

Grandma looks good, healthy and alert, and eager to know all the news about her grandchildren.  Who are, by the way, all doing well, on all sides.

David and Paula had driven down from Rochester, combining meetings in NYC, New Haven and Flemington with a stay in Hightstown.  We ordered out and had way too much food; Mary got a sixteen piece pizza when she normally eats 3 pieces.  She ate all of it this time, just to show us she could.  

Peter and Janet had gone into NYC for Prairie Home Companion, tickets for which Peter had gotten for his birthday.  They met up with Johanna, Sean and Amanda after the show, and ran into a big police barricade.  The next morning, they found out it was an attempted bomb, not too far away from their theater!  

We stayed with Peter and Janet (thank you very much!), but didn't see them until the next morning.  Nor did we see that night all the signs of a recent big birthday around the house - messages and balloons.  Looks like it was a grand time.  We had a slow breakfast with them and caught up on school and politics and work and summer plans.

Speaking of which, we decided to follow Horace Greeley's advice and start John's retirement by going west "old man."  We're toying with tracing the Lewis and Clark route, in the comfort of our air conditioned SUV.  Joe had talked about taking some time off and heading to Montana as well, so we'll have to see if we can get our schedules working.  Anyone else?  We sent away for some literature and are starting our planning/dreaming.

This week, it's travel.  Annie's first, leaving for ten days of vacation in China.  Then Margaret is going to Iraq, for a meeting and conference of sorts with her new job.  

We also got finally good news from our contractor, and he is in possession of all the building permits needed to start our long-awaited renovation.  Looks like it will finally happen.

Feels like summer outside with temperatures in the 90s.  Only four more months of this.  Love it.

Best to you all. Next Sunday is Mother's Day! Happy days!
 
(Oh and by the way, Mary only ate three pieces.)

Six Oh!

I had a wonderful birthday weekend, with balloons, flowers, some marvelous presents (Sean mowed the lawn!!) and Johanna, Sean and Amanda here for the weekend.  Johanna and Sean gave us tickets to see Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion at Town Hall in New York City next weekend, the third time Janet and I have seen it live.  It was Amanda's idea.  Thank you all.  Some other tidbits (or big bits):

- Dasha is housebroken.  She spent this past week in New York City, her second trip there.  How you gonna keep em down on the farm once they've seen Pareee?

- Sean and Amanda took in a Mets game at the new Citi Field, and recommend the experience.  The Mets won, too!

- Johanna went down to Charlotte for a long weekend to visit her St. Petersburg roommate Kathleen.  She and her London roommate Kirsten are making plans to move into together when her current NYTimes-celebrated situation comes blessedly to a close this fall.  They want to stay on the Lower East Side.

- Johanna was also a featured speaker at the admitted students day at Sarah Lawrence.  She's going back to hear this year's graduation speaker SLC alum actress Juliana Margulies.

- Joe was up to visit Mom this weekend and spent some time with Johanna, Sean and Amanda.

- I had dinner with Mom at Meadow Lakes on Thursday, she seems fine.

- Janet is in the home stretch this week as assistant director of the PDS middle school musical.

Jamaica Man

I thought I had given up travel with the State Department.  Yet, they didn't have to twist my arm hard to convince me to go back to the Caribbean, this time to Jamaica.  It was to help launch a youth employment project which USAID had organized.  Had I known I was on a panel with the Prime Minister I would have been nervous all the way down.  But, I didn't know that until I walked into the room Wednesday morning.  

I ran into a Peruvian woman who I had known from way back then, and there were several "do-you-know conversations" where I was able to get the current e-mail address from someone who had been in Peace Corps in Gabon.  And, with a little extra time, it was entirely appropriate for this cultural officer to go to the Bob Marley Museum, eat meal porridge, and go to the government yards in Trenchtown.  (all references from "No Woman, No Cry")

Truth is Jamaica has earned a negative reputation for its high crime rate.  On this short trip, I found the people wonderful and the country beautiful.  As often happens when I travel, I came back and told Mary we have to go.

Two coincidences.  On the plane back a woman sat down who I had worked with in Haiti, and she had just finished her assignment in Haiti.  Lots of stories about the good and the bad there, since I had left, what you don't read in the newspapers.

The other coincidence was Joe had also been in the Caribbean, in St. Lucia.  He had gone last week for a week (or so) of R&R after long hours putting together another proposal.  He had his i-phone stolen right before, and he's still working on the proposal, so we haven't heard about his adventure.

We talked with Annie a few times, as she was tackling real adulthood - filling out her taxes for the first time.  She had four different forms to file: the federal and three states: NY, MD and MA.  Turbo tax should give her frequent filer miles.

And it was Margaret's first week on her new job!  She is now working for a bigger international education organization, called the Academy for Education Development (better known as AED).  She has left the Latin America region and is working on a big Iraqi education contract with USAID.  Lots of new things, but a shorter commute!

It was student report week for Mary which meant lots off long hours and frustrating struggles with technology templates for her reports.  Good time for me to get out-a town!

Other news: baseball started!  Always important, but with mixed results so far.  Mary has talked to her brother Dan who may be going to France to visit Patrick who is on a semester abroad program.  John and Marilyn got back from what sounded like a great trip to Egypt and Jordan.  

And we close with a couple of photos from last time around - Jeffrey giving the Dundee Dicksons a tour of the Capitol and Johnny cutting down a tree at our house which we have now named "everywhere you look."

Love from down here.  (Happy birthday Peter!)

What happened to March?

Great news from Jersey below, and not much to add to the Dundee Dickson spring break trip to Meadow Lakes and Bethesda!  I see a reality show coming!   Tomorrow is back to work after a nice long weekend and a week for Mary.  Mary had driven up to spend a couple of days with Annie in Natick and to see her high school friend Judy,  She had planned on going over to visit Marj in Rhode Island, but the flooding there is real, and real serious.  So serious that bridges were out and Mary would have had to take a real roundabout way to get there.  Annie drove over to Pittsfield on Saturday, and Sunday after church we went for a quick hike on the Appalachian Trail and then dinner at the Red Lion Inn!  We also saw John and Marilyn; Johnny came over with his chain saw and took down a tree, as part of our day of cleaning out brush.  I feel like a Republican!   Margaret and I had driven up on Friday to Pittsfield, stopping by to see Grandma for a short bit.  We still got there earlier than the Dundee Dicksons who were just down the road!  Margaret's dog Dee joined us and was a terrific, well-behaved distraction the whole weekend!   Grandma seemed to be in good spirits and pretty good health.    We had hosted the Dundee Dicksons earlier in the week, and had a lot of fun.  Joe, Jeffrey and Melodie had come out for a barbecue dinner on Sunday night, just long enough for Jeffrey to invite our midwest visitors to a tour of the Capitol.  And that is how they all spent Monday.  Thanks Jeff.   Tuesday, we all went to the movies, some of us to How to Train a Dragon and others to Green Zone.  Can you guess who went to which movie?   Other news:  Margaret got a new job and starts next Monday.  Joe returned from his trip to Egypt with so much work he could not join us for Easter weekend.  In fact, when we called him on Sunday he was on his way to the office.  There ought to be a law.   And, we got some nice photos from David and Paula, who had stopped by Wilton on their way out of Greenwich.  Thanks so much.   Love from here and have a great April!

Easter

We had a very nice Easter Sunday at the home of Janet's cousin Jean and Steve Martin.  Mom came with us and had very nice long conversation with Brendan Byrne.  Johanna and Sean and Amanda came out on Saturday and Sean and Amanda and I watched Cornell beat Princeton in W's lacrosse (Amanda was the head of the Carleton club lacrosse team for several years).  The real reason they came out, though, was to spend some quality time with Dasha, who is at least showing signs of being housebroken (sigh, finally -- although it's been all Janet).

Andrew and Lur and Claire and Daniel were in town for a few days and we had a couple of dinners with them.  The new food service at Meadow Lakes seems a distinct improvement.  The only downside of the visit was that Claire was such a motor mouth that none of the rest of us got a word in edgewise.  Daniel showed us his chops on guitar, but for some reason Claire had left her oboe home, so we missed out on that.  They took Mom on errands, around Lawrenceville and other places.  We missed the Washington Dicksons going to and fro Pittsfield.

I had taken Mom to the glaucoma specialist on Wednesday and he said her vision has stabilized -- the laser procedure she had done last fall has worked, although it took rather longer to work than he expected.  So that's very good news, too.

Uncle Jim

At his memorial service, Uncle Jim was referred to in several ways, but two which rang really true for me were his smile and his love for fishing.  It was nice to hear other people remark on his smile, which just drew people to him, including nieces and nephews.  He was, as Rell said in her remarks, a tall, old tree, with all that that implied.
 
The Greenwich Deans seem to be doing well, understanding that the last few years and especially the last few weeks were not easy for Uncle Jim, or for them.  Even as sad an occasion as that it was nice to see Hope and Sarah and Rell and Georgia again.  The last time I saw Hope was at her wedding right before I entered the Foreign Service.
 
John had driven up on Monday and picked up Grandma for the ride up to Greenwich.  David adn Paula joined us at Georgia's for dinner that night.  Peter came the next day adn drove Grandma home, as John left a little early to get all the way back home before dark (great time - 4 1/2 hours, including a short nap!)
 
Anyway, I will look for a photo of Jim to add here.

Hello everyone!

I am participating in The New England Center for Children's (NECC®) 4th Annual 5K Walk/Run for Autism on Sat, May 8, 2010 in Southborough, MA.

Please consider sponsoring me in the 5K! A donation of any amount helps a lot of special children.

For more information about The New England Center for Children, please visit www.necc.org.

Follow this link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support New England Center for Children:

http://necc.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=340903&lis=0&kntae340903=81C6EC0906194B03965764809CE62209&supId=286602508

 

Thanks!!

I smell spring

I really did, getting off the plane from Miami, there was a scent of spring, of freshness that wasn't there before.  And we are enjoying a weekend of 50-plus days with sun.
 
Mary took a couple of personal days and we met in Miami, for a long weekend.  I had a day of appointments in the area and then a couple of days to take a shower, eat real food and relax, I thought.  So, we were literally stepping off the hotel grounds on to the beach, when I got a call asking me to turn on the television, that there had been an 8-point something eathquake in Chile with a tsunami heading to Hawaii and south.  Like all of you, it was hard to believe and we immediately thought something bibilical was happening.  There wasn't a lot from Miami we could do, but colleagues worked the task force, to support the work of our Embassy in Chile, looking for staff, for American citizens, for all the grantees on our exchange programs. 
 
There have been lots of comparisons about the devastation, the preparations, the two governments' ability to react and respond, about the international community's willingness to support (and the two governments' willingness to accept offers of support).   One comparison says a lot:  the State Department's Chile task force lasted two days; the Haiti task forces (four of them) lasted a month.
 
And for the first time in my life, we saw a full rainbow, with both ends hitting the horizon, and even double in some places!  Does that mean hope for Haiti and Chile?
 
Margaret is moving this weekend.  She found a place in the Capitol Hill area, not too far frm where she used to live.  It's small but cute.  Dee will like the freedom to roam around without being fenced in during the day.  Hey, and she lives on D St.  There's a coincidence.
 
Joe returned from his trip to the Midle East and to the UK.  We expect to get all of the news from hims this am.  He did hear other news, that USAID has selected him for employment.  Now he has even more tough choices ahead.  Congratulations.
 
Speaking of travel, Annie bought her ticket to China.  She's off in May for a brief visit, and is still planning on going there this summer for a year.
 
Great to see the stories and photos from Vancouver!  Must have been tremendous to see it live.  The difference between the summer and winter games - not only are there incredible athletes, but they're also a little nuts.  Television doesn't really give you a sense of skiiers going down the side of a mountain.  Did anyone hear of the snow plow?
 
Anyway, hope everyone's well.  Love from down here.
 

Vancouver 2010

It seems a little off-key to post this after John's posts about Haiti.  

We just got back from a few days in Vancouver and the Olympics, staying again with our friends the Masons.  "Going to the Olympics" is one of those things I never thought I would do, and certainly would not have if not for the Masons.  They got the tickets when they were only available to Canadians, last summer.  

We spent Saturday wandering around downtown Vancouver, one large and long party, many streets closed to cars, many pavilions and stages and a zip line high across a downtown square, lots of (not great) street theater, some intersections so jammed it took us ten minutes to get across.  We saw what Canadians call "the Cauldron," the Olympic flame, now more accessible to visitors.  Sunday we saw W's 1500 meter speed skating at a brand new place, The Richmond Oval, in a suburb.  Everyone is very friendly and welcoming, thousands and thousands of volunteers doing the ticket-taking, crowd management, directions.  Tuesday, we were back at the Oval, front row seats for the M's 10,000 meter speed skating, the exciting race in which a Dutch skater broke the Olympic record by over 7 seconds but was disqualified for a lane change violation.  He found out when he was right in front of us and threw his sunglasses away.

Monday we were headed to see the US-Sweden W's hockey semi-final game, at the hockey rink at the University of British Columbia an hour southwest of downtown.  Janet got into the car with a set of tickets she had picked up on the kitchen counter and told Bob Mason "you forgot the tickets," and he said "no I didn't" -- but he had picked up the wrong set of tickets, so we would have driven an hour to UBC and discovered we didn't have the right tickets.  Janet saves the day.  But...

We parked at a UBC garage (they had sent the 40,000+ students home during the Olympics) and leisurely strode across the campus with plenty of time to spare.  Got to the arena and one of those volunteers said "what game are you seing?"  Bob said "US-Sweden."  The volunteer said that game was downtown -- where there is no parking.  So we race-walked back to the garage, and on the way saw a few people with American flags headed the other way to the UBC rink.  Merri Mason said to one such couple who had come on a bus "you're going the wrong way," and Bob offered a ride downtown.  Janet and I talked to the couple and they were laughing: she lived in an apartment two blocks away from the downtown hockey arena (where the NHL Vancouver Canucks play) -- and had a visitors parking space!  So we gave them a lift, they gave us a parking spot and we all saw the game.  

More later, photos, too.  Irony: there was over a foot of snow on the ground in NJ when we left, four straight sunny days without a cloud in Vancouver with no sign of snow anywhere.  Rained the last day.  Big snowstorm in NJ the day we got back.  But an unforgettable experience in every way.  I kept saying "I'm not really here," but I was.

More snow pictures

I was visiting my boyfriend in New York for the big snow and spent the day in Central Park building the largest snowman I've ever built. Here are some pictures.

Love,

Annie

Haiti realities

This is where people get in trouble, writing on personal blogs about their experiences in their work environments, around the globe.
 
So, with that in mind - here goes.  (And don't send this around.  My retirement will start even earlier!)
 
Where to start?  Lots of realities.  And that would be the title of my book about what has been happening in Haiti and my own little slice of Haiti.  Either that or "everywhere you look."
 
One reality is I am spending most of my time inside the Embassy.  I sleep here and have taken all but one of my meals here.  Meals in quotes, as it is mostly sandwiches.  I did give up sweets for Lent though!
 
When I do go out, I don't have to go far to see devastation.  Parts of the city near the Embassy are only touched in a minor way, but the downtown area, where the Palace and the government agencies has collapsed.  Piles of rubble everywhere, twisted, misshapen concrete buildings everywhere.  Lots of UN vehicles, lots of military vehicles indicate a major outside presence.
 
You also don't have to go far to see the spontaneous settlements tucked away in any available land.  The grounds of the national unviersity have been taken, but so have streets, as people are trying to stay close to where they live.
 
Before coming I thought to myself that at least it was not raining.  But that is certainly on everyone's minds now, as the rainy season begins in full force at the end of May and is even now gradually moving toward that with sporadic rains.
 
Before coming, I remember watching the Clinton-Bush press conference the first weekend after the quake, and wincing when GW said "just send cash."  Fact of the matter is now I see he is right.  People who want to do the right thing are coming up with good ideas far removed from the realities of Haiti's needs.  I know, since I did that myself before coming, on a couple of projects having to do with protection of cultural property and on use of social media.  Needs here are so basic, and Haiti's capacity to fix this is so limited. 
 
Even in the two weeks I've been here, I have seen more and more of a routine return.  International press has dwindled, airport has reopened to commercial airlines, markets have come back, lots of traffic, even in our culture section, we are starting to get the exchanges programs up and running.
 
But the challenges are everywhere.  Getting the displaced people through this rainy season is highest, but then it is rebuilding education, hospitals, businesses.  Everywhere you look.
 
Some anecdotes -
 
-- one Haitian woman who works at the Embassy and watched her house crumble around her as she stood in a doorway on the second floor, said that she thought her dog knew ahead of the time that a quake was coming, as he stayed under a bed the entire day before hand. The dog survived.
 
-- a journalist described took about 15 minutes to describe what was going through his mind during the 30 seconds of the quake, mostly in deciding where he should be moving as he was on a balcony and watched the ground and buildings move like waves in the oceans
 
-- lots of heroes.  One university lost its entire campus, but has set up tents in their parking lot for their medical students to earn credits for working in the clinics.  Another is the Muncheez pizza place, where we stopped yesterday and saw hundred of kids from the neighborhood lining up for a free mail served by the business, that they have done every day since the quake.  Our military and our disaster assistance people are incredibly committed.
 
-- And then there is the Haitian people - there were expectations of looting and mass migration and political instability.  None of that has happened.  People have different ideas why, but probably has a lot to do with the character of this nation, people helping their neighbors, their families first.
 
Throughout, I have reminded myself I have a comfortable place to return to, that this is temporary.   Hard to know what it must be like for people who do not have that. 
 
Love from down here!
 
 

Addendum

I classmate of mine from Catholic University was just elected Mayor of New Orleans. He had a double major of politics and theatre (is that an oxymororn?).  

Janet

Snow stories...

I have decided that snow is much prettier to look at in pictures.  Dasha is having enough trouble with pooping outdoors as it is. A foot of snow does not help.  Last night was the Company Dinner for the cast and crew of "Fetch Clay, Make Man," a new play in production at McCarter.  The fictional story of an actual meeting between Stepin Fetchit (go google him if you don't know who he was) and Muhammed Ali. Fantastic production.  Potluck dinner, with many volunteers.  And as bad as the weather and roads were, only one person backed out.  Ben Vereen is the star of the show (he plays Stepin Fetchit) and he was incredibly gracious and nice.  Now - back to the Dasha training. Since we have so much snow on the lawn, I am walking her on the road.  She has decided that when a car comes down the street she should run at it.  Nearly got herself hit this morning. 

This week upcoming is "Mini-Week" at Princeton Day School. I am on the "New York, New York" mini-week. Tomorrow I teach three classes about the Apollo Theater in Harlem, which will include auditions so that the kids can get up on stage when we go to the Apollo on Thursday and perform.  We also get to see "West Side Story" on Wednesday (which of course is the next big storm day), Dance Theatre of Harlem, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Irish Hunger Memorial, El Museo de Barrio... the focus of the mini-week course is the history of immigration.  Tuesday is a ride on the Staten Island Ferry in the morning.  Yay! 40 students on the freezing cold water.  

Have a great week everybody!

Janet

Spring is Coming!

Good evening, or good morning, depending on when you read this........

 

Spring is coming, and my calendar says so..

 

Now here in Rochester we don't brag about our snow........it comes every day...that's something to suffer on; not brag.

 

Yes, we've been following the news; watching radar and "info" people dressed in their best logo'd "L.L. Bean" garb, braving the elements to tell us what we can easily see for ourselves. Yes, we've also made some phone calls to hear that people have survived, and who are looking forward to a normal work day or weekend, without the benefit of succumbing to the elements. Yes, we've also taken a peek at Facebook, to read postings on just how terrible people were in Whole Foods before the storm, and how much snow was in Old Town.

 

You do have to admit the pictures are very pretty; maybe even worth the experience of near record snow, that someday when we are all in rocking charis, can brag to the younger generations, on how we all walked miles through 10 feet of snow to get to school, the mall. work, or where-ever.

Oh, Yeah.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is how we got ourselves dug out of the snow, and how Janet made a really great meal for the cast at McCarter Theater with Southern cooking recipes, and Sean was home for a couple of days, which was nice and all, but he did a lot of the snow shoveling even though I asked him to just take it easy, and how he went back today, that's Saturday if you're not paying attention, which I wouldn't blame you for, because he's doing this big Super Bowl party or something, and all that Pop's Weekly Letter kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into, if you want to know the truth.  I mean, everybody's going to say they got more snow, or had more snow, or will have more snow and all that.  I mean, it just kills me, when someone brags about snow, it really does.  I'll tell you what else kills me, it's that dog Dasha, she's really nice and all, but you take her out in this weather and all she wants to do is eat snow.  She just knocks me out.  So anyway, I'm suppposed to tell you that I am auditing a course at the U this semester, called Geosciences 103, Natural Disasters, I think it's called, but in the third lecture the teacher puts all this calculus up on some slide and I didn't like that at all, I really didn't.  You don't want to hear about me and math.  I mean this is a Geee-ohhhh-Sciences course, if I wanted math I would have taken Math For People Who Actually Understand This Crap, or something like that.  But we're going to do volcanoes, floods, earthquakes and all, and I guess I will give it a try.  Oh, yeah, and with the snow and all, I just re-read Catcher In The Rye.  Like you didn't know. 

=

Whoever said spring is coming....

can be blamed for this snow.  How do you measure so much snow?  You can barely see the raised windshield from the snow on the cars.  The nice full and fluffy shrubs around the house have been crushed and misshapen beneath the weight of this wet snow.  Or, the adirondack chair that now looks like it belongs in a museum of modern art?   I don't care how you do measure it, it certainly is easier to measure when you're inside!   Yesterday was like the day before Christmas.  People were so excited at what we knew was coming.  I think I would have preferred the 1800s living on the frontier when these things kind of crept up on you.  But then again, as we were walking outside last night in the early hours of the storm and saw one electric line down from the weight of this heavy snow, our biggest fear was losing power.  That would have made it just like the 1800s life on the frontier.  Not so much fun after all.   All of this would be ok, if it weren't that I am supposed to get on plane tomorrow noon to go to Haiti for a couple of weeks.  And this is supposed to keep on snowing into the night.  The eternal, naive optimist in me thought they's have runways cleared by noon tomorrow.  Then I heard they shut down the airports all day today.    Mary got out of school early and government was released early.  When I left at 6pm, though, it was pretty much a ghost town, but the snow was still hardly sticking on the roads.  I walked by the headquarters of the American Red Cross and there was a team of people shoveling the walk in front of the building, and there was less than an inch of snow.  Hmm.  Now I know where my contributions went - do you think they coulda waited ten hours until there was a foot of snow?   And no one is talking about the snow day we had on Wednesday.  That was only four inches.  The snow was the excuse for me to stay home, but I was also sick.      But we know the snow is making its way up to NJ, Mass, NY and may even have stopped by Chicago on the way here!  So everyone will have stories.  What are they? Just send an e-mail to Popsweeklyletter.dicksons@blogger.com and let us all see!   One thing good has happened - nobody 's talking about the Super Bowl.   Other than that, we had a Monday night dinner out dinner with Joe and Margaret this week in DC, which was fun and made us old folks feel like young urban professionals again.   We spoke with Annie and she has the week off, so she's heading for New York City this weekend.  Wonder how that will be with this snow.   Mary talked to Grandma who said she had a great time with David and Paula, Jeffrey and Melodie.  Peter and Janet came over with some chili one night.  The snow last weekend prevented me from coming, and Mary had a cold so we missed all that fun.   So, happy snow days; happy Valentine's Day coming up!  Love

Spring is coming

Passed a threshold this week.  It was light out when I emerged from the subway (around 7am) on the way to work.  That's a good sign evenwhen the temperatures are dipping down to the 20s tonight.
 
And we're on our way north for the night, to see Grandma, Peter and Janet and David and Paula.  It's supposed to snow, but so far nothing.  David had a bout of H1N1 right after Christmas, so it'll be nice to see him back in form.
 
Last weekend, we had a short visit from Peter who was here for a banjo workshop and concert.  He stopped by for a quick visit, with his homemade banjo.  Unfortunately there was no room at the inn, as the Charlie Morrison family had made earlier reservations.  They came up with their tenth grade son and did some sightseeing.  We went out with them on Sunday to the Holocaust Museum.  It was pretty jarring reading the cruelty and open death threats from Hitler with today's sensibilities.  Because the Germans kept such good records of their exterminations, I don't know how there could be Holocaust deniers.
 
I continue to be busy working on Haiti.  Unfortunately, most of that work has to do with reading e-mails.  Not sure that reading e-mails helps anyone in Haiti.  But that's what we do, write strategy papers, send them around, clear press guidance and talking points, obsess over small issues when there are real monumental ones to figure out.  Still, what keeps me fromcomplaining is the fact that no matter what my hours are, people down there who work for us are living in their offices (one colleague said he had the best commute he's ever had - from the floor to the desk).  And they don't complain because htey know how much better they have it than the millions of people all aorund them.
 
There's a chance I may have the opportunity to try out that commute, as I may be heading to Haiti for a couple of weeks in February.
 
And it's nose to the winter grindstone for the rest of us.  Mary has her mechanical routine of exercise in the am, long hours, and home for chores before collapsing.  Margaret has started a couple of classes -- Bollywood dancing and yoga -- and juggles work with job applications and her funny dog.  Joe just got back this week from a week in Yemen, looking at how they are going to put together an aid project. 
 
The other highlight besides football playoffs (poor Brett Favre) was a Loudon Wainwright concert this week.  He's the "dead skunk in the middle of the road" guy, but has a new recording which is a tribute to a 1930s banjo player -- Charlie Poole.  The thrill of the night came when Mary shouted for a song - twice - and he stopped and played it, with a little introduction!
 
We live fo rthose little things.  Hope there's plenty in your lives!  Love from down here.  
 

Lost weekend

But what do I have to complain about?  Shelter, food, water, family? 
 
Been working this weekend on Haiti, trying to help where we help best, to get the story out, to see if we can help communications to Haitian people.  It's a pretty desperate, dire situation, as you all have seen on the television.  Someone asked me how we can direct people to get to the nearest relief distribution site.  I figured out you don't send text messages.  But I thought you could call up a radio station.  No phones.  Actually e-mail is working, so we sent a message via e-mail to radio.  Then we heard that people don't have radios, or cannot get to their houses to listen to the radio, or don't have electricity to turn their radios on.  We take so much for granted. 
 
I was on the second shift of the task force.  I showed up a little before 7am and ten minutes later it was 5:30pm.  No lunch, unless you count Altoids.  So many details.  And in the midst of it, we learned we lost a colleague, the cultural affairs officer.  But we barely had time to stop and reflect.
 
I did break away Sunday to come home for a brunch with a Pakistani/American family, a college friend of Mary's from her year abroad in the U.K. who teaches in Delaware, and whose wife works in the children's cancer ward at NIH.  Joe came up and we talked about Haiti, the Middle East, Pakistan and Joe's future plans.  I then dropped Joe at Jeffrey's where they were going to help Melodie root for the Vikings.  And they had help from Sean and Amanda who had come down here for the weekend and stayed at Joe's bachelor pad.  I think all the support made the difference, as the Vikings crushed the Cowboys.  I finally won a post-season game this year.  Or rather one of my teams.  Hard to tell the difference.
 
We were supposed to go to Pittsfield this long weekend, and stop in to see Grandma on the way up and back.  Too bad as we heard there was great skiing up there from John and Marilyn.  They are heading on a long trip in February to Egypt.  Our trip to NJ will have to wait until the end of the month when David and Paula are coming down for the weekend.
 
Mary has talked to her brother Tim a couple of times.  He has moved to Mexico, south of Tijuana and is settling in and living the good life, it sounds.
 
Most of the snow is gone, as temperatures climbed and we had rain.  That's one thing that those poor people in Haiti don't have right now is rain. 
 
Love from down here.

---

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2010

Is it two thousand ten or twenty ten?   Either one it's a new year, full of hope and promise and change.
 
Does anyone have a New Years resolution?  I did, for less than 18 hours, until Marilyn served a terrific ice cream sundae.  So I had to switch to a new one that didn't have anything to do with sweets.  Maybe it has do with weekly letter writing.
 
Anyway, tomorrow is back to work after two weeks which included Christmas, New Years, travel to NJ and to Mass, and lots of snow storms.  Mary had two weeks off, thanks largely to two feet of snow on the Saturday and Sunday before Christmas.  Even John got a day off, and by extension so did Joe and Margaret.  We needed that day just to shovel the cars out, and again after the plows pushed the snow back in front of the cars.
 
Annie came home for just two nights, but that was still wonderful as Joe had also come up, so we had a full house.  Annie left the day after Christmas and the day after that we had a birthday brunch with Joe and then headed north.  We stopped in Hightstown and had dinner with Grandma provided by Peter, Janet and Sean.  They have a new dog - a "rat terrier" by name of "Kat".  Grandma had loads of food, mostly chocolate.  We put a big dent in that.
 
We talked also with David and Paula, and Andrew and Lur over the holiday stretch.  We heard today that David has a case of H1N1, and ended up in the hospital.  Hope you're feeling better and that the worst is over.  Andrew and Lur talked mostly about snow, their two accidents and Claire and Danny's sports!  Grandma also told us that Andrew has had an identity theft problem.  And, she has a doctors appointment on Monday (tomorrow) where she may hear about haviung to undergo another eye procedure.
 
We spent almost a week in Pittsfield, and got thed hall all painted.  Margaret (and Dee, her dog) came and spent a couple of nights with us and then our Peace Corps friends Cliff and Sheila came for New Years.  We went to see Sherlock Holmes (more like Indiana Jones - but we recommend it) and then played a game "Apples to Apples" to stay up through the night.  The next day we went skiing, as it snowed three times while we were there, and then we had dinner and a video movie at John and Marilyn's.  They had a nice Christmas with their daughters and had just returned from Boston where they took their granddaughters to the Blue Man group performance.
 
We decided to get an early jump on the traffic and headed back Saturday, spending the night at Grandma's and going to eat at the Meadow Lakes dining room. We remembered that it was Ann's birthday.  We helped with a few errands, and Grandma now has organized closets.  In one, we found a box of everything that was in Pop's roll-top desk.  Pop had the world's largest personal collection of staplers and refill staples.  Must have been a sale at Spags.
 
On the way back we got a text message from Joe that he has gotten into Johns Hopkins.  So he has a choice for his graduate study.  Congratulations.  We also talked with Annie who had a nice visit with Margaret and they also went to see Sherlock Holmes.
 
So the new year if off to a great start.  Love from down here.