Heat Wave

It had been such a nice late spring,with no need for air conditioning.  Now, when we need the air conditioning, it is broken!  What did people used to do before air conditioning?   I don't think they lived in places like this.

 

Did someone mention Father's Day?  Hope yours was as momentous as mine, a week long affair, starting with brunch with Margaret and Andrew, and phone calls with Annie and Joe.  In between, we had driven up to Pittsfield for a couple of days, with our first load of stuff.  John and Marilyn came over on the big day, and we did the secret Fathers Day handshake.  And, of course, we remembered and thanked our own fathers.

 

The previous weekend I headed up to New York City for a Fulbright Scholarship Board meeting, my last hurrah as a USG employee.  It was an interesting meeting, where we got to meet the Mayor, the City Council President, tour 9/11 Memorial with Daniel Libeskind and host a reception with Susan Rice at the USUN offices.  On the way home, I stopped and had lunch with Peter and caught up on news there, including Sean's interesting law internship over the summer.

 

Joe was in Minnesota when he called, out to visit his friend Tamara who has her internship with General Mills this summer.  He heads to Texas last this week, for the next leg of his fun-employment until the end of June.

 

Annie is as busy as ever, as most of the other native English speakers seemed to have left the firm.  She had a visit from her roommate from Natick, Mass, and she is beginning to think about grad school in psychology, signing up for a GRE prep class.  Margaret also sounds busy, holding things together at her office with others out.

 

Mary talked with Timmy who has finally gotten out of the hospital.  He's pretty sure he's coming east for a few weeks this summer, for a little r&r.

 

I have almost finished the last of my Christmas books, this one a history of the Comanches and a famous chief named Qanah Parker.  I had such a great group of books, including David McCullough's history of Americans in Paris, the Long March (EL Doctorow on Sherman's March to the sea) and a baseball novel called the Art of Fielding.  And, with Father's Day I have the next few months taken care of as well, with the most recent volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson.  Lucky.  What's on your bookshelf?  Mary's reading a biography of Lawrence of Arabia.

 

Speaking of books, I went over to UMass last week and checked in, and they want me to start with my program assistant-ship on July 1.  I'll be advising students who are applying for Fulbright scholarships.  I also got the course book and reading list for my program.  Not as interesting as my own reading.

 

Spoke with David who seems to be enjoying retirement,but is still cleaning up his office and loose ends.  Andrew called and talked about summer camps for Claire and Daniel, and Claire teaching oboe!  He also called once to say Lur had left him with Miles, who seemed to be winning.  At everything.  Andrew surrendered.

 

While I was in New York, Mary had her retirement send-offs, including a book of well-wishes from her students.  Very nice, rewarding.  One of the reasons for heading up to Pittsfield was to get in the ground all the flowers and cuttings she had received from her colleagues at school.  She now has a friends' garden.

 

Other than that, we are watching the next season of Breaking Bad, and we went to a Bonnie Raitt concert at Wolf Trap (very, very good).   

 

Hope you all are well, and cool!  Love from down here.  

June 9, Happy Birthday

I have one birthday memory of a Pop-birthday, when he turned 60.  Mary and I drove down from New Hampshre and joined David and Paula and Matthew for a birthday dinner at a Marlborough CT restaurant.  Since we had no money in those days, we mimeographed 60 coupons, with things like 1 free dishwasher emptying, a car wash, a bag of kisses, a gutter cleaning, etc.  His weekly letters to us, in all parts of the world, often included a coupon in it!  There were still a few left when we cleaned out Pomfret.

 

And, today is an open house in Fairport NY, a retirement party of sorts for David.  We learned that Jeffrey and Melodie went north for the weekend.  I spoke with him this week, and he sounded like he likes it! 

 

What a great photo of Peter and Janie at reunions.  Sounded like fun.  Peter said he and Janet enjoyed it so much, he didn't even have time to check Mets baseball for the first no-hitter in Mets history.

 

It has been a fun baseball season for family, except we're still waiting for the Red Sox to catch fire.  It has even been nice to have a home town team here doing so well.  Except when they play the Reds.

 

Joe finished school, and got his diploma almost right away.  He is now on, in his own terms, f-un-employment, reading books he has wanted to for a year, and taking sailing lessons on the Charles River.  Sounds like fun-employment.

 

Mary is winding down her school year and her tenure at her current school.  Normally, this is a hectic time of year, and this time around it is not much different.  When people talked about a going-away present, she came up with a brilliant idea in these hard economic times.  She asked for cuttings from people's gardens so she could start a garden in Pittsfield, named the Highland Garden (after the school!) 

 

We spoke with Andrew as well, and he said they had a great time up at Green Lake over Memorial Day weekend.  Lots of talk about colleges for Claire, so we can all help her when we see them in July, give her advice and actually choose the college for her.  Daniel graduated from his middle school, so the family connection after many years with the church school has come to an end.

 

You should check out Annie's blog to hear of her trip to the ocean at Laolongtou, the end of the Great Wall.  We haven't seen Margaret since Memorial Day when we took D up to Pittsfield while she and Andrew went to her 5-year reunion at Wesleyan.  Sounded like a lot of fun.  She sent us a funny video of D trying to grab a ball out of a swimming pool, before giving up and just jumping in.

 

We saw John and Marilyn while we were up in Pittsfield, but unfortunately I spent too much time on the phone back to work, trying to unravel a couple of what seemed like crises at the moment.  I have forgotten what they were about.

 

Mary also heard from Dan a couple of times, most recently with the news that Timmy is in the hospital with an intestinal ailment.  Sounds a little like the blockage Johanna had a couple of years ago.

 

Next week, Mary retires, and so do I, for a second time.  I love the idea of retiring so much I wanted to do it a second time.  Not so sure that Mary likes it, though.

 

Hope you all are enjoying the start of summer.  Isn't it great and worth the wait?

 

Love from down here.