Celebrate!

We have much to celebrate.  First off, a lot of birthdays.  Belated to Paula and Johanna.  Upcoming to Janet, Claire, Billy and Kathleen!  And there is a first wedding anniversary also thrown in there.  Remember that weekend, Jeff and Melodie?  Fun.  Anyway, we hope everyone is marking their day in style, especially Claire who is turning 18, and will be able to vote!

 

Another reason for celebrating is Janet had her cast off this past Monday.  What a long haul.  I bet there's still a lot more to come, but you made it!

 

Wait, there's still more.  David and Paula celebrated with a trip to the outer banks of North Carolina last week. And, Annie (and Greg) returned from a vacation in Burma, not Myanmar, which we learned is the military term for the country.  Annie sent pictures, and it looks like a magical place.  Hope to read her blog soon.

 

We celebrated Columbus Day with Margaret and Andrew and D up here for a few days.  We did a Pittsfield arts walk one night, and then went to a concert at the Guthrie Center.  The chief reason for the trip was to check out the kitty, and to introduce D to the cat.  That did not go as well as we thought it might.  Seems the kitty has become a little territorial in her brief time with us.  She was back happily running around the house as soon as D left, though.

 

Mary spent a couple days over at UMass with me, and found the apartment she rented when she went to college.  It's right on the railroad tracks, and looks like a college pad.  We also did a tour of the Steepletop, Edna St. Vincent Millay's home in NY, which is worth a trip.  This famous poet died in 1950, and her sister took over the house, leaving it pretty much untouched from the day she died.  Needless to say, her quirkiness, which coexisted with her intellect, is evident pretty much everywhere on this country estate/compound.  Not as grand as Edith Wharton's mansion, but beautiful nonetheless.

 

We spoke with Andrew who said that Lur's father had a stroke or series of small strokes.  He spent a while in the hospital, and doesn't sound like he's doing very well.  Tough on the whole family.

 

We remain busy with house projects.  We finished a landscaping exercise, and turned our attention to getting the garage ready, which means taping and then painting the dryboard.  The driveway guys were supposed to start today, but we think the rain kept them from coming.  Maybe tomorrow.  It would be a real breakthrough if we could park the cars in the garage by first frost!

Joe has been busy as well; we talked to him as he was going to work on Sunday evening at 7pm.  His comment was: "That's why they have young people working."

Mary has substitute-taught a few times, but for several reasons that remains less than satisfying.  I am frantically trying to stay caught up at UMass, and so far, so good.  There's so much extra (films, conferences, beer parties) that I miss by not being on campus, but I like being home too.

Hope you do too!  Love from down here and congratulations to all the celebrating folks!