Is it Father's Day?

Actually, it isn't. We're experiencing a little of the post-father's day letdown here.  A full case of the blahs.  It may have something to do with Monday and a storm bringing more rain.

Or, it may have to do with a nice afternoon/evening with David and Paula who stopped by here on their way home from a few days on the Cape.  We had a nice dinner and shared father stories.  Or tried to, if we could have remembered them. We did toast our own fathers, and remembered all they had done for us.

 It sounded like there had been quite a bit of rain out on the Cape, but they were still able to squeeze in a "whale watch" and good meals and walks.  Since I have never been to the Cape, they gave us some suggestions and encouragement for perhaps a September or mid-week visit in the fall.

Annie made it back from the weekend in Washington to see David and Paula.  She had been to Melodie's birthday party on Saturday evening, so when Jeffrey called to do the dutiful check-in, Annie surprised him being up here!

I had nice conversations with both Joe and Margaret as they did their dutiful as well.  More than that, with a surprise picnic table which appeared after my nap on Saturday.  I was not sure if I was still dreaming when I saw the table in the yard.  It will replace the one Peter "loaned" us in 1992 and has many family memories from our porch in Silver Spring to the outdoors here over that extended period.  I wonder how long Peter and Janet had used it.  It was not doing well, as boards were rotting away.

Earlier in the day, Mary and I drove down to Hyde Park, NY and checked off a visit to the FDR home.  We had been passing the signs for years on the Taconic Parkway, but were always in a rush to get wherever we were going.  So, we made this our destination and had a wonderful visit, with a promise to each other that there was more to see and that we would come back.  Our tour guide wondered how many people in the group could relate to FDR's upbringing with tutors at home, horse-riding and governesses and a 21 foot yacht present at the age of 17.  

We commoners found a diner up the road and had a great breakfast/brunch.  So there.  I love Fathers Day.

News from here:  we have a new garden fence.  It is the third since we owned it, and the first one I did not try to install myself.  Our garden is now more protected than Ft. Knox.  Take that groundhogs.  I just wish the vegetables would grow inside.  So much rain that there was actually flooding, which killed the marigold plants.  Oh well.  Hmm.  Maybe a roof?

Other news is that Annie has a summer job.  Two in fact.  Moreover, it looks like she got every job she applied for.  She will have a busy schedule and earn a little before starting classes.  

On the job front, Mary also got a new job, at least until the end of the school year which is this coming Friday.  She is tutoring a handful of students whose second language is English.  One of them is a Chinese girl in kindergarten, who has been in country just a few weeks.  Try to imagine what she's going through.

One of our highlights these past few weeks was dinner with Mary's niece and nephew, her brother Mike's children.  Nice to reconnect, and they are doing well.

This time next week, I will be in Ft. William, Scotland getting ready to start my trek up the Great Glen Way.  I don't know if it's psychosomatic, but my knees are beginning to hurt.  Better rest.

In the meantime, our routine continues, and we are enjoying summer.  We had our first campfire last Friday night, and I raised up enough courage to jump in the lake.  We also went to the movies, Before Midnight, which we liked but were not really 'gaga' over.   

Hope you all are enjoying summer.  Only 365 more days til Father's Day!

We sign out from here wishing you all happy barbecues, with this photo from our archives. Love from over here.    

 

Annie's home

Did you hear the cheering?  She flew into New York on Thursday and stayed there for a couple of days.  Then Saturday, Mary and I drove down to pick her up.  She reminded us of us.  She had a backpack, packed to the seams, and two roller suitcases, similarly packed.  She said she carried all three on the Beijing subway, getting to and from the airport.  Hard, but she has closed out an important chapter of her young adulthood, and those three suitcases are evidence.  

Welcome home.  She's on the job market this summer, and then will head back to NYC to start her organizational psychology program in August.  We drove by Teachers' College at Columbia, and I pointed out the dorm where I spent one summer.  Annie said she had applied for the same dorm!

Annie just missed the visit of our friend, Valerie, from Seattle, who had been here for a few days on a trip east.  We dropped her off at the bus station, as we headed to New York to get Annie.  We did the cultural tour of the county, north, south and center, with Valerie, going to MassMoca for art, to Arrowhead for Herman Melville's story, and then to the Guthrie Center for open mic night.  In between, we ate and talked and hiked a little.  John and Marilyn came over for dinner with Valerie, who they knew from the memorable visit to San Miguel years ago, with Mary's mothers and aunts.

We finally opened up the porch for meals, as last weekend we almost had snow.  Too cold, and it did snow on Mt. Greylock.  My college roommate, Steve Tobolsky and his wife, had come over from Boston for the night, and we thought about having a fire.  We did turn on the heat.  This weekend we wanted air conditioning.  The photo was a panorama trick taken at MassMoca, in front of a Sol Lewitt mural.  Fun.

Mary started a job this week.  A paying job.  She's tutoring a young boy in the 4th grade an hour a day.  She might have another fill-in job until the end of school, and there are several she's seen to apply for.  

I also started a job, of sorts.  If someone had told me last year or 40 years ago that I would be explaining Herman Melville to a paying tour group, I'd have thought it a dream of sorts, more like a nightmare.  But, there I was, giving tours to people last Monday who had come to Arrowhead to get a glimpse of the writer, his work and his life in the Berkshires.  It's actually very interesting, and I have a lot of homework to do to get the story right.

We spoke with David and Andrew who filled us in on happenings out their way.  David and Paula had a birthday dinner for Matthew with Tina and Oliver last week.  That means that Peter and Janet also had a wedding anniversary.  Congratulations and fond memories (and one great photo of a certain sports jacket) from that weekend.

Andrew says that Claire's graduation was terrific, and that she is planning a camping trip in Michigan before school starts.  Daniel has decided to play football this fall, and he has been working out and lifting weights to get ready.  Look out!  Lur has been busy helping her parents.

The next time you see Joe, hopefully he'll be wearing the bow ties that Andrew sent him.  If not, maybe it's because he's got his kilt, which after years of promise since he graduated from St. Andrews and then Tufts, finally arrived last week.

This is Margaret's big week as the orientation programs she's been developing start.  Good luck!