Mary went back to school this week. Who else? I know Claire and Daniel, and probably Oliver and Janet have been back for a while. Is Myles in school yet? How about Andrew S.? He's starting a graduate program in public health. Back to school for me means traffic, on my long drives to and from UMass a couple of times a week. It's crazy how many cars there are trying to get over a bridge between Amherst and Northhampton. Fortunately, there are podcasts and NPR and books on tape.
How about new jobs? Sean, Margaret and Joe have started new jobs. And Sean's comes with a badge! Is it a first for a Dickson? Perhaps. Great Facebook photos from what must have been a sentimental swearing-in ceremony as assistant DA, and in the same complex as the statue of Sean's great-uncle.
How about moves? David and Paula are in their new house. They moved over last weekend, and have begun the slow and not-so wonderful process of unpacking and putting things away. It's a good brain exercise as you're forced to remember where you put the forks. Still, all the work is offset by the happiness of the location, of the front porch, of the curb appeal.
Annie found she will be moving to Cleveland. By November. Her social life seems to revolve around going to weddings on weekends, sprinkled by trying to figure out what's wrong with her car. I think the Saturn has seen its last days having surpassed 180,000 miles.
Margaret and Andrew are also moving, as their offer on a new house was accepted. They are busy now with the financials and organizing a closing date around Columbus Day. Their new house is in the Brookland NE section of DC, near Catholic University. And it has a small yard for D! New job, new school, new house. Adds to the stress. Margaret's new job is Fulbright for Caribbean and Central America.
We drove by their new house over Labor Day, when we went down for the wedding of the daughter of the Schwartzes, friends we knew in South Africa who have children the same ages as ours. Highlight of the wedding? A New Orleans procession over to the White House, complete with jazz band.
We stayed with Joe who was in the final days of his China job before he switches over to the international banking office at Treasury. He had just finished doing some nice renovation work to the parking area behind his house, making it a nice outdoor area for sitting. Look for Grandma's glass top tables there soon! Leonor was in Portugal.
Which is where we are going this week. Joe is heading out today, and we will be on our way Wednesday. Look for many Facebook posts from there over the next two weeks.
Speaking of Facebook, we see Tina had jury duty - and from her tone I can't tell whether she liked it or not. It is a break in routing and she took advantage of the downtime to take in the city sites.
John and Marilyn are here now. Actually not, they're at Kara and Brian's, but they were here and are coming back. In their down time, Johnny cut the grass and did some plumbing work in our basement (obrigado - practicing my Portuguese for thanks so much!) Marilyn also arranged our dish towel drawer, and I really should put a picture of that in the letter, or at least on Facebook. We had a nice Boyle cousins dinner here which was very nice.
So, I got through a whole letter without an advertisement for Trump's new hotel in DC. Ooops, I did it.
Hope you are well, thriving even. Love from up here.
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