Summer fun

Happy Memorial Day!  The official start of summer.  And it looks as if the Dickson diaspora did summer-y things to celebrate, on the east coast, on the west, and in between; in the northern hemisphere and the southern.   

We saw Annie and Sankar sailing and bike riding; we also saw Bill and Jen and their family heading out for a camping trip; Tina and Matthew and their boys did their 15 miles on the Erie Canal; Thomas and Joao went to school (because it's not a holiday in Brazil) which gave their parents the day off with Luisa; Margaret and Andrew and Simon went to a Baysox baseball game; Janet and Johanna visited a little boy in Maryland.  Nearby, the lake was packed with boats and swimmers and I'm pretty sure I could smell all the barbecues while I was ……

Mowing the lawn.  But, hey nothing wrong with that.  Except that my ride-on mower wouldn't start.  More steps.  But, Memorial Day around here, after the parade honoring those who gave their lives for the country, means finishing all the garden chores, specifically transplanting and sowing the new seeds.  This year, hopefully, you'll get to read about tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, beans, zucchini and lettuce.  Mary's flowers are already giving us color.

And tonight, I'll be at Fenway Park to watch "YOUR CINCINNATI REDS" take on the home team.  Mary is going to stay home, but she assures me she'll be watching the game looking out for two old men catching foul balls in their beer cups.  I'm going there with Charlie, and we may be the only ones in the park who remember the 1975 World Series, but I can assure you this year, there won't be a repeat of those two teams in the Series.  At this point could be a Mets-Yankees affair.  Anyone a fan of those two teams?  

Back to Brazil, where there was an extravaganza to celebrate John's second birthday; no longer is he Baby John.  We did a Zoom call with Margaret and Annie and everyone, and we're actually getting better at singing Happy Birthday and Parabens over the split-second delayed internet medium.  John looked exhausted until he saw his new toy kitchen.  He got a second (or third or fourth) wind and started a whole bunch of recipes and cleaning right away.

Also, in Brazil, or rather Portugal, Leonor's mother went home to Lisbon this week, meaning they are now without instant grandmotherly help for the first time in three months.  Obrigado, Patricia.

Andrew and Lur hit the road before Memorial Day and traveled up to Michigan to see the final concert of the year at Claire's school.  They too said they just finished planting everything in their community garden at the hospital.  

Speaking of hospitals, Mary got through her bout with Covid without needing a hospital stay.  She was bedridden for a few days, mostly with fatigue.  She kept saying how grateful she was for the vaccine.  Me too, as I somehow managed to avoid the illness, testing negative three times that week.  We have postponed our trip to DC until this weekend.  

Covid also affected Omie and Larry, our friends from Mexico who came east from Seattle and got sick along the way.  They quarantined before getting here, though, and had no symptoms at all.  So, we were able to enjoy their stay, museum-ing and eating and drinking and not even nearly exhausting all topics on our way through the Berkshires.   

 
Tomorrow June, the perfect occasion for Mary to lament the passing of summer.  

Love from up here.  

 

Post-pandemic?

The minister at church today used the term post-pandemic.  That phrase didn't sit that well here, since Mary tested positive this morning, and has symptoms.  I am negative, but who knows for how long.  I hasten to add that the church service was via Zoom.  She's on the meds that are recommended, and so far, it is like a common cold/mild flu.  We saw Dr. Fauci recently say that everyone's going to get it.  So, now it's our turn, I guess.

This puts a wrench in our plans for the next couple of weeks.  Most disappointing, we were supposed to take the grandparent trek down to DC, ostensibly so Margaret and Andrew could attend a wedding.  That was the excuse but who needs an excuse?  I was supposed to start giving tours at Arrowhead tomorrow, but that's canceled.  Our tutoring classes canceled.  No swimming for you know who.  And, of course, this comes the week that I asked for numbers of attendees at the Poconos.  We're still going.  (Thank goodness for the home tests.)  Maybe by then it will be post-pandemic.

John and Marilyn flew up last week for their granddaughter Natalie's graduation from Paul Smith College in the Adirondacks, after which they came to Pittsfield and stayed a few nights with us.  We had a mini-Boyle reunion with members of their family who came from Boston and Albany for a big dinner that Mary put on.  So nice to see everyone. On the other side of the country, Timmy had a heart valve replacement which went all right.

Out in Illinois, Daniel has a new job, at a high-end salon, with regular hours.  Good news. And we saw on Facebook that Myles was playing the violin in a band concert. You can see the violin case in the photo of him and Auden below. One more bit of old news for the folks out there was a recent renovation – a new sewage connection to the town pipes.  Not something to proudly show off, but they averted what could have been a real disaster.  What we take for granted.

Also on Facebook, are signs of spring and taking advantage of the great outdoors.  That means hiking excursions for Matthew and Tina and family, gardening for Jeff and Melodie, and strolls in strollers for Kiernan.  We are doing our own bit to try to get the garden ready, weeding and raking and mulching, and I actually have mowed the lawn twice already.  That means regular back exercises.

 
Annie flew to DC for work, but also to check in on Simon and his parents.  Andrew set the threshold high for Mothers Day presents as Margaret and Annie spent the night at a hotel watching movies, and I think there was some junk food involved. And here's a leftover photo from Hawaii on something Annie called the green sand beach.

Joe spent the week at a law enforcement conference in Rio.  Wonder why they picked Rio?  The photo below is of Leonor and Baby John at the airport to greet him on his return.  And this week he is off to Porto Alegre.  And in the grand tradition of weekly letters, Thomas and John got haircuts!  Seated in cars, watching videos.  Pop never had that kind of service at his $2 barbershop in Putnam.

Some birthday news.  Happy birthday Sean (yesterday) and by the next letter we will have celebrated Matthew and Baby John's birthdays.  Matthew's birthday means Peter and Janet's anniversary and tomorrow is Margaret and Andrew's anniversary.  Lots of celebrating this month.

And lots to look forward to, with the whole summer ahead.  Can't let sickness get in our way.

Love from up here.  

One week to go!

I meant to write this letter yesterday, so I could wish Eliot a happy birthday, not a happy belated birthday.  Hope you had a good one Eliot.

Instead, I went out to work in the garden and promptly hurt my back.  Should have stayed inside.  Still, it was fun while it lasted, weeding, trying to start the rototiller and failing, hauling bags of mulch, raking up the ashes from the brush burn last week, filling the wheelbarrow with mulch from the compost pile.  Hmm.  I probably should have stretched before starting out on this project list.   And the tree guy came today, so my assistance was limited.

We had just gotten back from a couple nights on the north shore, one in Salem and the other in Gloucester.  I gave a book talk, for the first time in person, for a group of retired foreign service types, and then we continued on to the Atlantic Ocean to spend a night with Cliff and Sheila whose family has a house on the beach.  We ate way too much, and had way too much fun. Do they go together?  Salem, by the way, is a delightful city, and we walked through two museums, the House of the Seven Gables and the Peabody-Essex.  Our lone connection to the overly touristy witch stuff was to visit a memorial recently put up to the 20 people (19 women and one man, if I remember right) executed for witchcraft in the late 1600s.

Are these letters only about travel?  Hopefully not, but travel is the break in the routine that seems worth mentioning.  Pop regaled us with his haircuts, trips to the dump, and shopping at Spags.  Anyway, we had spent the previous weekend also near the beach, in Rhode Island, with Marj and Lew.  We tried to go for a walk on East Beach, but after 20 minutes of a fierce wind and cold temps, we headed for the safety behind the dunes. 

We also took the time to check in on Mary Fort, and Maura, Steve and Elsie.  Elsie was in a vacation camp musical performance with Disney theme songs, including Simon's favorite one about Bruno.  Mary Fort was still recovering from back surgery, and she said that Kathleen is completing her doctorate.

We decided to head home by retracing the drive we took many times, from Rhode Island to Pomfret.  We stopped to take photos of a grey house, now partially blocked by grown-up trees. The grey paint I was prepared for, but not the peeling, flaking red paint on the barns.  Sorry Pop.  Should have been part of the sale contract.  

We veered off the road by the school and took photos, specifically the dorms where Joe and Annie resided.  No big changes there, at least that's what it seemed like. 

Annie and Sankar are back from Hawaii, and had a wonderful trip.  How could you not in that paradise, or at least that's what I hear.   Once home, Annie started her new job, still with Door Dash, and working on broader organization issues in the company.

Joe also traveled this week, to Rio and Sao Paulo, trying to squeeze in visits before Leonor's parents head home when it'll be harder for him to leave the mother alone with three children. 

Down in DC, Simon had a week off from school, not because of vacation, but because another child got Covid.  Ain't over yet.

How was your Easter?  We see the Illinois trio got a lot of loot (pictured here), and we also saw photos of Simon clutching on for dear life the eggs he picked up.  We had a quiet Easter dinner at the Red Lion Inn, but our conversation turned to the dinners we enjoyed at the Harvest in Pomfret. 

Looking ahead, we'll play hosts to John and Marilyn who will escape Florida heat for NY cold, and Natalie's graduation from Paul Smith College. 

Other news?  Let's not talk baseball.  It will be a long season for a certain team in the Midwest that is angling to get first round draft picks for the next 20 years.

Instead, let's talk Mother's Day.  To all the mothers out there, new and veterans, with a nod to those who've gone before.  Thank you!

Love from up here.