Happy Thanksgiving

Guess what the big news of the past two weeks was? I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. It was Luisa's christening. There were so many moments in the service that were touching and fun, unexpected and a little anxiety producing, but let's just leave it at "really special." It was supposed to take place a couple of weeks ago, but Joe and Leonor decided to postpone it so that we could be there (our plane from Lisbon was delayed.)  

A short recap – Luisa was a little worried, but the minister put her at ease (so did Leonor).  She was beautiful as the star of the show, but I guess I'm biased. There were, in Mary's words, three little "puppies" rolling around the floor at various times, that is to say young boys, named Thomas, John, and Simon. But they were well-behaved and made it to the end without incident! You can see them in the front in this picture, invited up there by the priest, who even let them dip their hands in the water. Jeff and Melodie were there, as well as a few friends from all generations.

We then headed back to Joe and Leonor's for a meal, chatter, and backyard playing. The chatter was not all about the same subject that had consumed us for the past year, but a little of it. Jeff and Melodie were at the tail end of a bout with pneumonia, so I got my third pneumonia shot this week (unrelated as the doctor recommended it this week at my annual physical.)  There was no school on Monday or Tuesday, so we took the boys to the pool for a few hours, and then went over to Margaret and Andrew's for supper. They were contemplating putting a bid on a house in their neighborhood, but given what happened Tuesday, we're glad they held off. This week, Margaret has been in Lima, helping prepare for President Biden's visit there tomorrow. I bet it's changed a lot since she lived there (1999 we left.)

While in DC, we heard that Sean, Erin, and Kiernan had come down the week before  for a visit with Joe and Leonor. Naaaiiice.

Annie and Sankar were back in India, but off on another trip. This time they went to Kolkata for Sankar's visa interview which did not go well. (Sad face emoji here.) Then they headed off to what looked to be a most spectacular park north of Kolkata.

More news up here is that Timmy is moving. He has found a place in Rhode Island and not just any place. He will be renting out the apartment at Maura's house. In the process of taking a load down, he had a car accident, but he's okay. His car, not so much.

We went to a movie, Conclave, and recommend it. Actually, we went to two movies, the other being a fund-raiser for Arrowhead which showed the film of Billy Budd, this being the 100^th anniversary of the publication of the book. For those of you who like numbers, the film came out in 1962, exactly 62 years ago.

Speaking of Billy, here's a belated Halloween picture of his crew. They, by the way, have moved into their new home.

And we spoke with Paula on our drive back home from DC. All is well in Fairport, and we hope to stop by there after Thanksgiving.

What else passes for excitement up here? Dentist, doctor appointments, swim meet, fall garden clean-ups, and bridge. No haircut or dump, although we did get our new trash cans from the city. That was our political controversy over the past few years.

With that, we pass along our best wishes. Love from up here.  And Happy Thanksgiving.

Halloween, Diwali, Birthdays, and Demolition

Happy Halloween!  Or should I say Happy Halloween week? How many parties did your children have? How many different costumes? 

Halloween does bring back many memories, such as the trick played at Cunningham Road when someone soaped the screens; I'm not sure we ever knew who did that. Or the cape that we used to share (or possibly fight over) for our costume.  Here's an entry from the real Pop's Weekly Letters, 1980: "I spent some time trying to create some order in the chaotic basement. Do you remember the long cloak that we found in the attic in Cunningham Road and which I think each of you wore at some Halloween?  Well, it finally bit the dust (or mold} and is now at the dump."

There are other more recent memories, of Joe as a mummy, converted to a car accident victim when the paper wrapping started falling off, or Margaret as an M&M, or Annie as a Princeton cheerleader. What's the best part of Halloween? The candy that we always buy for the trick-or-treaters who never venture back behind the haunted house in front of ours.

Except that maybe they will this year, because (drum roll) that house is no longer there. That occupied a good chunk of our attention these past two weeks. Once the pest control and asbestos removal requirements were out of the way, it was just a matter of scheduling the equipment. The excavator showed up Tuesday afternoon, so we knew the next day was a go. Sure enough, by 7am the crew was there, and they began at 7:30. Two hours later they were done with the tear down. The remainder of the day and the next was removal of debris, and Friday was levelling and rolling the yard.

A friend suggested we do a time lapse on our IPhone, and it worked.  Two hours in twenty-four seconds. Unfortunately, I couldn't upload it here. Maybe on Facebook.  

We spent pretty much all day Wednesday in front-row seats watching. Mary's nieces and brother Timmy were here to keep us company, which made the emotions of the day a little easier. Each time the crew shut down work, we would all go over and scavenge a little, pulling out bricks and a few other items. Corrinne mentioned that there was a custom to put a horseshoe in the side of the house facing north. Sure enough, not one minute later, we found a horseshoe at the bottom of the cellar hole, and a little while after that, I found another one, just lying on the foundation. We will find a suitable place for them.

What comes next? Not sure. But, I do have a pollinator flower mix, and am contemplating a pumpkin patch, a grape arbor, some fruit trees, some evergreen trees. Any other suggestions?

We need to get David over here to help out with landscaping ideas. He, by the way, mentioned that the senior housing group he's involved with has moved on to their next housing project. Paula was out when we talked, as she was at a Habitat for Humanity meeting! 

A few months ago, I remember writing that if you hear the word norovirus, run the other direction.  Apparently, Johnny didn't run fast enough, and he was down for the count. Terrible sickness.

Annie and Sankar are back in India, after a few weeks away, in Japan and Taiwan. Here's a picture of their Diwali celebration. 

It's October which is birthday month, so we send our wishes to Claire, Billy, and Kathleen. Anyone else? I think I hit Janet and Johanna earlier, but just in case, Happy Birthday!

Love from up here.

  

 

 

Home again

We're home.  Barely. Joe and Leonor once told us TAP Airlines (the Portuguese company) is short for "take another plane."  And we did just that. But TAP also gave us a Marriott to stay in while waiting and a bunch of meal vouchers.  But we got in very late Sunday night, and decided to drive home from Newark. Seemed like a good idea at 11pm. We were both awake. Not such a good idea once on the Taconic Parkway with no motels anywhere near.

Unfortunately, the delay meant we were going to miss Luisa's baptism, since our plan was to arrive and head to DC for the ceremony the following day.  Joe, and the minister at the church, were nice to postpone the baptism until we could be there. That didn't stop the party though as Margaret and Andrew and Simon headed over to join the cousins at the party. Leonor's brother was also there.  Looked like fun. FOMO.

Seems like everyone in the family was hiking these past two weeks. We have Colorado photos of Bill and Jen and family in the woods; Annie and Sankar are off on 5-day hike in rural Japan (yes there is such a thing as trees in Japan); and Joe and Leonor headed out to West Virginia for a taste of the country. Everett got a close encounter with a bird of prey on his outdoor adventure. And, I may have this wrong, but it looked like Jeff and Melodie were in the Minnesota woods (and lakes.)

We did a lot of walking in Austria, but really only one hike in the woods, up a mountain near Innsbruck. We didn't go all the way up the mountain, but for a while it seemed that's where we were heading. We can now check off hiking in the Alps on our non-existent bucket list. Most of our walking, up to 10 miles a day, was around the beautiful towns and cities, checking out museums and shops, palaces and shops, churches and shops. And restaurants and coffee houses. Since we had walked so much, we mistakenly felt we could splurge.

Food in Austria turned out to be a highlight. From beer gardens to a civilized lunch on the Danube River. But there were other highlights as well. The views obviously; going down, into a mountain, to see the oldest salt mine in the world; the Klimnt exhibit at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna; the medieval fair we happened upon outside of Innsbruck; meeting up with my childhood friend Steve Bidwell who took us under his wing in his adopted hometown, Wien (German for Vienna.)  Lots of memories, lots of photos, and few extra pounds. Despite the walking.

Once again, we were not the only ones traveling. John and Marilyn were on a cruise, with Colleen and Laura, but they were back in time for Milton the hurricane. Fortunately, they had only a little flooding on their street as they waited out the 80-mile winds. I should mention that it was a hurricane (Leslie) that caused our 36 hour delay in Lisbon. Never heard of Leslie the hurricane? Neither had I, as it was stalled over the Atlantic, right on our flight path home.  (I may try to get the copywrite for changing the way we name hurricanes – from Hurricane Milton to Milton the Hurricane. Sounds so much more combative, like a pro wrestler.)

Speaking of sports, I bet there's some joy somewhere on the streets of Jersey with the Mets defying all odds and surging at the right time. Not much joy somewhere on the streets of Dundee as the Brewers lost again in round one. Maybe even some joy in Fairport with the Yankees.

Let's close out with a happy birthday wish to Janet. 

Love from back here where we belong.

 

Europa

Dateline Salzburg

I had every good intention to do a letter before September ran out but I've either lost track of the days or lost track of everything. We closed out our Portugal chapter and have moved on to our Austria adventure. 

I used to say that after three days in a new country you're an expert and after three years you're an idiot. So now I'm in the expert phase in Austria. We know why Andrew and Margaret loved this place 

It's such an odd pairing - Portugal and Austria. Warm, sunny vs cold, cloudy, rainy. Understanding a little of the Romance language in Portugal to being completely befuddled by German. Wine vs beer. Drought vs. floods. Fish vs sausage. Our pairing came about only because of travel companions, different in each place but it made sense for us to combine especially as the airlines gave us an additional stop for free. 

Both wonderful though. Some highlights:

• the butcher shop in Pinhao where we found the same butcher who was in a photo with Annie and Margaret eight years ago. He remembered us and showered us with free samples that led me to buy smoked sausages that have become my cologne on all my clothes.
• Lunch with Leonor's family. A long, lingering, outdoor affair. Everyone there except Sebastian who had just landed in DC and was with Joe and Leonor. Would've liked to spend more time but ….
• We had soccer games to go to. I think I'm done with European soccer leagues. I'll tell you later about the noise and the hooligan (playfully called ultras) gauntlet that I had to manoeuver through
• The walk through vineyards and wine tasting in Pinhao … the evening of Fado that ended with the 79-year-old soccer teammates singing Old Nassau on request from the crowd
• Should I mention our broken suitcase and repacking in the airport in a new costly one? No best leave that one out.

We met up with our Pittsfield friends yesterday at the airport and after a brief, costly panic at the car rental place, we were off to Salzburg. Next time we'll fill you in on this place.

We're not the only ones traveling. Annie and Sankar are making their way to Japan and sites nearby. Today they're in Singapore for a brief layover. And John and Marilyn are off on a cruise.

They managed to escape the worst of Helene on the east coast of Florida. But we have two sets of friends in Asheville who were hit hard, living through the devastation we all saw on tv, news feeds. Unbelievable. These disasters all seem remote until you know someone. I did check in with Rell but she's in Italy and missed whatever tore through Alabama.

Andrew and Lur hit the road as well, meeting up with a Lawrenceville friend in Wisconsin. They passed along this cute photo of Theo. Looks like Colorado agrees with him.

Today, we're going to have dinner and concert at the Salzburg castle. But to get there means a scary ride up a furnicular (fancy term for scary cable car/trolley). I'm pretty sure it won't be my last altitude encounter in the coming days.

So time to sign off with that scary thought.

Love from over here

Road Trip

We love a road trip, we have come to realize. Our second road trip of the year took us to see brothers and friends, and children and grandchildren. And a niece. You could say we packed it in.

It started with a stopover in Fairport. Over tea, we caught up with David and Paula, recounting the Poconos that they missed (sad face emoji here), health concerns, and gardening (their yard looks fantastic.) We went into East Rochester for a wonderful dinner. Over breakfast the next day, David filled us in on a commendable project he's been helping guide, senior housing with dozens of new units.

From there, we crossed through Canada to reconnoiter with Andrew and Lur in Midland, Michigan. My goal of getting a Tim Horton's double-double added 45 minutes or more to our trip, due to Canadian love for red lights. And the coffee wasn't even as good as I remember. Anyway, back to Midland, a town Lur had suggested as a midway point, which makes sense due to its name. We found our air b&b with some difficulty as it was in the middle of NOWHERE! But it was great. Turns out that Lur chose the town, not because of its catchy name, but because of the Dow Gardens there, which were really spectacular and worth the visit. Equally worthwhile was the cute town center, where we had lunch at Café Zinc, an uninformed choice that turned out to be excellent.

We headed east while Andrew and Lur turned west, since we wanted to spend a little time on Lake Huron, though the beach we found was technically on Saginaw Bay. We found a diner for lunch, and I mention that since I ordered a milkshake that came in one of those old-fashioned metal containers. Yum. Still dreaming of it.

And then up to Traverse City, on Lake Michigan, where a Peace Corps friend has a house. I had kind of heard of Traverse City before, but really only because he bought a house there. But, I should have heard of it. Cherry capital of the United States, with wineries (not vineyards there), a national park (Sleeping Bear Dunes), and shops and shops. So many shops that were not franchises, except for Orvis, which gives you a sense of the prosperity in that area. They even turned an old insane asylum (that's what it was called) into an indoor mall. We went hiking and Mary got to swim in Lake Michigan. I have to mention Cherry Republic, a store there that sells everything cherry, and has buckets of free samples. Someone spent a little too much time in front of the chocolate covered cherry bows.

Along the way, we decided to extend our trip by returning via Washington to catch up with Joe and family, and Margaret and family. We made it to Pittsburgh as a layover, where we discovered that this is a sports crazy town, fanatic over their home teams. When we left the hotel early the next morning, we discovered it was not quite early enough, as we were at the end of a long line of tailgaters who had arrived the night before for what we assumed was a college football game.

In Washington, we got our grandparent "fix," watching boys race around Sherman circle on bikes and scooter, and Luisa trying to avoid getting run over. I have to share John's question at supper that night, "What was the best thing that happened today?" Hard to choose.

The next day, I headed out, but Mary stayed on another night. My adventure took me to the sporting capital of the U.S., New York, where I had to avoid Giants football traffic and the US Open tennis final to get to Citifield to see a baseball game with Peter and Johanna, who wisely took public transport to get to Queens. It would have only been better if the Mets had beaten the Reds (but I wasn't complaining.)

Mary stayed on in DC and joined the crew for services the next day at our old church in Bethesda. It was hard to get the youngsters interested, but it sounds like the kind of church service I would have really liked at their age. They arrived as the congregation was singing the ending recessional, as they had changed the timing of the services for church picnic. So everyone went out and stayed for two hours, for food and bouncy house and playground. Later that day, Margaret came over to Joe's, as Andrew and Simon had headed up to his parents' house for the day.

A week has passed, and we have caught our breath, but only momentarily. We squeezed this road trip in before we head over to Portugal and Europe for three weeks.

One thing that the road trip made me remember is how big and diverse our own country is, how much each state has to offer that we've never heard of. But, we also know that the best road trips are the ones that take us through your home towns!

Love from up here.

Things Fall Apart

If there was a motto for the last few weeks, it would be "things fall apart."  Specifically, washing machine, lawn mower, blender, airplane schedules, and maybe a few other things, but fortunately not our spirits. And that has led as well to my retiring from retirement all over again.

For I have hired someone to mow our lawn. A big step, as Margaret said, life-changing. I actually like sitting on the machine and spacing out, but the new guy has come a couple of times, and the yard looks nice, maybe even nicer than before. My ride-on that I had bought used 5-6 years ago had broken down for the fourth time this summer. When the repair guy came, he asked me how old I was, one of the criteria he was suggesting for the choice of repair or buy another one. After recovering from that indignity, he had a point. And, as we were going to be gone for a few weeks coming up, I explored a lawn service. I didn't have to go far. There was a sign down the road that said "You grow it; I mow it." And now we have a lawn service. Too much information? Sorry.

I have another story about the washing machine breaking down, but I can't convince Mary to get a laundry service. So, waiting for the machine and the accompanying dryer has meant she has made several trips to the laundromat, and she is reenacting 19^th century laundry techniques of a clothesline. Fortunately, we bought the house next door, so there are trees close enough to hang a line, the same trees Mary's mother used.

Speaking of the house next door, we had two barbecues, one for the Boyle family and the other for friends, to come and see the house and take away any souvenirs they want. Both events were fun, and a number of items have been stripped and hauled away – spindles from porch railings, sconces, hinges, pencil sharpener, bottle opener, wall paper, shingles. We are just waiting now on the asbestos removal, that appears to be more extensive a project than originally thought.

As I write, Annie is on a plane somewhere between Washington and Chennai. Her original flight was canceled due to a bad storm in DC, but she's finally on her way. While in DC, she was able to get together with Jeff and Melodie (see photo.) Joe and Leonor also had the misfortune of a delayed flight, and they too were on their way to the airport when they found out, but they got to extend their vacation a couple of days. Hard to do with three young children.

Margaret and Andrew were here for almost two weeks, and we can report the good news that they didn't get the Covid that they found in the house when they arrived. Simon kept everyone busy, fun busy with marshmallows and water balloons and excursions to every playground in the area.

This week was back to school week, which means for Thomas it was first grade!  Wow. Exciting times and going too fast. Hoping that everyone else's back to school transitions went well. 

As soon as I stop writing, I'm going to finish packing for our road trip, that will take us to Fairport, Midland Michigan (where we'll see Andrew and Lur), on to Travers City to visit a Peace Corps friend, back to DC to check in there, up to NYC for a baseball game with Peter and Johanna and then home. I'm already tired, but it will be fun to see everyone.

Love from up here.    

Ice cream

Halfway through August, and there are hints of fall in the air.  It's a little chillier in the evenings and a few trees are looking orange. Too soon? Yes.

In fact, the first part of this month has been a bit of a blur. We were supposed to have a visit from John and Marilyn and then a Boyle family barbecue to say goodbye to the house next door, but Covid interrupted our plans. Mary was very sick, a little scary even. I had mild, cold-type symptoms, and Annie gave us the care we needed for a couple of days, until she got sick too, despite our sincere attempts at quarantining and masking. She was pretty sick with fatigue and cold symptoms.

None of this Covid household deterred Andrew and Margaret from making their way north. But the time they arrived, I was in the clear, but we continued our segregating efforts. So far, so good. Simon has a wee hint of a cough, but we hope that's just from all the exertion he puts forth every day, every hour, every minute.

Where are Joe and Leonor, you might ask? As far away from the Covid household as possible. Portugal, to be precise. They spent some time in Lisbon before heading out to a beach in the south. Everything looks fantastic. They're supposed to be coming home next week.

Annie had recovered enough to join Margaret in NYC for a play and an overnight. The play was about Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln to be exact. "Oh Mary." Pop might have been happy if it actually had anything to do with Lincoln. Annie and Margaret said it was very funny and worth seeing. Apparently, the playwright did no research at all on the Lincolns, and made everything up.

There was also a birthday, an August birthday, for Everett. Surely, it was a great day.

And, there was another birthday.  Herman Melville's.  August 1. It too was a great day, and I gave two talks, one at the library and one at the top of Mt. Greylock, and I only saw one person sleeping. Mary and I also participated in the annual Moby Dick marathon reading.

What do you do in the summer? Eat ice cream, so we have some ice cream pictures to share. I snuck one in of Kiernan eating fluff, but it looks enough like ice cream, and I'm pretty sure there was ice cream Everett on his birthday.

We've been swimming in the pool and in the lake, going to splash parks and playgrounds and the library, playing baseball and tennis, and doing projects around the house.

Speaking of the house, the permitting process for the demolition next door is moving along, as it has cleared three different city commissions. There's an asbestos removal component and then a pest control abatement, and then we're good to go. They sure don't make it easy.

The garden is producing a lot of cucumbers, and tomatoes are right around the corner. We can't eat the beans fast enough, and I'm not even sure I like beans that much. We gave away a lot of peaches, and I figured we split the harvest 50-50 with the squirrels. Andrew sent along a picture of his garden.   

And that's a wrap.  Enjoy the remaining days of summer.  Love from up here.