Saturday Night – Mather’s day eve

What a beautiful day… I  managed to stay outside nearly the entire day. I began the morning by starting the long process of getting the pool  ready.. As I sat there elbows deep in the icy water, it was hard to believe that in a few short weeks kids would be splashing around in the pool. Diane bought a a new sand filter.. and I spend many hours staring ant the users manual trying to figure out which hose led where and why. I think  I’m happiest when I’m halfway through a complicated project like that.   

   As we worked on the pool , Jen and Deb stacked carloads of junque on tables in our front yard as part of the town wide garage sale.. I’m proud to say that I did not buy a single thing today..  


    There was a steady stream of people coming through the house today.. some came to tell Diane that they were thinking of her as mother’s day approached.. others came to kibbutz at the garage sale.. and still others came to play music.. there were several bands practicing in the barn.. while various groupies, roadies and other hanger’s on  played video games, hung out on the steps, cooked, etc. I absolutely love that our house has become a music destination for everyone.. it makes the place so alive.. what’s even better is that all the bands that are currently using the place are really good. Black Night Vengeance had a live gig tonight at the Oddfellows hall  in Burlington. Max is there.. I can’t wait to hear how it went.  Here’s Nate playing Sam’s guitar.

    At late morning, Max, Gabe and I ran a pre-mother’s day errand at the nursery.. it was fun doing this yearly ritual.. though we really missed Sam.. I felt him right there with us.

As soon as we were back from the nursery we had to leave for Lacrosse.. a bunch of the kids around the house decided  to go with us.. we all piled into two cars and headed for Essex.   Gabe’s team won one, lost one and tied one. Gabe had a good day.. he scored 4 goals.. he looked like he was having fun out there . I had fun doing absolutely nothing lying there in the gorgeous sunshine.. what a life.

Marie

Here’s Ian

Trevor

Matt

Nate

   I came home just a bit early to finish up the pool. I had ot let some glue joints dry so I helped Marie paractice for her chemestry class project on Monday using Liguid nitrogen,

After that, I started working on a mothers day project for Diane.. Welding is one of the most therapeutic activities I know of.. by the time I was finished I was completely relaxed..  The kids were all off at friends so Diane and I had a quiet Indian dinner by ourselves..    

    Diane reminded me that we had to check our genetic results online. Last fall we both gave cheek cell samples as part of the Genographic project which National Geographic  and IBM are cosponsoring. We typed in the serial numbers of each of our kits. Diane’s analysis had been run on her mitochondrial DNA  which shows her maternal genetic line through history  (women can do either nuclear of mitochondrial DNA, men can just do nuclear). Her data showed that she was of haplogroup U which makes up about 10 % of people in southern Europe and the mideast  as well as some groups in Scandinavia.   It’s also very high in the ‘Roma’ or gypsy groups.. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_U_(mtDNA))   This is pretty interesting becaue Diane’s mother’s family is German/English from all anyone knows..  I think Diane’s mom Marcia is going to find this pretty interesting !  Here’s a map of Diane’s female ancestors.

 
    I was haplogroup J2.. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron)  which is a common marker among Ashkenazik Jews like me. In fact,  I read that the J haplogroup is one of the markers of the Cohanim.. the Jewish High priest caste.. and the source of my last name.. Cohn == Cohen = Priest in Hebrew..   What this tet says is that my name does in fact come from my family caste over 5000 years ago.. pretty cool, no ?  Here’s my map.. and a short part of my gene map

   Yikes.. it’s late. I need to go get my sleep. I’ve promised to be Diane’s gardening slave tomorrow in honor of mother’s day.. Oh Mother’s day.. this is going to be bittersweet..    Please send Diane your love tomorrow.. it really helps.. Sam, we’ll be thinking of you !

-dad

 ps. for those of you who might be interested. this blog just had it’s 50,000th viewing this evening.