What if spring never came ? That’s what I found myself asking as I looked at the pieces of the half assembled  trampoline in our side yard.

This was Gabe’s big birthday present.. an item on the list since he and Sam were little.. but always rejected… rejected for what reason  ?  safety ? money ? aesthetics ? Anyway the ‘ you only go around once’ message is so deep in us at this point that we ordered the tramp  last week.  Most of it showed up this  morning.. we were so excited.. we knew that Gabe would be psyched.. unfortunately  there were at least two big problems: First.. there were no springs. Evidently the box of springs was misplaced somewhere between here and Gonzales Texas.. They’re looking for the box.. but no sign of it yet. yet. Second.. the thingy’s on the frame don’t quite fit in the dealies on the rest of the frame.. with mismatched dealies and thingy’s there’s no way to assemble the tramp frame. We called the company and they explained that they thought they had had problems with non-spec  thingies . They’re reshipping a box of new thingy’s the estimated arrival time s this Sat.. , . Overall this is not a major setback.. but it was disappointing.. Gabe took it all in stride.. but I  figured that the trampoline would be my blog topic for this evening.. guess I’m out of luck.

    Trampoline problems aside.. it was a pretty quiet day. It started out when we found these aliens sleeping on our lawn in their weird spacecraft. We made peace with them

,.. I quickly got pulled into several early morning phone calls.. then ran off to my  Reiki/Massage session with Marci.. it was great as usual

. I feel this is somehow keeping me more balanced. Don’t ask me how or why it works.. it just does. When I came out of Marci.. I saw Diane’s car parked outside Pat’s yoga studio.. which shares a driveway with Marci’s.. I quickly created a rock and weed valentine for Diane.

. I then walked back to my car to find this stuck under my wiper blade. Great minds think alike. No ?

After Marci I had time for a short lunch stop at the new On the Rise down near the park. I’m so proud of Ben and Rachel for taking this from dream to reality so quickly and completely. The place is absolutely beautiful. It was great seeing Rachel Jane and Judy on my visit.. I really recommend the Tempeh sandwiches with jalapeno sauce.. yum !

   I went from there to a really busy day of phone and face to face meetings. By 6, I was beat.  I got home in time for me to Gabe and drive him up to his end of season Lacrosse party in Jericho..

We got there to find that we’d forgotten the big plate of brownies that Diane had made for us to bring.. good thing.. as there were already 7 plates of uneaten brownies. Gabe begged me to go and buy something else.. . I went and picked up some doughnuts ant the Jericho General store… I’m proud to say that every last one of them was eaten. .. Now .. the Jericho General Store is worth it’s own blog entry  at some  point..  It was a pretty interesting mix between grocery/convenience store and gun store .. only in Vermont.   I did find this poor guy hiding out behind the cold cuts.. Looks like he has a price on his head !

   After the Lacrosse party, Gabe ad I came home. He Max and I decided to try out an idea that Homer had given me today. I’d told homer about how to swing  burning steel wool around your head to make a giant sparkler.. This weekend Homer and friends and improved on that idea by taping a wad of fine steel wool to the bottom of a Frisbee , lighting it and throwing it.. Its very dangerous as it shoots fire everywhere.. but it’s also very. Very cool… remember kids, don’t try this at home without a responsible adults.. (and that generally means Mom !). Here’s a still picture of the path.. and here’s a move.. very cool to see live.

   Hope you saw it sam.. love to all, gnite !

-me

 

 

 

Diane, Chai  and I took a run this morning as we often do…This time I brought my camera to show everyone how beautiful it is with the Phlox in bloom.

 

Here’s where I always write Sam’s name in the ground at the ed of the trail

The veiw of Robbin’s Mutnain from the trail

Chai’s first beach.. she always drinks here..

Downwatd dog on the beach

Wet dog on the beach

Almost home !

My work day was pretty standard.. lots of meetings, lots of emails. Lots of pressure.. nothing too new. I was passably  productive.  I did have to leave around 530 in order to catch Diane’s 6PM yoga. Class was great today.. it was really hot in the barn which made everyone’s muscles that much looser. It was a good workout.

 As I left the barn after yoga I was very surprised to find that Sam’s Mayan Glyph stone  was missing. ! In it’s place was this smaller rock with the word ‘Peace’ etched in it and one of the original SamStones.. I was pretty stunned… where’d it go ? It must weigh 350 pounds… Why was this new rock here ? 

Diane came out and explained that our friend Chris C.  the stone mason that etched the rock,  had picked it up to add Sam’s name in the back. We’d planned to do that around Christmas.. but then things lead to things, the ground froze.. life moved on and we never got around to it. Coincidently I was talking  with Chris’s mom on Saturday and she must have asked Chris to do it. Very nice family..

Just as I was hearing this story, my friend Dave shoed up for our guys night out. Dave and I had been trying to find time to catch up over a beer for some time.. We went to the ‘Hen of the Wood’ in Waterbury.. the place used to be the ‘Mist Grill’.

This place was really good. Excellent food.. great setting.. really good   live music. I highly  recommend it. I had a great time talking to Dave about life, families, Sam, my work, his work, friends and everything else. We had a very helpful conversation about some o fmy ideas for scaling up the education outreach work I’m doing. Dave’ s a very wise  and far thinking guy.. I’m very glad he’s so generous with his time

I got home around 10:30 ad found Max at the computer… I showed him this cool YouTube link that my mother sent me today called ‘Women in Art‘… Watch it and you can get Art History credit.. isn’t this cool?

In  a similar vein.. my own local artisan’s had bene experimenting some more with Mary’s MacBook.. here are their masterpieces.. Enjoy !

Beautiful !Gnite all.. gnite Sam..

-me

Great day-after-birthday day. I rolled out of bed at around 8:30 to find the house still full of kids.. about 8 of Gabe’s friends had spent the night and about 4 of Max’s had too.. though no one really looked like they had slept…

Gabe’s posse had decided to attempt the same river raft expedition that Devon and friends had done yesterday. They put a slightly different twist on it by lashing the canoe and the kayak to the raft to form a catamaran of sorts.. They shlepped the stuff down to the river in pieces than tied the crafts together.. they had 9 kids on board It was pretty funny to see.    They managed to make Richmond in just over 2 hours.. not too bad with the low/slow  water.  Might be because they had a cooler of Red Bull with them ?

    Around midday I caught up with my friend Sandy who was down in Houston for our 30^th High School reunion. She gave me a quick run down of who showed up… hair quantities and color.. and a few stories about folks.. She had been my proxy for the event and handed out some info including this blog and the SamStones website.  I’ve already heard from my friend Mer  which is very cool. Sandy is going to bring me the email list from the event  I’m looking forward to connecting up with a few old friends  I want to tell them about our lives up here.. about Diane, my kids.. about Sam.. . about Vermont.. it’s so very different than where I grew up. 

    After I talked to Sandy I went out to help Diane, Scott , Mary working in  the gardens. We spent several hours mulching which is a job I love.. It gives you an instant sense of accomplishment.

Diane has opted for much for flowers than vegetables this year.. and already the yard  is alive with color. The flowers are so bright and life affirming. I love it.. Here are some of the flowers she already has growing here:

   Late afternoon we all decided to do one more family thing for Gabe’s birthday. We all piled in the car and headed out for a dinner and a movie. First we stopped at Moe’s Burritos to harass our friend and roommate Mary ..  really like Moe’s.. .. everyone there is  programmed to say “Welcome to Moe’s” whenever anyone comes in the shop..  You can mess with them by standing there opeening and closing the door.  Mary looked quite professional rolling those burritos (burriti ?)

After a good dinner we headed next store to Starbucks to see  Elsa.

It’s fun having both of our good friends working so close so that we can torment them both. 

From there we headed  to the Majestic to catch Shrek III. It was really wonderful.. technically it’s amazing to see how far computer graphics has come.. I spent the whole time staring at the texture of things like Shrek’s shirt, trees and clouds just amazed at the compute effort required to do that.. I loved the pot.. but won’t give it away.. One thing I will say is that this movie has a new character , Merlin, voiced by Eric Idle from Monty Python… Merlin is me… even down to the Birkenstocks with socks (though I rarely do that anymore)

   We got back home in time for a little light up Frisbee

then we all headed off to bed.. everyone was exhausted.. I think none of us got more than 5 hours of sleep over the last several nights.. It’s nice to be this tired… It was a great long birthday weekend for Gabe.

Happy birthday my son. gnite all !

 

-js

 

ps.. Phoebe  P. got curious about the recurring theme of the nautical star in Meghan’s guitar, Kyle’s tattoo and her own drawn on Tattoo from Staurday… Sh figures that anything that’s occurring that often has some meaning.. Here’s what she dug up.

 

…  the nautical star tattoo…  would be a symbol of guidance. Now as time has passed the nautical stars represent the direction of one’s life, for those of us who are not sailors but still need guidance.  Some say that if the nautical star is pointed upwards they have a higher outlook on life and so on.  The meaning of the Nautical star is to create your own path, but use the stars as a guide when you are lost or scared.

 

I like that meanng

 

 

Today is  Gabe’s 12^th birthday and it was a really fun and full day. Everyone was awake early and ready to get on with the parties .  I woke up determined to help make this a day completely about Gabe… We started by wrapping Gabe’s presents in our traditional  family style using towels, shirts and socks… preferably clean.

We all gathered around the pile downstairs then summoned Gabe to come down.. The first thing that Gabe opened was a box with a slip of paper in it… with a picture of the trampoline that is somewhere in route between Texas and here.

Gabe was so psyched ! He always has wanted a ‘tramp … and we finally gave in.. .Sam always wanted one too.. I think/hope he’d be happy that Gabe is getting one now. Gabe also got a digital camera since he’s always borrowing mine

      After the booty was all unwrapped we retired to the kitchen for the first cake of the day.. Casey and Chris  had slept over the night before… so we already had 6 in the house.. just as Gabe was blowing out the candles another 5 people showed up… Scott, Justin. Julia, Nate, Devon and a Blond kid I’d never met.. That brought the first party up to about 12 folks..

After Cake,   I helped Devon and his friends re-rig the ‘Spirit of Captain Sam’ the raft that we used in pond skimming at Bolton a few months back. We’d taken off the skis and now relashed the intertubes to the platform that Sam had built last year. I built them a new flag pole and we raised the colors.. (note the Sam pin on the flag). The boys took the raft down to the Winooski and launched under the bridge. I think it took them about 4 hours to make it to Richmond.. looked like a very cool adventure..  

 

    A little bit after than. Gabe got ready for Lacrosse. Diane took him, Chris and Casey up to St. Albans for three games today.. I stayed home and prepped for the party tonight.

I spent several hour cleaning the house and yard in order to let the kids mess it up tonight J.   I still have a sore  throat .. but  my fever had broken so I slipped out and took a great run up in the woods up the old long trail and down some of the old logging roads.. it was a lot of climbing which felt good. Gabe and Diane got home around 5. As soon as they got home the guys called from the park to ask me to come fetch the raft. I got down there to find that there was a big concert going on. The concert was called . ‘Heiferpatwoza’ because it was a benefit for the Hiefer foundation (http://www.heiferfoundation.org/)  that uses donations to buy livestock for folks around the world who need them .   :It looked like all my favorite music was there  Skanky Green, Kevin, Erin B. Lara H… but I couldn’t stay.. we were expecting the next wave of folks at home for Gabe’s birthday

The kids helped me load the raft into the car .. We had to stick the flag out the sunroof.

Before I drove off I took a quick peek into the new home of ‘On the Rise’   down by the park. It looks so wonderful in there. When I walked in Ben motioned me behind the counter and showed me how they’d cemented a SamStone on the upper right of the brick oven they built.. He told me there’s another one deep inside the chimney. That is just so wonderful !

    I got home just as kids and parents were starting to show up for Gabe’s party .. I think there were about 40 folks here around dinner.. Diane and Max grilled hamburgers, hotdogs, veggie dogs and veggi  burgers while I just sat like  a veggie myself and drank beer with Dave K and Deb.. It was pretty nice.. The kids had a blast too.. lots of folks in the pool, paying Frisbee and running around…  One thing I noticed is that lots of the kids had painted parts of their bodies at the concert today.. here are a few samples.

 

This is Abbot’s black and whte tatoo that was colored with face paint

This is the same design on Meghan’s guitar and on Kyle’s leg !

 

Around dark we sang happy birthday again and ate the second and third cakes for the day. (Note Max’s tasteful decoration of his brothers cake.. )

 

After cake we lit a fire in the back yard and sat around and talked. Some friends of ours had brought some great fireworks which we set off in honor of Gabe.

They were some of the best store bought fireworks I’ve ever seen ! I also took the opportunity to write Gabe’s name in Magnesium ribbon and burned that..

We also burned off some of the leftover ;rock candy’ smoke bomb material I made for last weekends mythbusters movie sequence..

Boys and fire… what could be sweeter ?

 

Once things calmed down Diane and I took a walk to the sandpit to watch the stars It was a beautiful night.. so we did a little catching up with Sam.. we both needed that after this long and happy day…

   Well.. tit’s 1:30 and there are at least 8 kids spending the night tonight The house is peaceful and quiet.  Which  means something must be  up.. I’ll sign off now and go check. Happy Birthday Gabe from all of us. We love you !

-me