Diane was already up and around when I woke up this morning.. no surprise there.. I ewnt down and wished her a happy birthday.   There was bright sunlight streaming in the windows and it felt so much like Spring !  As soon as I was properly awake I started in on the crepes.. Crepes have been  the celebratory breakfast meal in our house since I can remember. I remember my mom making them for us when I was little..  I knew there were several spare kids in the house, so I doubled the recipe and started crepe-ing out.. Diane cut up the fruit.. Both Max and Gabe surfaced early and by about 9:30 we were ready for breakfast.. That’s normally still the middle of the night around here on weekends.   We sat down to the breakfast feats and lit a candle for Sam to welcome him into the celibration of Diane’s birthday.. Everyone felt pretty good.

As soon as the breakfast dishes were clear,  Diane took Gabe and his friends to go walk around Richmond.. then she came back and she, Chai and I hopped in the car and went down to the Catamount Ski Trail entrance about 2 miles down Duxbury road.. We figured the forest road there would be sunny and clear.. Sunny yes.. clear no.. there was still anywhere from 6″ to a foot of snow on the road. It was heavy and sticky stuff.. so it was slow going.. but   the sun was out and so were we.. It was wonderful.. Cha had rolled in something pretty nasty yesterday.. so getting her out in the fresh air seemed like a doubly good thing to do. 

   After our hike, we all met up at the house again for birthday peasants and cake.   It was a nice quiet birthday celebration. As always, we wrapped the presents in towels and socks..   saves on wrapping papers.

Diane got some nice stuff.. including an Ipod for her yoga music from the three of us .that Gabe had picked out.  Max had also made Diane a replacement for one of a set of earrings that Sam had made for Diane..   I gave Diane something from Sam that I’d had made in Shanghai a few weeks ago. This guy had a little stand where he copied pictures onto polished rock I lent him my Sam picture button . It was so cool watching him make this by hand. using only a hand punch and a soft hammer..

   When it was time for cake we invites Scott, Adrianna, and Jeff in to have come on in and join us..  Diane wanted 5 candles in her cake,. I think that’s going to be our new tradition going forward.

    The middle of the afternoon we all just hung out.. Diane started reading  some of the books she’d gotten for her birthday. Gabe and I spent some time working on our pond skimming set up for next week and Max and his friends worked on a music video they’re making for a contest.. It was all pretty peaceful..   Several friends dropped by or called to wished Diane a happy birthday.. It was really nice. Jeff D brought a crocus that had just bloomed, Jen brought some SamStones and a cool vase she’d made.

Maureen had made her some bath salts. Sumner brought buy a hat he’d knit  for Diane..

I know she felt loved.

Around 5:30 Diane, , Chai and I took Gabe up to BRMS for Lacrosse practice.   On the drive we saw a home made  sign in Jericho Center that said ‘Coming Soon: A brand new McDonald’s ‘… which shocked us for a second.. until we realized that today was also April Fools!.. While Gabe  was at practice, , Diane, Chai and I took anther walk at the Jericho park. There were lots of dogs there for Chai to say hi to.. It was great being outside again When we walk, Diane and I talk about all sorts of things.. Today we talked about expectations.. and how it’s so easy to put so much weight on a day like a birthday.. or how easy it is to put expectations on ourselves, how are kids are doing , etc. .    At this point we’re up, around and even enjoying ourselves sometimes..   we figure that’s pretty good. Diane is such a wonderful, wise  person..

   Gabe got out of practice around 7:45 and we headed in to Joyce’s for a birthday dinner. Max and Scott met us there and we had  wonderful  Chinese food for dinner. Gabe reminded us that we’d gone to Joyce’s for Sam’s 14hth birthday and even thought we were late for a movie they wouldn’t let us leave until they’d made him a special desert (fried ice cream)  as a surprise..   Tonight was less hectic.. we enjoyed our food and then placed a SamStone in one of the plants at the restaurant..

   We got home around  9:30 and realized we still had a ton of stuff to do tonight.. Diane and I worked on a new version of a Sam T-Shirt that Hannah D. is going to help us get printed.   We’re using a great picture of Sam and some artwork that he made.. I think they’ll be great. I’ll let everyone know when they’re ready.. Gabe and Diane then went to sleep . Diane had had a very good birthday.. I was really  happy about that…

I was thinking of going to bed myself when  I realized I had to get our Tax prep together for tomorrow. .. I spend about 2 hours doing that… which brought up so many memories from last year..   How many dependents do I have ?   It’s just one of the many things that remind us each day of you Sam…

 -jc

It’s a sleepy Saturday around the Cohn-Mariano compound. The boys are off hanging with friends Diane’s having a pre-birthday tea with her friend Kathy and I’ve just woken up from the 3rd (!) of my naps on this sunny warm day. Life doesn’t get any slower or more peaceful…  It’s just what we need now..

    Last night  was a bit more active. We had a pot luck up at Tim and Jen’s  in honor of Diane’s birthday. She generally does not like a big deal made of her birthdays so it was  relatively small.. The food theme last night was Thai food and it was amazing. there were some many  exotic and spicy dishes..    This is the 3^rd or so of themed potluck’s we’ve tried and it’s been really fun   trying to  learn a little different ethnic cooking.. I think we’re going to try Brazilian next..

    After dinner we did the birthday cake thing then sat down to make SamStones..

So far we can’t make them fast enough. I’ve been  doing my best to keep track of the places folks leave them.. please check let me know if you know where one is that I don’t yet have on my map) .. In addition to SamStones making.. Diane taught a short That massage course to some of the folks there.. here they are giving each other back and neck massages.. it was fun to watch…

Another funny thing from last night was Jamal. Jamal is a computerized fake baby that gets passed around to the kids in the health class at Mount Mansfield HS. It was Kevin’s turn to be Jamal’s ‘dad’.. and we all ‘helped’ .. Jamal does many things a real baby does ie: he needs to be changed , fed and rocked.. and .. he cries at odd hours, of the night at high volume. He’s got a small recording computer inside that t measures the time it took for each need to be met.. and it measures things like vibration (no shaking !).. and head support.  This allows the teachers to figure out how attentive each ‘parent’ was.. and assign them a grade.   I think the idea is to help kids understand how big a responsibility it is to be a parent..  It’s so annoying that it’s also a pretty potent ‘responsible dating’ message that would put even the most maternal or paternal kid I know off the idea of childrearing anytime soon. It was a hoot watching Kevin attend to this thing.. many times during the evening  it started wailing and  he had to go an ‘feed’ it.. change it.. etc.. At one point late in the evening Hannah T and I figured it was going too well. We decided to help by painting Jamal’s face with a bunch of make  up then spanking it  and running away..   Kevin came running to clean him up.. he’ll make a good dad someday.. but he’s got to work on that neck hold..

We didn’t get home until after 1.. we all were beat and slept well. This morning Diane woke me up early (8:30  and we drove down to  Charlotte to see our friend Jill, Jill and her 2 dogs, Diane, Chai and I then took a beautiful and leisurely walk up Mt. Philo.. My Philo is really more of a high  hill which  sticks out of the flat valley floor. Form the top there was a gorgeous view of the Adirondacks on one side and the Green Mountains on the other.. The prettiest part of the view, though, was Diane.

We also saw some friendly tree spirits on our walk

Not much else happened after that..  I  came home  and kept falling asleep.. I’m still pretty wiped out from my case of plague this week. I did manage to wake myself long enough to go down and pick Gabe. Trevor  and Ian up from talent Skate Park . Gabe had gone down there to get trucks and wheels mounted on the ‘Sam Forever’ deck that Paul, Dave and I had made using Paul’s laser. It’s an amazing looking board now.

   Hey.. I hear Diane downstairs.. so I’m going to wrap up. Her real birthday is tomorrow.. Please send her some love. These events are all so bitter sweet for us now…The love our friends really helps with the ‘sweet’ .. We’ll look for you tomorrow Sam..

 
-jc

Folks…

     I’m at a small Samstones gathering that we’re having in honor of Diane’s Birthday. I snuck away for a second as not to miss a day here.. I have some pictures of the event that I’ll post either later tonight or tomorrow. 

    One quick thing in case I don’t have a chance to blog more tonight. Wendy broaght over a book on Dream Interpretation that she found at that great library of knowledge, Cosco. The book is pretty fun because they link everything in your dreams to soem concept in life… (“asparagus” == youth, “dump trucks” == dumping things from your life.. now that’s deep…).. Anyway.. she brought it out to analyze my ‘forest people’ dream.. Here’s the secret code:

– Mushrooms (what the people were floating on) – good that comes from bad

– Plaid (what the people were wearingin) – input from many sources

– Basements (where the poeple were floating around) – your deep subconcious

– Floating ( what the mushrooms were doing) – an aimless spirtual path

– Backhoes (what the people were hiding from) – the need to dig deeper in your subconcious

By this scholarly reading I am either a) working subconsiously on integrating a bunch of lessons in order to synthesize them into some great learning or b) I need to be vary wary of introspective backhoes…

OK… gotta get back to the gathering.. more later.. or more tomorrow… gnite folks, g’nite Sam.

-jc

   Short post as it’s late and I need to get to sleep. Today was a very ‘public’ kind of day .I ended up walking around work more often than usual which brought me into contact with many folks I hadn’t seen in a while…. Likewise the family and I went  to a play at the high school after work. In both cases  I absolutely loved seeing everyone.. I just wish they couldn’t see me.. or rather.. I sometimes wish that they wouldn’t see me as somehow different and changed. I guess I don’t get to choose that right now.   It’s just such a strange change for me being the social person I was… and still somehow am.

   Another thing that happened to me several times today was ”bloglog’… That’s  when I meet people and they start   asking me questions about stuff in my life that I just  can’t figure out how they know.. E.g. I had 20 people ask me if I was feeling better..   (how’d they know I was sick ?) .. or  people asking about my trip.. or about something the kids did .. The first few times it happens I get one of those weird ‘twilight zone’ feelings.. . then I realize they’re picking up pieces of my life through this blog.  My wonderful friend and admin Jleigh actually  read the blog to figure out how much work I can shoulder and adjusts my schedule accordingly.. It took me a long time to catch on how my workload seemed to automatically adjust to my mood (Thank you Jleigh !)  I love that people care to read this.. at the same time,  it’s a weird skew where folks know all sorts of tiny details of my life.. yet I’m completely out of touch with their lives.. Maybe everyone should send me a really newsy letter every so often with things that are going on in their lives so I can stay even with  everyone..

   If you are curious, between 200 and 500 people read this blog every day.. Tonight is pretty typical with abut 300 hits so far.  I noticed last night that I’d gotten over 40,000 total hits on this blog since I started keeping it..That’s amazing to me.

   I  get asked very often about why I’m even doing this blog. I’ve given this a bunch of thought the last few days….  as writing is actually something I really don’t normally enjoy  doing at all. (to be truthful.. I hate it). The best I can say is that it forces a discipline on me to take time at the end of everyday to stitch together what has happened to me over the past day and make sense of it. In the early days after Sam’s death this was an essential part of my sanity.. everything was so jumbled together that blogging gave em a chance to tease out the meaning in everything that was happening.. Now it’s more of a healing process.. sort of like knitting.. or knife throwing.. something to unwind with at the end of each day.  If  I’m lucky, I can also use it  to  help tease some lesson out of each day. 

   Ack.. I’ve just  written about writing.. one of the most lame literary  devices one can use.. Ackkkkk I’ve just written about writing about writing… Oh no… now I’ve written about writing abut writing about writi………..  oh.. Gnite sam !

-jc 

ps. Our friend Karey drew this picture a few years back. She sent it to us becuase it reminded her of Sam and the SamStones.. Thanks Karey… (did I already post this ?)