Looks like a very quiet end of the year… Max and a bunch of his friends took off this morning  to celebrate New Years in NYC at his apartment..   It will be the first time we’re not all together as a family.. well.. of course that’s not true.. it will be our 3rd new year since Sam’s passing.. We still look for ways to bring Sam into our observances.  Max is taking a little of Sam’s ashes down to NY with him.. that what’s in the bag he’s holding in this picture.  Our world is so surreal now..

Speaking of surreal / I hope folks got a chance to see the new cresent moon and Jupiter together in the Western sky.. it was beutiful.. The picture they made has special significance to me .. I treminds me of an image that came to me during hypnosis (see blog entry for feb 20, 2007)

Not much happened during the middle of the day.. I spent most of the time workign on my ISSCC presentation.. with a short time out to do a Reiki session with Marci.  That was very regenerating. It made me realize thta i’d hit that magic spot in my vacation that myt mind was truly empty… I was not thinking about work.. or things I needed or wanted to do. I was at that perfect place between boredom and inspiration that allows for any possibility. I feel more positive and motivated than I’ve felt for a good long while. I think it’s time that I start thinkign about some bigger life intention again.. but.. at the same time I don’t want to move out of the present moment awareness I’ve gotten too.. another balance…

I’m ready for a new year

Tonight we spent a few nice hours at our friends Gina and Bills.. It was their 19th anniversary. Ann and Keith were theere as well as  Bill and Gina’s freinds Ben and Clari from Boston.  We ate cheese fnue and told funny stories about weddings, camping, disucssed the burton playboy snowboard ‘scandal’ talked about books and ate like kings.. It wsa a great night///

  I spent a few hours this morning welding up a picture frame for the acrylic on wood painting that Max’s old roommate Dave did for him right after sam’s passing. It’s a heavy piece. but we didn’t want to block it with a frame. I created a simple steel  frame that holds it from the back. It was nice to hav e a chance to play with fire.

It was a good party. lots of folks I knew.  ..   and lots more latke.. I swear I can’t eat another until next year…

Lots of condiments too.. whic to me is the most important part..

we all stopped ot light the candles. Aretha did the honors and we all sung the blessings..

It’s a cool house with a slide for quick egress  to the down stars.. as Max is about to demonstrate here.

Naturally this party had to end with ice cream.. about 20 flavors

OK.. I’ exhasted and votta sleep.. More tomorrow.. Nite all.. Nite Sam !
-me

Nice dayy.. record setting warm weather.. ti was nearly 60 degrees at a time where we often have our coldest weather.. it could be 80 degrees colder next week.  Diane, the dogs and I took advantage of the warm weather to take a hike up Catamount Trail.. the snow was deep enough to be slow walking.. but not deep enough to need snowshoes. We were both down to tshirts abotu 5 min into the walk.. it felt lieke spring.. and we’re less than a week into winter !

About 5 we all cleaned up and headed over to Hannah and Daves for our second-to-last hanukah party.
They had ther friend Toby and Mark and their kids and Adj and Andrew and thier kids. We had the four of us as well as Abbott and Jessie.   Hannah and Dave have a great christmas tree too.. I loved their ‘star’ a Sam ornament.. !  It was wonderful to see it up there ..

Diane and Hannah went to work heating and frying latkes.. we had normal ones and sweet potatoe ones.. both great.

Yummmmm

Meanwhile, Dave and I tried our experiment with Sufganiot, the fried jelly filled donoughts that folks soemtime eat on hannukah. Diane had made soem yeasted dough for us.. we took Lindt chocolate balles

 

and wrapped them in the dough ,

Before dinner we lit the candles and said the blessings… Adah and Ava did the candle part..  They were so cute !

Gabe is cute too ..

Then it was tiem to eat.. I don’t know if I can look at another latke…  at least until tomorrow night.

Right after dinner I Skype called Deb and the guys in Peru.. they wanted to say hi to all of the crew.. we had a camera with us as well.. it was great talkign to them.. it was really like being in the same room. This technology is so great….   I wish we could use Skype at work

Right after that Adah stole my amrea and went aroudn taking pictures for awhile lots of pictures of the floor and cieling.. but she did get this flattering one of me.

Hannah had just baugth a banjo for 5 bucks at a garage sale..but no one knew how to play one.. Max hs never even touched a banjo.. but picked it up and started playing a pretty passible version of dualing banjos… by swapping back and forth between dave’s guitar and the banjo.. Who knew ?!

OK.. that was today.. gotta sleep now.. I’ve still got the bug that I caugth last weekend on the way back from Endicott. I need to sleep it off.. Oh.. one last hing. Here’s the movie that Gabe made for Max as a present.. He said I could post it..

OK freinds.. Happy last night of Hannukah.. nite all. Nite Sam
-me

Today was unexpectedly quiet.. by the middle of last week we new of no fewer than four places we had to be and things we had to do today.. but one by one, they fell off our calendar.. the biggest one, Jingle rails, the rail jam for Sam that Ralph is organizing was postponed until next week due to the rain.Another event, a party is actually this coming Monday.. and another party was called on account of a stomach bug.  In the end we just stayed inside out of the rain and cleaned the house. We still had two room that were not quite usable since the big painting project.. We manged to empty out and clean the upstairs guest room.. and the downstairs  ‘toy room’…. The toy room was packed with knickknacks that Diane had carefully taken down, cleaned, wrapped and stored when we painted this fall. Now what to do with all that cr-p ? It took us hours to go through and figure out what stayed, what we could give away and what we had to keep. Every cleaning job now is both cathartic and emotional. kid’s artwork, pictures.. you can imagine…in the end we were actually able to dig through and see the floor.. By evening that room is usable again.. actually.. all the space in our house is usable now.. and that’s a whole lot of space !

We had a few visitors today. jack. jessie. pat who was in from Japan.. the skanky green guys, Jonathon from down the street. My dinner time there were 6 of us.. I cooked

Around 8 we decided to brave the wet roads and go hear Skanky Green at On The Rise. They put on a great show and the place was packed. The house was full of the bands fans, friends and family.. which are all good friends of ours. It was so wonderful hearing good live music and being surrounded by all these people we like.. We really do live in a wonderful place..

As the show wound down. the guys did the song they wrote for Sam.. ‘Captain Sam’.. It always makes me choke up.. I love hearing them sing it.. Here’s a rough recording of them.. Abbot made a real recording which I can post later…