Monday evening – last two days

OK… I have a few days of pictures/stories in backlog due to my late arrival last night. Let me start on Saturday night… puppy day.. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful day..   can’t remember the last time the skies were so blue.. the twilight was like one of those Magritte paintings of the darkening sky,,,

Inside the puppy was having her 2nd meal at home.. She’s a slow and deliberate eater… the only one in our house, I think.

A gaggle of neighborhood kids were up sledding and came down to googoo over the puppy. It was Rose’s birthday.. She’s the one in the middle with the pink headband.

That’s when the evening took a mysterious turn.. While we were eating dinner someone or something stared banging on our windows,,, the something was giggling like a bunch of girls..  like Sydney and scout kind of laughing… We went out to find them, but they had arraigned for a getaway car !  

A few minutes later the girls called the house and invited Gabe, Will and Austin up to hang out at Sydney’s..    They came home around 11 pm and went straight to sleep … coincidently.. just as they went off to sleep… three mysterious ninjas showed up..

As well as their aged Ninja master,,,  

silently they drove up the hill to Sydney’s house.. and sprung a suprise attack…

Then ran back to base..   Sydney and friends didn’t know what had hit them..

It’s too bad Gabe and his friends missed all the excitement.. I had to tell them all about it the next mornign when they woke up !  When they did wake up, it as another absolutely brilliant day.. The puppy’s first mrning in Jonesfille. She hd a great time jumping around on the snow.

Around midday Diane and I took Gabe and his buds up to Bolton.. then Diane Chai., Puppy X and I went down to take a walk at Little River.. There were lots of folks down on the ice.. it was a bit windy though so we decided to hike on the road.

Now.. here’s a sign you don’t see every day !

We didn’t see sled dogs, but we did see plenty of dogs.. The puppy walked some of the way.. but her legs are so tiny.. we had to carry her much of the way.

We got home just before 4.. I went up and got Gabe and friends.. then I packed and took of for New York.. I have a 3 day meeting down here in Armonk. The drive down went really quickly because I was listening to a good book on tape (see yesterday’s post.. Echkhardt Tolle’s .. A New Earth)   I did stop for a lonely but tasty  steering wheel meal..

Around Hartford I decided that I did have time to take the 2.5 hour detour to NYC to see  Max. Diane had made him some fresh cookies.. and I wanted to see Max and deliver them. I got to Pratt just at midnight. It was so good to see Max.. he was just settling down for his Sunday night homework session… Same hours I kept in college ! 

We talked for a bit then he showed me one of his animation class projects. I think it’s pretty cool !

Max’s roomate Adam was there too.. Hi Adam..

I saw this sign on the way down.. I always have to take pictures like this.

Today was pretty uneventful.. All day meeting.. not much for me to contribute, but good conversations..   In the evening I took a short visit to my friends Ruchir and Rashi’s . They cooked a great Indian feast for me as they always do.

I played with their kids.. Older Isha went to bed early.. but the younger, Anika, and I played and read books for a long time.  I feel so comfortable in their home.

OK.. now it’s late again.. and I must sleep More tomorrow !..
G’nite all. g’nite Sam !  Talk to you all tomorrow !

-me

Sunday night – Late arrival

Friends..
    I apologize but It’s 2:15 AM and I just got to my hotel. I drove down to Armonk, NY tonight for a meeting tomorrow.. I decided to take a 2 hour detour to go deliver a hug and some cookies to Max down in NYC.. It was really nice to see him. I’ve got a bunch of pictures and stories from that as well as other stuff today.. but I really need to get to sleep now. The one thing I will say now is that I was listening to a book on tape on the way down, Echkhardt Tolle’s “A New Earth”. I’m about half way through. and I really like it. It’s a very powerful message about how consciousness is evolving . Diane turned me on to it.. Evidently there’s going to be a 10 week online course sponsored by Tolle and Oprah Winfrey about the central messages of the book.  I understand that there are over 500,000 folks signed up for it. .. which I believe will make it one of the biggest interactive online events ever held. I  know it sounds weird , but based on what I heard of the message so far, I think it’s worth checking out..  You can check out the registration here. If that’s too much… check out the book..
OK… gotta sleep now… Love you all.. love you Sam
-me

ps. We still haven’t settled on a name for the puppy..She and Chai are now coexisting in the same room.. which is progress 🙂
  

Saturday afternoon – Dog day

Here’s a surprise..   Diane, Gabe and I had been talking about getting a 2nd dog on and off for several months. Chai has been getting pretty lonely in the house by herself… and frankly, sometimes, so do we. Yesterday Diane found an add for labradoodle puppies in the Free Press.. and here’s what happened this morning:

Diane had us all up and in the car by 8AM.. no small task for a Saturday. Friend Kevin was coming with us, too. Chai was waiting by the door with her best “don’t leave me” eyes.. so in the last minute we gave in and piled her in the car, too.

The puppies were in West Charleston, a few miles outside of Derby Line on the Canadian border. It was a long, pretty 2 hour ride to get there. By the time we rolled up to Dwayne’s kennel, we were pretty excited.. and tired of driving. He met us and led us directly to the puppies. There were 11 puppies in the litter.. 10 black ones and one light one. They’d put the girls and the boys in separate pens. We were pretty sure we wanted another girl.. so that’s where we started.

A few of the puppies came out to give us the sniff test.. Two in particular were interested in us.. the whitish one and one of the black ones.. In the end, this one black one really won us over by following us around. She was definitely the most playful and curious of the bunch.

We all gave her the hug test…

And she won our heart over ! …

We went in and sealed the deal with Dwayne.> The adoption was pretty quick. Dwayne has been doing this for 30 years.. so he really knows his stuff. !

He told us about puppy “X’s” parentage.. Her mom is a first generation labradoodle named Karen and her dad is a standard poodle named Silver..  Here they are :

Now came the moment of truth, time for Chai to meet the puupy.. here’s the first meeting… Neither knew what to make of each other.

We all said goodbye to thedog guys and got in the car for the ride home. Chai could not stay far enough away from the puppy. She insisted on sitting in the ront seat with first Diane…

Then Gabe…

We stopped for a bit to eat…. Here’s Puppy “X” with her first sampling of snow..

Again. Chai chose to observe the puppy from a distance.

We finally made it home at around 2… We got both dogs out of the car to see what would happen. The puppy saw Chai .. may she though of her mom…

Chai didn’t know what to think.. but she made it quite clear that she was not to be bothered.

The puppy went running the other way… and that’s where their reationship still stands at this hour (4:30)

The puppy is still trying to figure out what to make of us and our big house.. she is spending most of her time hiding in corners…

Or in her new crate…

Now.. what do we call this little girl ? .. (and how do we help her big sister Chai get used to her new baby sister ? )

Really.. please send us any name ideas.. we’re still stumped.. OK.. All for now.. More stories certainly coming..   You’ll hear them too, Sam…
-me

ps. The morning was bitter sweet as many things now are.. I was thinking hard of Sam and  the time 4 years ago when we went to Montreal to pick up new baby Chai from the airport

Here’s Sam and baby Chai…   I think you’d like this new puppy too.. Sam…

Thursday morning – Today’s today

Folks…
I think we got our 1.5 seconds of fame today.. As I related last night, the NBC Today show is broadcasting from Sugarbush for the next couple of days. Their head news person Meredith Vieriera did a penguin plunge yesterday along with about 50 of us. The segment came on this morning.. and even though you have to look VERY carefully.. Team Mexicali is there !


Here’s the completeToday Segment for your viewing pleasure.


The whole thing was very much worth it.. by this morning Meridith’s plunge had raised another 21 thousand dollars fro VT Special Olympics .. and that’s over the 390 thousand we all raised two weeks ago ! Not bad for taking a quick bath !

More later… ttyl Sam
-me