Monthly Archives: January 2011

Monday night – a Zatar Miracle !

You know it’s the time of the year for heartwarming stories of small  miracles.. Well, one happened to me today.

Yesterday, Diane and Deb decided to clean one of our cupboards. Like many folks, we have tons of botlles and bags of spices htat have been hanging around in there forever. Deb uncovered two bags of my favorite spice: Zatar.. it’s a middle eastern specialty  made with thyme, sesame seeds, summac buds and salt. You mix it with olive oil and dip pita in it.. or drizzle it over bread and roast it.. So yummy.. I love it so much that I adopted it as my stage name when I do science shows (‘Dr. Zatar .. the mad engineer !).,because I was tired of people calling me Mr. Cohn (Mr Cohn is my dad !)  .. I even used to tell all three kids crazy  bedtime stories with me as Zatar, Max as baby Zatar, Sam as baby Rataz and Gabe as baby Tazar..

I even have it on my license plate !

Anyway.. there were two bags of the stuff I’d gotten from who knows where ..   I was all set to make zatar bread for everyone when Diane pointed out that there were spider webs in both bags..   Sadly, I had to throw them out..

.. but today.. I had my little zatar miracle. Friend Betsy showed up for 6 PM yoga with the cutest bottle of zatar for me.. She didn’t know what it was for.. but she knew I liked the name.. and saw it in a store in boston..

We need to take our miracles where we can find them 🙂

nite everyone, nite sam

-me

ps. Last night Devon and I made a homopolar (ie. no cummutation) motor because he’d seen one on youtube. it’s made out of a D battery, a very strong magnet, a peice of copper wire and a piece of foil.. So simple and so cool Nice !

Sunday night – USASA

Peaceful day.. I spent nearly all of it with Gabe at the USASA slopestyle competition at  Stowe. It was his first for the season. It looked like it was going to be a yucky day out.. warm (37)  and drizzly .. I pictured standing in the rain all day…The rain let up by start time, but  It was really foggy /. You couldn’t even see the rails !

Luckily it cleared up pretty nicely y the time of Gabe’s first run ! ..

Here he is about an eight the way through a really nice.. backside 720

And a backside 3 .


And a nice finish..

Both his runs were good !  He came in 2nd in his age category.. .and it was a big field.. I was really proud of him !

He and I are sitting on the coauh now tryign to get ready for the first days after vacation.. him for school.. me for work.. It’s been a nice break Hope it was for you too !

Nite all, nite sam

-me

Saturday night – Happy New Year 01-01-11 !

1 Comment

It was a good and quite first day of the year..  Most of us slept late.. no one did that much today.Florence,. Julia and Lisa had to catch a 5 PM flight out of Dorval, so we spent the morning helping/watching  them get ready and get out the door. It’s been very nice having them with us. Iit’s very cool how easy it is to collect new friends.. We know them because Deb and the kids once rented a room from them in France..

They did leave Gabe and me with our  toenails painted to remember them by

I can’t remember much else happening today. I did manage to get the dogs out for a very slushy run mid afternoon. There was still 4 inches of wet snow to slog through.. it was like running in sand.  It felt very good to be outside..

Seth and Katie came by for a visit.. It’s always nice to see them. Seth helped me do a root crack on my droid.. which I’m very psyched about.

Around 7 we headed up to Jen and Tim’s for perhaps the last party of the holiday week.. Kevin is heading back ot Texas tomorrow morning so we all went up to wish him well. It was also a time to get everyone’s cooking utensils back to them after nearly 4 weeks of intertwined family and visitors. I think we found homes for all of these crockpots  !.

A

Here’s is Airman Cafferky with his bro- Pat and his mom..


I must say I’m liking Pat’s shirt.

We did repeat a few of the new years rituals tonight, sicne jen and tim weren’t with us last night. one thing we do is ‘angel cards’. You pick a word or two and thin about how they might have bearing on your coming year.. Tonight I picked this one, ‘freedom’ ..   I like it !!!  The picture’s a little weird though..!

OK folks.. hope you all had a good first day of ’11..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Friday night – Happy New Year !

It’s only an hour since it turned 2011 and I’m already in bed… I’ve got some sort of bug with sore throat and a little fever that’s making me feel a bit slow. Even so.. it was a nice end to 2010. It’s been a good year in many respects. Nothing earthshaking.. no major milestones.. but steady healing, new opportunities and relative peace of mind.As I said at Christmas,  It still is unbelievable to me that Sam is not still with us now…  It will always be unbelievable

I spent the day tying up loose ends for work and home.. wrote a few emails, restrung Sam’s guitar… and .. most importantly.. changed the tip on my soldering iron.. In with the new and out with the old.

I thought about making some new years resolutions.. but decided against it.. I’ve been working on the same set of 5 intentions for the last couple of years.. and that seems to be working fine.. so … no specific changes planned.. nor any specific expectations for the year. Sam’s passing has taught me that expecting anything.. good or bad.. is not worth thinking about.. the future is not ever what your think it will b

Around 8 we headed up to David Caroline and Austin’s to spend new years.. We had Deb and her kids, and Florence and her kids with us..

We had a nice, low key evening Diane and Deb had been cooking all day.. so we had quite a feast.. three kinds of home made pasta sauce..fried bananas, carrot cake.. yum..

Around 8L30 a few of us went up to watch the fireworks at Bolton.

Then we did a few new years rituals.. we chose and read animal and spirit cards and talked about their predictions.. (mine had soemthing to do with forgiveness… not sure what for) .. Then we did something I learned while living in Austria.. Here they melt lead and pour the hot metal into water. It’s said that the shape of the cooled metal will tell you about the year to come.. Lead is dangeros in many ways.. so I used Woods Metal.. a lead, tin. bismuth and cadmium alloy that melts at 70 degrees C.. much safer.. at least froem a temperature standpoint..

Here’s what it said abotu our coming year…   anyone see anything in these ? ,

Well.. I’m struggling to stay awake.. The first sleep of the year beakens..

I hope this is a good year for us all.. a year of peace and strength…

happy new year folks, Happy new year sam..

-me

ps. Here’s my favorite version of auld lang syne.. supposedly much closer to Burns original.. hope you like it !