Saturday night – catering

Put this down as a first.  our house was the center of a catering operation today. well actually the last 3 day. Deb took on her first commercial catering gig and used our kitchen.. actually the whole downstairs as a production facility.   Deb is a truly fabulous cook.. healthful , versatile and creative. The meal she put together for some lucky 120 wedding guests in essex was truly a marvel.. chicken, beef or lentil burgers, sauteed vegetables.. Caesar salads,beef skewers with peanut sauce,  chickpea salad, beet and goat cheese spread. rosemary potatoes. vegetable platters. brushetta, muffaletta breads, about a half dozen sauces,  Diane and Jen helped .. Tim helped grill..

and.. best of all.. they had cute hats..

The wedding went great. i think it was at 4:30.. the girls got back at around 8L30.. and we just finished cleaning the dishes.. lots and lots of dishes.. (it’s now 11:45), it was a big success.. lots of leftover food which we’ll find a way to donate.,

i think we just washed the last dish…

I’m feeleng pretty washed up. more tomorrow.. an important day…

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Friday night – art hop

TGIF !.. for some reason the week dragged on.. but .. i had my share of fun this week.

As I left this morning for work,  Deb, Diane. and Jen were hard at work on a catering job Deb is doing.. they were still chopping in their little chef’s hats when I got home at 6pm.. lots of yummy food around the house.. the place smells great !

I had a busy day at work..today.. The high point was presenting remotely to about 200 folks in our Hortlandia command center in Brazil. This was about 100km from where I vistied a couple of weeks back. It’ snever as much fun talkign to people remotely as it is being there in person.. but we made it work. once again I was blown away with teh warmth and freindliness and overall awesomeness of the brazillian people. The calor humano came all the way through the phoen lines. I even had a camera in the command center I could steer around so I could see the folks there..

I know I talked to long.. but I really loved the questions.. I need to get back down there and visit soon. I love brazil !!!!

 

I got home around 6.. to find the girls still chipping away.. Gabe and Kristin wanted to go to the Art Hop.. so we piled back in the car and drove downtown to soak up some culture !.   The art hop has been going on for years here in the south end of Burlington..It was really great.. I saw a ton of folks I new.. and saw some really great art.. They had music..

and food

SOme of my favorite stuff was in the Soda Plant an art space collective.. really cool stuff.

if you know who this is .. then you have great taste in TV (I love bubbles !)

 

my freind John had two really nice hollograms there

among all the folks I ran into .. Sandy and Michael were the oldest friends I saw.. I’ve known Sandy for more than 40 years.. we grew up together in Houston.. I used to come up to visit her when I was going to school in Boston.. and that’s how I fell in love with Vermont. It was great seeing them !

OK.. i’m getting so sleepy.. and tomorrows an early day.. more then

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Thursday night – WTF (what the flood ????)

It was a scary dejavue .  This morning Diane’s folks called from Endicott NY to tell us that t their town was now flooded and that there was several feet in their basement. Diane was going to drive down there  but her brother Joe called to say that the roads in were all closed  some were underwater..  . Interstate  88 was closed by a mudslide.  there’s 4 feet of water in the kmart down the street. 1000 people have been evacuated and are now staying  in Diane’s high school.  My in laws are ok.. they have no power.. or phone.. but their house is safe.. soggy but safe.. their neighborhood is a wreck.  Here are some pictures I found online.. ..

This is near diane’s neighborhood

this is just past the old IBM site

this is less than a quarter of a mile from her folks house

or how’s this .. Fire plus flooding ?

I really can’t figure out whats going on .. earthquakes, floods, fires..    ? I don’t even want to continue the list.. it’s hard not to take all these points and try to draw some cosmic line.. .. what’s it mean ? Or does anything mean anything when it comes to this ?

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

ps. Here’s a picture of our town last week. Our freind Gary sent it.. It’s amazing..

 

Wednesday night – other people’s tragedies

Not sure I like that title.. but.. I’m not sure how to capture what I’m feeling tonight.. The last couple of days I’ve heard several very sad stories from friends and friends of friends.. I’m thinking tonight about those folks.. and the loss they are feeling.. and I feel the echo of it deep inside myself. It’s strange how soemthing that might catch your eye in a newspaper.. a flood, a fire.. and untimely death  becomes so different when you know the person.. or their families..   We all felt that when the floods hit Vermont this past week. Seeing the  pictures on TV and in the papers felt different  than  when we saw the same things happening to our neighbors and  friends..  In the last couple of days I’ve heard stories of pets that have died, friends of friends  kids that have passed away suddenly   I didn’t know the people directly.. but knew folks who did.. but still d each of those stories knocks the wind out of me for a little while..

All this week I’ve  been watching the stories of the Texas wildfires.. I saw this map yesterday and noticed that many of the blazes are near where I grew up.. I hear today that over 1200 homes and other buildings have been lost to the fires in the past week

Tonight when I got home  learned that our good freind Trevor’s family’s house was one of those homes destroyed.. it was no longer a news story..it was ‘us’.    I just can’t believe it..   Trevor used to live up here.. he was actually here at our house when we heard about Sam’s accident.. We’re not sure what to do for him now.. but we have to do soemthing. We love that kid..

We’re think of you trevor !

nite all, nite sam

-me