All posts by johncohn

Tuesday night – advice

I was on the phone 8AM until 6PM without even a break for lunch, yet when I left for the day I was feeling refreshed and energized.. I got half way ome trying to figure out why I felt  so jazzed after what should have been a grueling day.. Then I realized what I’d been doing all day. 8 of my 16 meetings (yes.. 16 !) today had to do with my day job. Pretty interesting stuff these days. especially some of the new stuff I’m focusing on.. The other 8 meetings.. were about mentoring and advice..   That is  .. me acting as the grizzled Yoda character and some young person who’s twice as smart as me comes and asks for my advice on job, career, school, etc. .. I grunt occasionally and make a few nonsensical remarks.. then they thank me profusely and hang up.   I’m not sure why suddenly my advice–giving numbers are up. I suppose it’s because it’s near the end of the year and everyone;s under stress.. or feeling philisophical as the holidays roll around. Maybe it’s because I’m enjoyign my work much more these days and folks can smell it on me ?  I don’t think the advice I give is always that good.. but what I can say is that giving advice makes one feel better. It’s funny how working on someone else’s troubles makes your own seem less important.. It’s also so true that it’s easier to work on someone else’s issues than your own.  I’m not so sure exactly why.. but I have to say I’m grateful for the opportunity.
   That’s it for tonight.. get back to work …. may the force be with you.. !

Nite friends.. nite Sam
-me

 

Monday night – Lights

It’s a good week of lights.. chanukah candles every night, the xmas tree now lit up, and the canldle for Sam last night. And.. I’m staring into a roaring fire in the fireplace as I type. I love having these bright sparks in the house on this 2nd darkest week of the year (I think it would be.. since solstice is next week) .

Here’s Saurdays ‘s chanukah lighting .. Dylan and Gabe do the honors..

along with Latke dinner number 1 (or was this two).. Diane’s latkes are great..   I can smell them now.. We have some left over in the fridge.. bit if I get up and eat one  now I’ll regret it. You can’t fall asleep after eating those things cold.

Kristen and Gabe do the honor last night…

and of course we lit the candle in Sam’s memory. Thanks ot all of you out there who wrote to tell me you’d lit a candle for us too. I like thinking of all those candles side by side lighting up the planet..

Here’s a still life in mixed cultures.. the christmas tree, the menorah, and the memorial candle for sam.. That just about sums up our lives.. joys and sorrows, .. It’s a rich soup to be sure.

After candles came the obligatory game of Dreidel the wooden top used as a gambling device on Chanukah. Story goes that the Assyrians forbade the jews to study the torah.. so the jews pretended to be gambling every time the Assyrians came into their studies. Leave it to the jews to make up a game that was more boring than studying.. !

Ah.. but there was one moment of excitement !.. My dredel spin landed on the edge of the top !.. How often does THAT happen ?

THat was all last night.. today was a long interesting day.. The first half I spent in meetings.. and the second half I psent hosting some students from Olin College.. The Olin kids were amazingly, amazingly bright and fun.. they told me about their research projects.. and we told them about IBM.   They are working on somehting very central to my new project at work. it was one of those cosmic alignments that seme to be happening to me ofent now.. I really look forward to collaborating with them.

They even weighed in on the rap video I am still trying to finsih !

One quick funny story from today. Late this morning I was sitting in my office tryign to do several things at one. I noticed my plants were a bit dry.. so I looked around for something to carry water.. Aha !.. My garbage can.. I dumped the garbage on the floor and went down to teh restroom to fill up the can with water.. I never asked myself if the can could hold water.. answer was that it couldn’t.. By the time I got back to my office.. I was soaked.. I quickly started bailing the water into my plants to prevent further leaks.  That seemd to help ntil I realized I’d badly overfilled my plants with water.. so they started gusihng out on the floor with dirt filled water.. I bolted out of the room to go get paper towels..As the door clicked shut, I remembered  that my keys and my cell phoen were sftly in my jacket pocket inside. What’s more my admin Kay was at lunch. and sh has the only other key..

I had to go find her at lunch .. on my way back I ran into my Olin quests.. l I was dripping wet and covered with dirt.   The great thing about it i was that everything went better from that point on  🙂

OK.. gotta sleep. nite friends, Night Sam !
-me

Sunday afternoon – Candle lighting tonight

Friends,
     Tonight is the 13th annual Compassionate Friends candle lighting in memory of kids that have died. Compassionate friends is a worldwide organization that provides peer

grief counseling to families who have experienced he death of a child.

We ask you to join us and light a candle at 7pm your local time in memory of our Sam.. and all the other kids who have died.. Do it with love and remember how these kids lit up our lives while they were living.. and how they continue to shine love into our lives after they’re gone from this life.

I honestly don’t know much first-hand about Compassionate friends. All that I know I heard from the many friends who suggested we seek them out after Sam died. There are chapters in cities across the planet.. I know there’s at least one here in Vermont.  Honestly, I never went because early on, i wasn’t sure I could take the pain of hearing from others stories. Now I realize I like to talking to othes in this messed-up club.. there are things you can say to folks with this common hard experience that you can’t really share with others.

When I light a candle tonight I’ll also be thinking of all those mothers and fathers,  , sisters  and brothers grandparents , friends.. even the pets who’ve gone down this very hard road.

Thanks for helping us out here freinds. remember 7PM…
Nite all.. nite Sam.. were’ thinking of you tonight.. and every night !
-me

Saturday afternoon – middle season

Ahhh.. the end of the ‘middle season’. That’s the time up here between good running in the summer/fall  and good snowshoeing.  In october and November, its usually too dark for me to run in the moring or after work.. and there’s not yet enough snow to snowshoe.. That’s why I call it ‘middle season’.. but also because I can feel myself thickening in the middle a little because I’m not getting enough exercise..    Today couldn’t have come soon enough.. we got in our first snowshoe after dropping Gabe off at his snowboarding team practice in Stowe. He’s doing a program there every Sat and Sun to work on his jumps and rails riding.. so far he really loves it. 
    Diane and I took the dogs up VT 108  (the mountian road)  today. The moutnian road is closed during the snow season since it would be impossible to keep snow free. It climbs from Stowe up to about 2200 feet and then heads back down to Smugglers Notch ski area. In the summer they’re about 5 miles apart. In the winter…it’s 50 miles. Our house happens to be the exact mid-point by distance from the loop that goes over the notch.

The notch was a favorite smugglers route at many times in history.. most recently for folks bringing whiskey down from Canada during prohibition.

   Today there was a good 6-8 inches of snow at the base.. a little more at the top. Normally there would eb much more by this time of the year.

The hike up was beautiful .. In the high teens and pretty still.. As

soon as we hit the top, the wind started blowing and the temp started

dropping .

We found this cool rock outcropping near the top we thoguht looked like a resting panther or lion.. do you see it ?

We got back to the car about an hour before Gabe’s program was over.. so we hung out in the car with the dogs which was pretty peaceful.   Diane poured two mugs of steaming tea..

Which I used to melt the ice in my beard…

Then Diane did Yoga in the car using the power seats to help her tie herself up like a pretzel

While I played with the fake mustache Gabe had put on the mirror in the car..  


Nice morning…

Now I’m sitting in the empty house figuring out what to do next.. I know.. maybe ‘nothing’ !:-)

laer folks, nite Sam
-me

ps. Friends, Tomorrow is the annual Compassionate freinds worldwide candle lighting in memory of children who have die. Please light a candel for our beutiful Sam and all of those other kids at 7PM tomorrow.   It’s a nice way to spread soem love and light in this dark time of the year ! Thanks for keeping us all in your hearts.

-jc