Tonight is Erev Yom Kippur.. the night before the Day of Atonement.. tomorrow Jews all over the world stop working., stop eating and think about all the things they did to wrong others, themselves and the world in the past year. It’s not uncommon for folks to call up those they may have hurt in the past year and apologize.  ..So in that spirit.. if I did anything to hurt any of you in any way. I am truly sorry..

There are many traditions associated with Yom Kippur.. the most observed is fasting… goign without food or drink for 24 hours.. Well.. due to an unavoidable conflict with work.. I just wasn’t going to be able to fast tomorrow.. so  I did it today.   and since the Colony.. a day of fasting didn’t feel strange at all.  It was fun moving it to today.. The G-d I beleve in couldn’t care less when we did our observations.. in fact, I’m pretty sure he/she/it doesnt’ care what we do at all.. These traditions are for us. … to make us feel connected to our root’s.. Well, I’m definitely feelign connected.. bur  I’m not going to go to temple this year.. it just hasn’t felt right the past couple of years.. The funny thing is, the more spiritual i’ve become, the less organized religion speaks to me.    But let me speak to all of you and wish you a thoughtful day tomorrow..

In addition to fasting today. I took a great meditative fall walk in the rain with my love.. and the dogs

I also did another meditative thing today.. I cleaned out the bed side table that’s been to crammed ull to open for several years. Emptying that drawer was a good metaphorical way to relive the last year.. or last several years judging by the stuff I found…

ere it was at the start of the exercise…

Inside I found junk and marvels mixed together.. like this old watch that is actually a pager.. I had it on Sep 11, 2001.. I was giving a talk to the math department at uvm when my watch buzzed and flashed the message that a plane had hit the world trade tower.. Everyone in the room crowded around my watch for the next few minutes as we read the unthinkable on it’s tiny screen.

Here are soem rafffle tickets from an early Sam memorial fund raiser.. I just happened to nitice that oen of the tickets was from Kristinn.. and I must not even have known wh she was when we sold her this.

eHere’s a knife that Sam once made for me out of wood…  I have knives and swords he made for me stashed all over.

here’s five pieces of 2-3 year old christmas chocolate.

and 2 locks.

These were bathtub toys for all three boys since max was a baby.. they stuck to the tile when they were wet.. we’d use them to tell crazy stories. .

2 bar puzzles (love them)

an earring that Sam made Diane.. we’ve lost the other.

an old bullet

$2.53 plus a bunch of foreign coins.

a plastic rat..

7 stones and shells

a stuffed squid…

and a really cool set of ‘brass knuckles’ that max made for me that stamp ‘squid’ in your opponents face.

three necklaces

35 batteries.. most of them dead

1 pens and pencisl

4 flashlights.. none working..

4 pair of old missing glasses and 6 cases.

and a pile of who-knows-what..

I also refound my ligthening hat that Jen made for me… !

Digging through all that stuff was a combination of archeology. psychology, warm memories, dust, junk and cool re-found pleasusre.. what a great way to reflect on the last years gifts and challenges…

OK friends, I hope you have a good and peacefull new year.. Shana Tova.
Shana Tove Sam !
-me

Great at home day…. 
  Before I forget.. tonight is John V from The Colony’s birthday.. everybody go to the Colony Facebook page and wish him a happy birthday !

Also,   Friend Sriram kindly scanned the very cool menue that the folks at Mexicali made for us last tuesday.. Check these out…

Oh wait.. we have to go to Wendy’s birthday now.. I’ll finish blogging and explain the pictures below later.   Just as a clue, we used our old climber thing to make a new shelter for the oven.. more details later..

Nite for now.. nite Sam
-me

OK.,.. back now.. Wendy’s party was great.. We went to the Reservoir.. a pretty happening place for Waterbury VT.

OK.. where was I.. oh, the climber thing… So in 1991 we returned from pittsburgh after I finished grad school. Max was about 3 and we were pregnant with Sam. i remember tryign to decide if we should go to New Zealand or by a swing set.. and the swingset won. We got this nice big CederWorks play set with two sings, a tower, a ships wheel, a bucket.. and this weird horse like glider thing.   I can remember the day we put it together.. it was a big job.. very satisfying.. all new clean ceder parts…

Through the years, all three boys grew up on that play set.. it was a space ship, car, boat, everything a little kids mind can come up with. We invented all sorts of games on it.. I remember one where soemone would roll a huge ball at someone on the swing and the swinger had to kick it then run the bases like in kick ball. We made up differnt rules as we went along.. I remember how much the boys loved to argue abotu the rules..

But our favorite thing by far was ‘doggy meat’.. I don’t remember where this came from.. it was just one of those things that become patterns.. But I’d get on the weird glider thing, put one of the kids in my lap, then we get swinging… so high that the whole structure would lift up with every swing forward or back. As we flew we’d sing the following to the tune of (if you can believe it) … “It’s a small world after all”

“It’s a doggy, doggy meat
“It’s a dogggggggy, doggggggggy meat
“It’s a dogggggggggy, doggggggggy meat
“It’s a dog-gy me-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-at”

we’d d it for hours.. Thinking back on it.. those were some of my favorite fotherhood times.. having one of the boys in my lap singing that stupid song swinging enough to almost flip the swing…   it doesn’t get better than that.

The kids grew, the play set got old and started to rot a bit… Sam passed away…
We finally dismantled the playset as it became unsafe… we moved it to the side of the yard where it continued to molder…   but we could never through it away.. too many memories of the kids.. too much “doggy meat”  The thing had too much magic to fall to dust..  Especially since Sam’s passing ..

Then we had an idea.. we decided to give the thing a second life.. !  We needed a shelter for the earth oven that Max and Diane made to keep it out of the rain and snow.   .. so we decided to strip down the crumbling swingset tower and convert it into a canopy for the oven..    And we set out to do it without spending any money…

So.. here’s the set as it sat in our back yard.. you can’t tell but ht elegs are rotting as are many of the cross members.

We carefully layed the thing down and cut off the rot on the bottom of the legs,

Our friend Eric came over and he helped cut the members which held the old tower floor in place.

That allowed us to pull out the entire middle of the old set.

We realized that the old middle woudl make a pretty cool high chair.. So Eric, gabe and freinds trimmed away some of the excess rods sticking out of it.

about 4 of eric’s friends came over to help us move the structure over the stove.  It was a perfect fit.. We installed a pitched steel roof inside the structure to give better protection from the elements… We’re still tweeking the roof a bit.. but the build was completed in less than a day..with no dollars spent.  and the old playset now has new life.. It makes me deeply happy to see that.. @

OK folks. that’s it for this evening. Have a great night… Nite all.. Nite Sam !
-me

Friends Chris and Kim came buy around … Chris had made us some new SamStones out of real stones. Chris was the maker of the first stones. In fact the ‘Sam’ stamp on all the Samstones out in the world is made from an imprint from the original sandblasted stones.  I love these things.. Chis is so wonderful

Today was gloriously uncomplicated. I can already feel my life returning a bit more ‘normal’ as our 15 minutes of fame ala Colony starts to fade a bit. OK.. so it wasn’t really completely normal because I spent last night camping with Gabe at Button Bay State park with Gabe and his classmates. It was a fine night for camping.. a few light rainshowers.. but nothing too bad, cool weather and a ton of creative students..  

I showed up a few hours after the kids arrived. They’d already had a chance to build a secret fort in the woods.

Around 7:30 we all gathered for a campfire..

Each of the camping groups had prepared a skit..   Gabe’s posse did a touching rendition of ‘ice-ice-baby’ acapella.. It was heart warming..

All the skits were good.. some funny, some scary. some just.. goofy.. It was a riot. I did my part by doing some fire/light  magic (spinning steel wool. ultra powerful green laser  and hot air balloon)

I have to admit that I don’t remember much after that.. At that point I’d had about 3 hours sleep in the last 36 hours. I was asleep by the time my head hit the pillow I didn’t have. Some chaperon, huh ?   For all I know the kids took the car keys and drove into Burlington.   I did here today that I wasn’t the only tired guy. Gabe told me that he fell asleep on the ground outside .. and didn’t wake until 1:30AM when we woke up on the cold hard ground.

I slept great, though.. a full 8 hours of sleep.. can’t remember the last time I did that !.. Sleeping on the wooden platform was great for me.. just like in The Colony..

OI woke about 6:30 and took a short wak.. I saw my first flock of southward bound geese.. It reminded me of one of my favorite songs: Urge for Going by Joni Mitchell

“.. see the geese in chevron flight
flapping and a reeling before the snow
Well the got the urge for going
… and they’ve the wings to go….”

Here’s a version of Joni singing it back in the 60’s

The boys eventually woke and made breakfast.. Chocolate chip pancakes.. yum !