Folks…
I’m heading up to friends for a quiet dinner.. Not sure I’l be able to blog later.. Just in case.. all the best for the New Year.. Even though I’m feeling kinda quiet right now.. I’m feeling pretty optmistic about the coming year.. don’t know why.. just am
Well.. gotta run now.. Happy New Year folks.. thanks for all the love and support over the last year.. Happy new year Sam.. We miss oyu so much my son
-me
All posts by johncohn
Tuesday night – new years eve eve
Looks like a very quiet end of the year… Max and a bunch of his friends took off this morning to celebrate New Years in NYC at his apartment.. It will be the first time we’re not all together as a family.. well.. of course that’s not true.. it will be our 3rd new year since Sam’s passing.. We still look for ways to bring Sam into our observances. Max is taking a little of Sam’s ashes down to NY with him.. that what’s in the bag he’s holding in this picture. Our world is so surreal now..
Speaking of surreal / I hope folks got a chance to see the new cresent moon and Jupiter together in the Western sky.. it was beutiful.. The picture they made has special significance to me .. I treminds me of an image that came to me during hypnosis (see blog entry for feb 20, 2007)
Not much happened during the middle of the day.. I spent most of the time workign on my ISSCC presentation.. with a short time out to do a Reiki session with Marci. That was very regenerating. It made me realize thta i’d hit that magic spot in my vacation that myt mind was truly empty… I was not thinking about work.. or things I needed or wanted to do. I was at that perfect place between boredom and inspiration that allows for any possibility. I feel more positive and motivated than I’ve felt for a good long while. I think it’s time that I start thinkign about some bigger life intention again.. but.. at the same time I don’t want to move out of the present moment awareness I’ve gotten too.. another balance…
I’m ready for a new year
Tonight we spent a few nice hours at our friends Gina and Bills.. It was their 19th anniversary. Ann and Keith were theere as well as Bill and Gina’s freinds Ben and Clari from Boston. We ate cheese fnue and told funny stories about weddings, camping, disucssed the burton playboy snowboard ‘scandal’ talked about books and ate like kings.. It wsa a great night///
After dinner I went to Kristin’s to pick up Gabe.. When I walked in her house she said.. “are oyu ready for this ?!” and pulled gabe out from behind a door. She’d straightened his hair ! (And he’d let her !).. It lookde so cool. he looked like a completely diffrent person..
Well.. I gotta get my beuty rest now… TOmorrow’s new years eve… gotta think of soem resolutions.. or maybe I won’t do that this year.. gotta think.. ttyl
Nite folks.. Nite Sam
-me
Nite folks.. Nite Sam
-me
Monday night – last latkes.. I promise
Man… prtoo sleepy to write much.. another peaceful low key day.
I spent a few hours this morning welding up a picture frame for the acrylic on wood painting that Max’s old roommate Dave did for him right after sam’s passing. It’s a heavy piece. but we didn’t want to block it with a frame. I created a simple steel frame that holds it from the back. It was nice to hav e a chance to play with fire.
This evening went to our last official Hanukkah party for the year . This one was at ben’s His house looked like a ship all lit up
It was a good party. lots of folks I knew. .. and lots more latke.. I swear I can’t eat another until next year…
Lots of condiments too.. whic to me is the most important part..
we all stopped ot light the candles. Aretha did the honors and we all sung the blessings..
It’s a cool house with a slide for quick egress to the down stars.. as Max is about to demonstrate here.
Naturally this party had to end with ice cream.. about 20 flavors
OK.. I’ exhasted and votta sleep.. More tomorrow.. Nite all.. Nite Sam !
-me
Sunday – telepresence
Nice dayy.. record setting warm weather.. ti was nearly 60 degrees at a time where we often have our coldest weather.. it could be 80 degrees colder next week. Diane, the dogs and I took advantage of the warm weather to take a hike up Catamount Trail.. the snow was deep enough to be slow walking.. but not deep enough to need snowshoes. We were both down to tshirts abotu 5 min into the walk.. it felt lieke spring.. and we’re less than a week into winter !
We spent the rest of the day puttering around the house, doing odd jobs and hanging out. Diane finished the cleaning job we started on the toy room.. and I started welding a frame for a very cool (and quite heavy) wooden painting that one of Max’s roomates painted for him right after Sam died.
My borther called while I was welding to see if we could get the robotic cameras he got us working.. the thing hooks up to your home wireless and lets folks see through its camera and drive it around through any web browser.. I talked Billy though doing the secret handshakes (port forwarding, IP setup) that allowed me to access his robot.. then I did the samw on my router.. we spent abotu an hour driving the robots around each others houses and looking around. it was fun and erie.. The amazing thing is that this technology is primitive compared to what will be available in a few short years.. it boggles my mind. Here’s gabe explorign Billy and Shaun’s hallway
About 5 we all cleaned up and headed over to Hannah and Daves for our second-to-last hanukah party.
They had ther friend Toby and Mark and their kids and Adj and Andrew and thier kids. We had the four of us as well as Abbott and Jessie. Hannah and Dave have a great christmas tree too.. I loved their ‘star’ a Sam ornament.. ! It was wonderful to see it up there ..
Diane and Hannah went to work heating and frying latkes.. we had normal ones and sweet potatoe ones.. both great.
Yummmmm
Meanwhile, Dave and I tried our experiment with Sufganiot, the fried jelly filled donoughts that folks soemtime eat on hannukah. Diane had made soem yeasted dough for us.. we took Lindt chocolate balles
and wrapped them in the dough ,
sealed them up and let them rise some more.
Then fried them up
We even tried soem filled with chile con queso (not traditional.. and not that tasty :-D)
Before dinner we lit the candles and said the blessings… Adah and Ava did the candle part.. They were so cute !
Gabe is cute too ..
Then it was tiem to eat.. I don’t know if I can look at another latke… at least until tomorrow night.
Right after dinner I Skype called Deb and the guys in Peru.. they wanted to say hi to all of the crew.. we had a camera with us as well.. it was great talkign to them.. it was really like being in the same room. This technology is so great…. I wish we could use Skype at work
Right after that Adah stole my amrea and went aroudn taking pictures for awhile lots of pictures of the floor and cieling.. but she did get this flattering one of me.
Hannah had just baugth a banjo for 5 bucks at a garage sale..but no one knew how to play one.. Max hs never even touched a banjo.. but picked it up and started playing a pretty passible version of dualing banjos… by swapping back and forth between dave’s guitar and the banjo.. Who knew ?!
OK.. that was today.. gotta sleep now.. I’ve still got the bug that I caugth last weekend on the way back from Endicott. I need to sleep it off.. Oh.. one last hing. Here’s the movie that Gabe made for Max as a present.. He said I could post it..
OK freinds.. Happy last night of Hannukah.. nite all. Nite Sam
-me