Another beautiful day. It was nice having my folks up here with us… especially because today is my Mom (and my Brother’s ) birthday.. Gabe was having fun with spray paint this morning and did a cool decorating job on his skateboard helmet.

I spent the morning wrestling with a bad computer virus on our upstairs computer. (I think I won.. but I won’t be sure  for a few days) Around midday my folks, Diane, Chai and I drove up to Honey Hollow for a hike. The same one as yesterday, but this time in reverse. It was nice being outside with my folks.  We had a nice picnic up there overlooking Preston brook. 

We got back mid afternoon and kinda laid low until folks started showing up for the pot luck. We had a good crowd tonight. The food theme was ‘end of summer harvest’ so we had lots of, good veggie dishes.

There were lots of kids on the tramp and playing guitar. It was very nice seeing everyone even though I’d been feeling pretty low and not all that social. I think my parents enjoyed seeing/meeting  everyone too. After dinner we had a birthday cake for my Mom….

After cake we all started making SamStones. With all the hands we were able to go through another 2 bags of clay which is several hundred stones.   We’ve given out more than 2000 at this point.

I’m starting to get more reports of people finding them.. nearly one a day. Today someone found one in Netherlands.. probably from my friend Leon. Maybe this week I’ll share  some of the stories of found SamStones.

 Right now.. I’m off to sleep. Happy birthday Mom and Billy.. I love you both.. gnite everyone. Gnite Sam

-me

Friends…
   Remember: end of summer pot-luck at our house tonight  (Sunday 9/2) at 6PM. We’ll be making SamStones as well.  The food theme is ‘Garden Harvest’ so use some of that end of season produce you still have growing. Don’t worry if you need to bend the theme… any thing you bring will be fine. We’ll have a grill or two going.  Please pass the winvite around. The more the merrier.  Questions/RSVP at 434-3576 . Hope to see you then

-jc

Friends…
    Just a quick announcement that we’ll be having an end of summer pot-luck at our house tomorrow night (Sunday 9/2) at 6PM. We’ll be making SamStones as well.  The food theme is ‘Garden Harvest’ so use some of that end of season produce you still have growing. Don’t worry if you need to bend the theme… any thing you bring will be fine. We’ll have a grill or two going.  Please pass the winvite around. The more the merrier.  Questions/RSVP at 434-3576 . Hope to see you then

-jc

ps. My folks will be in town so come meet them !

Pss.. The rest of the day was low-key and fun. I spent most of it trying to de-virus one of our computers and trying to find a recently expired mouse that had gotten trapped in our bedroom wall. Neither fun unto itself.. but both requiring the kind of mindless concentration that I find I enjoy now. Around 2 Lou and Kathy came buy and got us out for a hike with the dogs. We went up Honey Hollow and did the high loop. It was absolutely gorgeous up there.. not many berries, though.

My folks showed up around 6. My Dad got out of the car drinking a Red Bull.. Must run in the family.

It is good to see those guys. We all went out to dinner at the Cider House in Waterbury. My Dad spent time in New Orrleans as a kid so we figured he’d enjoy all the Cajon stuff on their menu. it was a really nice meal. I really recommend the place.

We’re now home and all pretty sleepy. So everyone’s off to bed…. Lookign forward to the pot-luck here tomorrow night. please pass the invite around !

One other thing that happened today is that Deb broght aus a really nice prinnt that Hannah and Briteney had made for us… The picture took our breath away… Good night my beautiful  boy…

-me

Quiet day today. I worked at home all day which was nice. I was considerably more productive and more optimistic today.   Our moods are like the weather these days.. you get what you get… and you know they’ll change.  One good thing about working at home is that I can do mindless manual labor while I’m on teleconferences.  One big accomplishment over the past two days is that I managed to buff out the scratches in the viewing screen of my trusty camera.. the one I use for photos in this blog. That poor camera is only 6 months old.. but it looks so beat up . I’m always jamming it in my pockets with whatever else might be in there : keys, cell pones, SamStones.. As a result, the viewing screen had been scratched to the point that it was very hard to use. Someone gave me the suggestion of using a mild abrasive like Brasso to buff out the scratches.. Over several hours I was able to use a cloth with progressively finer abrasives (Brasso-> copper cleaner -> silver polish -> toothpaste) to bring the screen back to pristine clarity.. it was so cool to watch !  I was so proud of my handiwork, that I tried to get a picture of the screen … It’s hard to do. I tried with a set of mirrors.. you can’t see the screen very well.. but you can see me reflected..  ..

I couldn’t help notice the look in my eyes here.. It’s like the spark is out even as I was doing this weird and fun picture. I reflected (ugh) on that for a while…. Even talked it over with Diane. Sometimes what I’m doing.. as reflected in my life at work or around town or in this blog is not always 100 %  how I’m feeling. As I’ve said in the past I do think about what I’m going to write here. I sometimes have to edit/omit stuff that’s too deep or too sad or too personal to relate in a public way like this. I hope  that people understand that. Somehow writing the slightly more upbeat story here serves as a kind of therapy. I can go back and read what I wrote and view things a little bit more optimistically.. it’s kind of a bootstrap thing. Does that make sense ?

That was today’s ruminations..  I did break and had lucn with my friend Pooja who was up visitng from IBM Fishkill, BY. We had more NY friends in this evening.   My friends Katherine. Kevin and their 4 boys were up visiting in VT for a week.  They stopped by for dinner. We had a blast.. Their kids are all so funny. Diane made a delicious pesto dinner then we all went outside and did the male bonding activity of  BSO (blowing stuff up) .   In the middle there we got a quick lesson in juggling !

OK.. now to bed. Tomorrow is Diane and my 21^st anniversary.. We plan to hike a mountain as has been our custom. Like all days now.. I’m sure it will be bittersweet,  I will say that I’m incredibly blessed  to be married to such a loving, strong and fun person. I love you forever Diane

I love my family…

-me