Monday night – Sam decorates the tree

Leave a comment

Very nice and slow day as folks ready for xmas.. One thing that’s always important for us is finding ways to bring Sam into our celebration. Today one task we had was to decorate the tree.. we have a tradition of decorating them in interesting themes each of the past 6 years… we’ve had zombie trees, space ships, mexican trees. We were hard up this year thinking of a theme.. Ideas we’d discussed were a ‘chemist-tree’.. with decorations from the periodic table.. nah.. too cerebral.. then we had the idea from Gabes recent (forced) reading of the Scarlet Letter in school. of putting a giant read ‘A’ on it .. and calling it and ‘Adultree’..   .. no.. too much of a downer.. ..

 

Then we had the idea.. We did a ‘red bull’ tree.. The reason it was uch a great idea is that we have 5 boxes of red bull cans that sam collected up in the attic.. they went from trash to relic as did many of his belongings.   Sam loved red bull.. and it remains our toast of choice to his memory.   One of the boxes contained  a set of cans that sam and I had cut apart into sheets. our plan was to decorate one of the walls  his room with them.. but… we never got there…

So.. we had this roll of cut apart redbull cans.. perfect for making garlands.. Gabe has a huge collection of redbull pop tops to go with..

gabe strung up some of the intact cans..

while I cut apart the unrolled sheets… It felt great to handle these again… .. it was one of the last projects sam and I did together..

brit and hannah helped me staple the strips into garlands..

and up on the tree they went

sam had painted one of hte cans gold for soem reason. max took it and made a great red bull angel for the top of the tree..

then the kids made us dinner.. Max made a beautiful beet and gorganzola sald, matt made he,p burgers, ian made scalloped potatoes, Hannah made quinoa salad… and gabe made crepes for desert ..

we lit candles for sam..

and dug in

nothing flavors up xmas like daves insanity

just finishing desert !

 

now.. gotta tuck the babies in

 

merry Christmas everyone.. I hope you have as much love around you as we have…

merry Christmas all, merry Christmas sam

-me

Sunday night – mammoth burn

Leave a comment

We woke late and started the drive back to vermont. on the way we visited Dian’es uncle Armond. His wife Miriam died a week ago after a long illness. Armond is 88 and sharp as a whip. He was doing well. It was very good to see him..   6 hours later we slid back into jonesville.. a long drive down and back to endicott.. still very nice to see everyone..

The plan for this evening was to head to chris’s to see the delayed burn of the giant mammoth . It was to have burnt on the solstice, but the high winds and rain forced a delay.. I’m glad it did.. the weather tonight was great. low 20’s and a light snow..

This is Chris’s most masterful design yet,,the beast was huge and life like. He and friends including Mike, gabe, max, abbot and Luke had worked for weeks to get this guy built ..

A nice crowd had gathered as we layered on the last of the fireworks. I had a few chemical flares.. strontium nitrate/perchlorate for red, zinc and sulfur for green, some magnesium wire for white and a 5 pound cremora fire ball for fun. they worked fine.. but I have o admit the ton of store bought fireworks were prettier and more fun..

We had a bit of a time getting the whole thing lit.. but once it caught it went up beautifully..

here’s a samstone in a pyrodex charge.. ready to blow up.

max rides the beast !

the builders gather for a quick pic

i’m in there too.. just taking the pic.

and then it lit !.. (and my batteries gave out 🙂

we took turns walkign through the fire at the end.. it was hot and purifying..

max  (aka nero) played while the mamoth burned..

 

ok.. time for bed.. more tomorrow

thanks Chris and kim for hosting the best burn yet !

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Saturday night – Endicott

Leave a comment

Greetings from Endicott. We’re down here at Diane’s folks house to see them and to visit some other families and friends.  After a good 6 hour drive with the two boys we showed up and had a nice family xmas with dianes folks.. Then a traditiaonl dinner of Phil’s Checken House Chicken and Roma’s Pizza.

we also celebrated Victors 21st birthday.. and pat’s birthday.

The pleasure of the day was tempered with real sadness for us. our good friend Ann..N, our dear friend Linda’s mom , passed away last night after 2 years of living with cancer. She was a great , great woman. I’ll always remember her firing my potato cannon off of her back porch while well into her 70’s.

 

We went over to visit Linda, David and Andrea tonight. They were sad… and still doing OK.. they told us some good stories about Ann’s last days.. she was a real character up to time she passed.

Ann, we will miss you and remember you …

 

Tomorrow morning we’ll head back to Vermont. We’re going to try and make Chris’s Mammoth burn tomorrow night. it was to have burned on the solstice.. but weather delayed that.. If you can make Chris’s burn, you should.. it will be amazing !

 

OK.. gotta sleep now.. more from the road tomorrow

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

Friday night – Sleetbow

Leave a comment

Good solstice everyone..  I know it’s better not to count your apocalypses before they hatch.. but so far, we seemed to have survived the end of the world..   The day was raw and rainy, .. so bad that schools were closed and friend chris decided to delay the burning of the mammoth.   It will now burn on Sunday night

 

One highlight of the day was a rainbow.. or .. more appropriately a sleetbow..   The sun peeked through the slush and sent a promising sign. It seemed like G-d”s promise to Noah after the flood hat things were cool.. no end of the world today..

a good day.. and a dark day.. I could feel the darkness get me a little near nightfall.. biut feeling ok now… I’m feeling the day starting to win over the night already..

For all my pagan friends.. happy solstice.. blessed be !

nite all, nite sam

-me