Peace

Here I am on the sofa, listening to a rare gentle rain, with the faint sound of an asthmatic cat wheezing through a mid-morning nap. What a wonderful start to the day.

Time to crack open a history book and dig in.

Texas Gains A Star...

This morning we said, "See you later" to Rachel. She and Sarah have packed up and they are moving down to San Antonio, where Rachel will begin college this fall.

We have been blessed with having Rachel be a part of our family for the last three years. As we move into this new chapter of our lives, we do so with a boatload of wonderful memories from our time together. There was the solo in front of everyone in Chapel after having the chaplain mention her by name. There were all the great plays, and songs in the musicals that were executed so effortlessly. What a star. There was the time she stopped Erik from frying pancakes with vinegar -- what a great laugh.

This isn't "good-bye", this is a definite, "We will see you later." Thank you very much for all the love you shared with our family. We will definitely miss you. Take care, good luck, we are with you.

No Trouble in Paradise

Last week my lovely sister, Gaylord, was married to the wonderful, Jon Young, in Bermuda. The weather was great, the wedding went smoothly, the parties were memorable, and the snorkeling was other worldly.


Gaylord hams it up during the rehearsal on Friday night.




Here Winston, Gaylord, and I are trying to figure out how to walk Gaylord down the isle. I believe I am suggesting that we drag her down the isle. Wow, this was great fun.




This is Erik at dinner. He is having a "chocolate monkey" during dinner. This is one of many drinks that seemed to go Erik's way that evening. Eventually he earned the name, "Mattress Man" from the bartender (I wasn't there, but this is according to the legend). You can tell Erik is on his way as he is already a bit out of focus here.

Here we are walking to lunch on Saturday. The weather was rainy and wet for the first part of the day, but thankfully it cleared up for a great wedding ceremony during the evening.





This is the island where we found the best snorkeling. Parrot fish, silver fish with black spots near the tail and bumble-bee striped fish were easily found in these waters. On Sunday or Monday, one of Gaylord's friends cut his foot badly snorkeling in this area.

I understand this involved a trip to the local hospital. The ironic part is this person is one of the most nervous snorkelers and he writes a blog from the perspective of a shark. Too funny.

A Slow Death on I-90...

Never again will I drive down I-90 on the way to Chicago. Of any place I have every driven the traffic between Rockford and Chicago is insane. We missed most of Maura and Grace's opening because we were stuck in traffic, and we left Minneapolis at 8:12 a.m. Brutal. Absolutely no sense to it at all.

Despite the horrible drive in, downtown Chicago is beautiful and worthy of another look. The light was great. I loved the flowers in Grant Park and the beautiful buildings downtown. Great stuff. I would have liked to hit a pizza joint and had some famous Chicago style za, but next time.

Brother Elm Takes A Turn...

In our front yard, on the boulevard, we have a huge elm tree. In the last two to three weeks, it has started to die, and not slowly. We don't know what has caused this, but here are some of the theories....

A) Maura is out of town and so the tree has not had forty minutes drinks of water each day.

B) Three weeks ago, Paul and I melted the lead out of one of the old iron pipes and we wonder if somehow the chemical residue from that pipe exchange has released toxins that killed our friend the tree.

C) Dutch-Elm disease. The argument against this theory is that we have watched many trees in the area go, and they seem to drift off slowly, not just wilt and have the leaves fall off...

D) Heart Attack - Don't really know the rationale behind this theory.

It is sad. Presumably they will come tell us the tree is sick and then at some point the tree will be cut down and instead of living in a nice tree alley, we will be back to a boring front yard with a lot more morning sun. On the other hand, if a storm ever came from the east, we now don't have to worry about the tree crushing the house.

After living here sixteen years, it is sad to see an old friend go. Sigh.

Back from Clifton

Erik arrived back from Clifton, Ireland this afternoon. He has been up for almost a day, but you wouldn't know it in looking at him. He seems to have had a great time, and he still is close friends with Brooks, who was gracious enough to invite Erik.

We haven't heard all the details but there seems to be a few stories about ordering a Guinness, something about cider and pitching dried bog chunks with Martin and his family. Too much, too much. All seems to have gone well, with the exception of a death of a small camera.

The only downside is that something seems to have changed with Erik's relationship with Rachel. She came over tonight after work and she left after a couple of hours. Erik was in tears when she left. That isn't great timing, but I suppose Rachel couldn't wait any longer, and with both of them heading in separate ways in a month, perhaps this will be a chance for a fresh start for everyone. Who knows what is involved...I don't know the whole story.

So with all of the that, I turn, once again to music. I have "Big Country" by the Flecktones humming along in the background to help me make sense of all of this.

Erik shared some quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald - something along the lines of being gracious and not attributing the worst to others and giving situations the benefit of the doubt. That is a game plan that serves me well as I struggle to get a handle of my educational future with a new Head of School and Director of the Middle School. What things do I control? Then those are the aspects of my life that I am going to work on developing. Perhaps my sense of community moves in a bit--I don't know. I shouldn't judge things before they have a chance to get started.

Bill Disappears.....

I was disappointed to hear through the grapevine that Bill has been fired. Apparently he missed a day of work and didn't phone in to let someone know that he wasn't coming in to work. I would guess that there was more to it than that, but I wouldn't have fired the guy. He was organized and he seemed to work hard when he was on the job. Sigh....

What makes it even harder for me is that I have a sense that Bill lives pretty close to the financial edge. I don't know any particulars, but of all the guys to cashier Bill and his family seemed closest to the edge.

Somehow this just seems like a meaner world when stuff like this happens....Where is the attempt to work with people?