<p>Mod–I promise to send your D fairydust and energy all day long. I hope he feels good about the interview and of course, is accepted PROMPTLY. </p>
<p>NM–still have some days with H where I really am frustrated. The other day I finally gave up what I was doing and went on a walk and lunch with him. Made sure he had dinner in the frig and leftovers for the next few days lunches. (still working part time). I made suggestions of how he could finish his day out. I then went to my office ( I go in one day a week now) and asked that he make a fruit salad for me for after. I then decided to take a nap at the office and run some errands so that he would be at his choir rehersal when I came home. (bad girl, I know). And guess what? no fruit salad. “lost track of time”. (should have warned that this is a rant). Unbelievable.
He needs to get himself organized. I began cutting back and not taking new clients (am 64 and stated my career at 23)
about 2 years ago. It has been anxiety producing as I have worked since I was 15 except for one year when D was born. Most of that part time but H had grueling hours and no way could we have managed, at least without a nanny, for me to work more. Also, as I am a true perfectionist…
I am not crafty and one of those outgoing social people when I am with you but really love most of my time to be alone and silent. It has made for a difficult life as I can only take people in short quantities and H loves loves loves to be part of community where he literally sits back and does not take any responsibily but is a good worker bee. I end up in the front directing and burn out quickly.</p>
<p>The up side of H’s being around is we have had a long stretch of lovely hikes, city hill walks, canoeing and planning our Italy trip. We get along on a day to day basis better. It is my needs for solitude that is the isssue.</p>
<p>mp has put us onto a lovely sounding apartment in Florence. H was able to zero in on the street and we could “walk” around the area. Thanks mp. Will you be my official apartment finder? Barcelona and now Florence. Let me know where you go next ; </p>
<p>Well, H has come in two times to get me out to help with the canoe…</p>
<p>You’re more than welcome. Our apartment in Budapest was gorgeous, centrally located and very affordable, so let me know when you want to go there!</p>
<p>In Toronto for a million dollar wedding. Should be interesting. I have no idea what a normal wedding costs. $50k or $100k? I’d take the difference and have that be a house or hefty down payment on a house. </p>
<p>Ok if the average wedding costs $30,000, I am in deep trouble.<br>
I took Son to an actual salon for a haircut yesterday. (H has always sent him with a coupon to a place with “clips” in its name.). Son has these wonderful curls and I just didn’t want them buzzed off. Son is such a sweetie - he was surprised and blushing at how good it looked.
The sweetie also got up the nerve to tell us he had dropped a class. The first paper and test didn’t go all that well. So the Pie family may have kids in college until y’all’s grand kids start college. </p>
<p>Everything was classy and in ample supply at the wedding (lamb chops for appetizers, open bar, good champagne,…) And it was at one of the cities fancier hotels and there was a 7 piece band that was very good. But I have no idea why that would cost 8 or 10 or 15 times the cost of an average wedding. Twice or 3 times maybe given the location. </p>
<p>Everything was lovely. We had a very nice time. </p>
<p>One of my partners gave birth at the “ebola hospital” yesterday morning. I hope she didn’t know about the second case when she was admitted. She’s a very sensible person, but was a bit nervous about delivering there when the first case was admitted.</p>
<p>Have y’all read Lies My Teacher Told Me? Older D’s APUSH teacher had them buy the book; she didn’t read it but I did. The chapter on Columbus is mind blowing. (You can read the entire chapter in pdf online. Just google it.) </p>
<p>Did you ever wonder who the native Hatians were/are?
Before 1492, it is estimated that 8 million people lived on Hispanola. By 1496 (before smallpox was introduced) there were 1,100,000. By 1516, 12,000 native Hispanolians; down to 200 in 1542, and by 1555 there were none.</p>
<p>Conditions under Columbus were so bad that the indignous folks started aborting babies, kiiling their children and jumping off cliffs, when they had no cultural precedent for same.</p>
<p>There is an article in this week’s Economist that says that the average cost of the wedding in the US is $25K. It was about $30K in 2005. [The article was on wedding insurance]. ShawWife and I are baffled as to how it could cost so much. Maybe they are including many other things – the bride’s dress was spectacular, hotel rooms, … . It was a very fancy hotel, but even so. Well, hopefully my kids won’t get married there. [Actually, ShawWife and I were married on a “farm” owned by her parents that is 125 acres on a pond with a beautiful house. If ShawWife’s mom still owns it at the time, perhaps they’ll get married there as well.]</p>
<p>Hoping Moda checks in soon with good news about S’s interview … Thinking constantly about boysx3 … </p>
<p>We’ll only have 1 wedding to pay for, and I certainly hope D will want to go the simple route … A few weeks ago we went to a music festival at a vineyard near our beach house. The building looked like a quonset hut on the outside, but was absolutely fabulous inside – huge stone fireplace, wood beams, etc. My first thought was, “What a great place for a wedding reception!” Anyway, she’s not even engaged, so I guess I won’t worry about any of that yet.</p>
<p>We had a lovely long weekend – had some good friends visit. Actually, we have visitors the next 2 weekends, too. I’ll be all “hostess-ed” out by the time we head back to Cambridge. Our puppy, though, was in 7th heaven having new “playmates” for a few days. Now she’s exhausted!</p>
<p>Missypie – along the lines of your post, H recently read 1493 – which is a book about what happened after 1492 as produce, goods, diseases, and everything else started traveling from this world to Europe (and vice versa). It is just astonishing how much the world changed (e.g., according to this book, earthworms are not indigenous to North America!). </p>
<p>Sorry guys! Ended up being busier than I thought, which is actually a good thing. I am happy to report that S called me on his way to find the car. Thought it went really well except for one “awkward” part. There were two interviews and he felt the first went exceedingly well. The second was an very older guy, who basically asked S something about how he felt in having wasted his time in research because he wasn’t published. S tried to explain that the lab where he worked had some projects five and six years deep before published and and then it was like, does that make you mad you’re not published having worked so hard? He said it was just awkward and he also felt he had to defend a liberal arts education at a small school in the middle of nowhere. So, who knows. He felt the questions this guy asked kind of insulted his education, and so he is just hoping he didn’t come off as defensive, and mostly tried to sway the conversations to the positives of learning in that environment. So… I guess we’ll see in 5-6 weeks. The committee meets every other week and they met last week.</p>
<p>Also, UCSF sent out a bunch of rejections over the weekend and S didn’t get one! So… there’s also that. In fact, he isn’t on hold anywhere and still only has the two rejections. The big kahuna (sp?) is in two weeks and it will likely be seen as the most important day of his entire life to date. My neighbor says he will likely also get late interviews with his numbers from other schools, so we’ll see what happens. It aint over until it’s over I suppose.</p>
<p>Friend of mine let me have two absolutely darling wicker chairs for my porch today. She is selling her mom’s place (she has her own and managing a rental is not working for her). IN any event, her mom loved wicker and never got rid of any of it even when they converted a very large home into a tri-level after her dad died when she was in college. Anyway, we did some rearranging to better stage the place and I landed two very sweet chairs, as really, there were just too many in the place. The one needs a new cushion and the other needs it’s cushion recovered, but this is very real and pristine wicker and it is prefect for the nook porch. Seriously, they don’t make wicker like this anymore and I feel so very honored to have two of her mom’s chairs (that are actually more likely her grandmother’s chairs). We grew up next door to one another here and I thought her mom was truly an amazing woman. Her dad was a presbyterian minister. </p>
<p>My H’s partner 's D got married and it was kept at 30K as he is very frugal. it was lovely. not lavish. they did get a great band. I don’t think I will have to worry about this for a while. Most weddings here are more.
I am a snob in the way I cant stand braggers. My h and I do not talk about what we make, own etc… His brother and my SIL do it all the time. My SIL thinks it is of value if you don’t work, because your husband makes enough money. I feel she is backward. Actually I am certain we have way more in assets and income than they do, but we just nod and smile. and try to get away asap.
good luck to Moda son.
At the lake this weekend, it has been crazy but we made it there. MIL is really going down hill and it may be sooner or later. it is exhausting. I have had a number of friends losing people close to them. What is going on? </p>
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