I thought I would check in to say Hi!
Good lord! I thought we were all busy when our children were in college - now It just keeps on getting busier.
S. Africa sounds delightful, dte1 Good luck with your new semester!
CBB - I love Chicago! Which blues club did you go to?
Oregon - so glad to hear about the successful visit with the new BF! And I hope your weekend with your son’s family was great - in-laws sound awful!
kmc = the new gf sounds like a keeper! Nice
ararab - keep the bear repellent handy!
Shaw - kudos to your kids. Is you daughter rethinking the yogi thing?
MP - loved to read of the wedding plans
Fallgirl - Good luck with your son’s move!
Northminn - so happy to read of your older D’s new beau - although at this point, it is not too new, is it??
Rochmom - congrats on the new position!! I hope the granddbaby is doing well!
c_q - I was at your D’s school this weekend…saw all the new students posing for pix. Seems so long ago…
I hope I didn’t forget anyone… what a fun group!
Happy Labor Day!
ShawD is still doing meditation/yoga when she can, but is completely tied up being an RN and a student NP. She’d love to develop an alternative-y practice later on, but figures she needs to learn to be a good NP. She was actually looking at the Navy as they mentor NPs very well, but they are not hiring FNPs at the moment (we are glad because we didn’t want her seconded to Iraq). She just has to make it through the year. She will continue to work at the school (she loves it; I don’t as she has to deal as a nurse with sometimes out-of-control kids).
ShawSon is on an orientation trip to Yosemite with other business school students. It was cute. There was a list of equipment they wanted people to bring, some of which he knows he doesn’t need. They’ll be sleeping a lodge and he has been backpacking there several times this summer and has not needed hats or gloves. But, he didn’t want to say, “I have been leading trips to Yosemite over the summer and I’m such a hotshot I don’t need to follow your equipment list.” So, i gave him some advice on how to say it while seeming down-to-earth and not elitist.
I’m in the airport in Dublin. Did the tourist-y things yesterday (Book of Kells, Grafton Street, watched an international rugby match in a pub, …). But, one of my former clients lives here and we met for dinner Friday night, Saturday night and then he just stopped over for Sunday lunch. Likely a couple of business opportunities for me. Plus I find the Irish to be among the warmest, nicest folks around (based in large part on Irish I’ve met outside Ireland, but seems the same here). I find that in the US South and Texas, you get a lot of this, but it can easily be completely insincere. In Ireland, it seems genuine. Do you find the same thing?
I’m on my way to Lufthansa for a board meeting and then to SF to help ShawSon move in and find a place to live in the Bay area for the winter. Although I will only have spent 1 night at home in 3 weeks, ShawWife will have been with me for two of the weeks.
Meant to say I am on my way to a Lufthansa flight. Very efficient airline. I have yet to fly Aer Lingus. I wonder if they are as friendly as the Irish folks I have run into.
I’ve only been in Ireland once but did find the people friendly in general. Safe travels , shaw. Hope you enjoy your visit with your son and find a place to live in the Bay area for the winters.
Zetesis, Hope you are enjoying your time in Turkey.
S2 said he enjoyed his first week of work in his new job- a startup with people he knows from his first job out of college. He said his first week went really well. Any startup is risky but he is young and unencumbered so now is the time to do this!
Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. We had a nice time today at an end of the season party at our pool.
This has been an interesting time at my house. S does not leave for London until next Wednesday. The upside is getting to spend more time together and that he has been doing a lot of the cooking. Unlike me, he (and D) is a terrific cook. And he creates his own recipes using fresh stuff and it’s all very healthy. The downside is that his friends are gone and he is bored and somewhat nervous about his new adventure. I know he was very wistful last week when his friends returned to the school he attended last year (where c_Q’s S is). He misses a lot of people there.
H and I celebrated our 35th anniversary yesterday with dinner at the french place here. With S leaving soon and D’s wedding a trip or even a weekend away will have to wait.
Happy Labor Day, everyone. This Monday holiday is a godsend, as I returned from my Illinois /Indiana/visit with my mom/journey to a family funeral, last evening. We had a nice visit with my Dad’s remaining brother - who is and isn’t like Dad- and I got to chat with multiple first cousins and see their kids, grandkids, etc.
I had always known that my grandfather (Dad’s dad) was an alcoholic who experienced a dramatic religious conversion. I learned this weekend that he spent two years in prison (! he had stolen property in his car), during the depression, leaving his wife with 5 kids and pregnant with the 6th. So when I knew them, Grandpa was a great guy, deacon in the church, etc., and Grandma was an old "B. No wonder.
I hope to have an opportunity later on to quiz the children of my uncle who just died about their father. At the service, they talked about how organized he was, how he loved planning trips. My living uncle said he is that way; my dad is that way; I am that way. The thing is, my uncle who just died was raised hours away from the rest of the family, by my Grandma’s sister. Siblings raised apart, heredity vs. environment, fascinating.
Congratulations on the 35th, @FallGirl. Interesting insights, MP.
I missed Labor Day as I was working in Germany. I’m now on the plane to Los Angeles and then up to San Francisco. There was a pilot strike on Lufthansa today, but the flight to LAX went anyway and I’m on it (using onboard wifi). I’ll be in SF a little later than desired, but life is good.
We get to see ShawSon in his natural habitat (except that he will be with business students and not techies this year, which is less of his milieu. His advisor is trying to lure him away from the MBA and to the PhD program in Data Science.
His GF seems to be taking a trip while we are there. I wonder if we are scary? Maybe it is too soon to be inspected , but of course, we want to make sure our boy is loved. ShawSon did tell us that in Silicon Valley, there are lots of couples with Jewish males and Chinese (or generally Asian) females (witness Mark Zuckerberg) but much less so the reverse. He was at a Palo Alto restaurant with quite a number of such couples. He also says that some of these Chinese females say they are culturally Jewish and that Chinese mothers are happy (or at least not unhappy) when the Chinese girl marries a nice Jewish boy. [We have a couple of friends with sons with Chinese GF/wife and the fit doesn’t seem great – in the not yet married couple, the girl’s mother does not want to meet until they are married but wants to send gifts. In the other, the girl is very distant from the mother who is a) warm and wonderful; and b) a complete piece of work, so distance might be understandable.] Who knew?
Need to let you all know that H FINALLY was successful in registering our car. I think it only took 6 tries. We had to rent a car to take S back to college since ours wasn’t legally registered anywhere.
Had a nice visit with D over Labor Day weekend. Attended the US Open (tennis), a fabulous exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that just closed, and saw An American in Paris. She had a few more things on her to-do list but it was too much to fit in.
I am enjoying my empty nest! With kids home from school or visiting, and our nephew moving in with us, we haven’t had an empty nest since mid-December. Only scheduled to be empty for about a month, but I will enjoy it!
Great news re the car, c-q. When we moved into a loft in Soho a number of years ago, everyone we ever met somehow decide that they wanted to come to NY and stay with us. Out in the exurbs now of Boston now, fewer people just happen to be in the neighborhood – although ShawWife had three separate sets of folks stay with her last week when I was in Europe.
congrats on the car c-q. And, yes, a coffee toast to being an empty nester --even no dog!.This morning is the first time I have been alone completely since August 3rd. I have nothing until 3 this afternoon.
DD may be back for 3 or more months beg. in Nov. We enjoy having her and try to remember that eventually her ins and out will stop.
Made the trip north and delivered furniture. Decided to buy a new twin mattress for G’Son. I will order from Amazon and have it delivered to their current place so they will have it for the move in a month. The matress I was going to give him is around 20 years old! It is still in great condition and no stains. But seems a little TOO old. I can use it for him when he visits here.
He is 3.5 and lovely. Can focus and can be rambunctious.
DIL had a lovely cerermony. Her parent were actually normal and welcoming. This was a first. So overall an expensive but good visit.
MP, My dad was also raised separately from his siblings. He had 3 older sisters (with a set of twins) but his mother died shortly after he was born. He was raised by his mother’s sister and her husband. But he did see his sisters and they still had a bond, despite being raised separately.
FallGirl, Happy 35th! A good French restaurant is always nice.
c_q. Glad you finally got your car registered and you had a nice visit with your daughter.
shaw, It’s never " too soon to be inspected " ! I was nervous first meeting S1’s girlfriend years ago but we seem to get along fine.
oregon, Glad the ceremony was lovely and the visit was good!
Home from Turkey a couple of hours ago, trying to catch up on this thread. Turkey was hot and humid, but we had a lovely if somewhat worn hotel right on the Aegean, so swimming was lovely. I flew through Germany and London today where it was overcast and chilly; felt good just to walk up the gangways! Here it’s just plain way too hot – about like Turkey. After 24 hours of travel: good to be home.
Helped ShawSon into his room in the palatial business school dorm today and out of his old room. He is not the neatest guy around. But, it was reasonably smooth. He seems ambivalent about his mom helping him organize – but doesn’t seem to have a problem with what I do, which is more electronic and planning. Not clear. Had dinner with ShawSon and the magnetically beautiful one. Delightful young woman. We will get to meet the new GF. We’ll take them out to dinner in a couple of days.
Wow we are a quiet group this week!
I am quietly waiting for the window cleaners to arrive in two minutes. I am worried as this appointment was made 6 weeks ago and I just realized that there as never a reminder call. Of course company arrives next Wed. and a dinner party then also. Fingers crossed.
D drove a few hours to visit with her G’ma in MA. She could not take the dog because of the heat and so could not stop and stay with her BF overnight because the dog was home alone…I heartily laughed as she told her story. This has been our life (except the BF part) taking care of her dog for the past few years. H misses her the most. I miss her but am happy to be missing her for a change. It is so freeing!
OK now they are 3 minutes late…someone send a very very tall ladder and the window fairies please.
No one likes to do our house so I am expecially worried…
It would be better here if we could get a break in the heat. It’s been unusual for us in that it’s not cooling down overnight as it usually does. I had my horseback riding lesson this morning at 10; it’s usually pleasantly cool, but not today.
Oregon, I think one reason we don’t have a dog now is that as empty nesters we are free to go when we want and not worry about “the dog.” Very freeing.
I was nervous first meeting S1’s girlfriend years ago but we seem to get along fine.