Question of the day… I have 11 people for dinner on Sat. That is low. Typically it is around 18. So. How do I manage to seat people. I think a table with 5 and 6 is a bit small but my dining room probably can’t manage all 11 of us. Ugh!
Alas, I’ve only been to your neighborhood twice – to visit the U of R when my older sister was looking at colleges and then once to show it to ShawD when she was looking at colleges. My older sister attended and loved it (aside from the snow). Is there snow there yet?
We’re having a Bday party for ShawWife. Yoga for those who want to partake at our normal Sunday morning class and then a brunch. At most 30 people, so not one of our crazy things. Next year will be her big one. Instead of six dinner parties with 10 people each, we are thinking of renting a villa in Italy and maybe a place in Canada for a few weeks each with room for people to stay with us. Of course, not in the winter but spring. We need to make sure we are back for ShawSon’s graduation in June and ShawWife will be teaching an art class in Italy in May – she hasn’t done it for a few years but will take 10 or maybe 15 folks (her last class was a master class so all artists with MFAs, though often were picking it up after raising their kids) to tour the Venice Biennale with her and then paint in Umbria under her tutelage. Maybe we will go there before the class.
Hi Shaw - no snow yet. I’m not complaining at all about that. Actually they are saying 60 on Sat. No fire in the fire place this year for the party. H works at U of R.
B’day party for both this year and next year for your W sound lovely. H really wants to go and tour Italy. I’m really into going to Ireland. We’ll see who wins and when. 
Kmc, so sorry to hear about your nephew.
Fallgirl, so glad you were able to see Boys!
NM, sending good thoughts your way.
I went to a baby shower on Saturday and so many of us that are my age were talking about our aging parents. One woman not only moved her mom in with her, but she and her H have given her the master bedroom so the mom has room to have a bit of her furniture with her. What a saint!
Fall girl, that’s awesome!
Shaw, we would be remiss if we didn’t all catch the bus to join you in Italy 
By spring, we’ll have worked our way through RM’s menu at her dinner party…
NM, you must have sensed me wondering where you were. Hope all that’s topsy turvy rights itself soon!
I am feeling slammed workwise, which is nothing new in a short month. But this year, Jan and Feb are “short months” for me too as I have the girls’ family birthday cruise the first week of Jan, the the blues cruise in Feb with McH. Not complaining…for me, this is a fab amount of vaca…just not sure how to manage my workload
Cruise #1 should probably be a reality show with sibs and mom in tow, particularly since sibs were sure to add the all-you-can-drink package to their otherwise expense-free vacation Even mom seems to be planning to walk on the wild side…after signing up for a rainforest hike and cave tubing day tour with me, she got excited when I mentioned I might do the America Cup 12 meter race simulation…now she wants to do it too
This might not sound out of the ordinary unless one had the distinct recollection of all the times as a child I watched her get sea sick on our cruiser in maybe 3-4 foot waves on Lake Huron I don’t think she’s ever even crewed on a sailboat, which might recalibrate her notion of gravity, depending on the wind I need to give some thought as to whether or not I should discourage or encourage her newfound adventuresome-ness hi ho.
KMC - sounds like fun! Enjoy the time with family. Work is always there - or it is for me - no one does it for me!
Hi all! Back from our quick trip to FL. We had a little rain and lots of clouds, but it was warm. H grumbled a lot, but we still spent 4 days at the beach. (I ignored his “whining.”) Funny/odd to see lights on palm trees, at least to a native New Englander.
In spite of all that, I’m still in denial that Christmas is approaching. I don’t do that much shopping, but every year it seems harder to do even that amount since every year I seem to have fewer and fewer ideas … I’m thinking of an “experience” for my father – maybe taking him to a Red Sox game. At 87 there’s really nothing he needs, and whatever he wants he just buys. Anyone have any ideas for different stocking stuffers? I remember last year a few of us discovered the Pocket Monkey, which was a big hit.
While we were in FL D called to say she and fiancé made an offer on a condo in Boston, and it was accepted. Her (now) fiancé has been looking to buy something for well over a year. He had been looking in Cambridge/Somerville, but the market here is incredibly hot – stuff goes immediately at well over asking. So, they expanded their search area and found this place in South Boston. They still offered over asking, but by a smaller % than in other areas. 2BR, gas fireplace, exposed brick, granite counters, new appliances, deck and roof rights. Should work well for them. BB&B gift cards will be on their Christmas lists!
Off to catch up on accumulated mail, laundry, and life in general.
That’s exciting news about your D and her fiance. I hope they get the condo.
There is a stocking stuffer thread in the cafe that might be helpful.
Today is my only work from home day his month due to scheduling/holidays/events, etc. I don’t want to do this all the time but it’s nice being able to work in my sweats and avoid the commute. The last three days have been long ones.
S will be home on Saturday and I can’t wait.
CBB, the condo sounds great! Florida does, too. The weather her is pretty darned perfect (mid 70s, upper 70s forecast for tomorrow) but here up in the office tower, doesn’t make a big difference.
I contributed one idea to the stocking stuffer thread. I bought each kid the Amazon top rated pizza cutter…fits in a stocking, useful and not too expensive.
One advantage to my current work assignment: it’s the weekend! My D has been busy sightseeing every day, but I’ve been busy working. I have 2 days off for the weekend so finally get to explore.
c_q–you have come back and recovered? Did I miss your report?
mp, yes to great pizza cutters as gifts.
Have NOT recovered from two lost nights with baby. Am too old! and I am stupid as I cannot put myself to bed when I can have some alone time.
More later as Med kid staying for interviews and Baby just left again!
Poor me
:-*
Oregon, I’m still here. Did training Tues - Thur, now it’s the weekend. Have second week of training Sun - Tues. I’ll return home Wednesday. My D leaves tomorrow to return home. Today we did a bus tour of Dubai and a desert sunset tour - rode camels and the whole bit. It was a lot of fun.
Desert sunset tour. Sounds like fun. I did something like that in the outback of Australia sans camels.
Funny story. ShawSon is required to take an educational trip to an emerging market (I think) during his 2 years in business school. So, he signed up for one to India as his friends (second year MBA students) are running it. He sent me the description of the trip and I booked his tickets. I got a good deal but also knew that coming back from Jaipur, most people fly through Mumbai but the international and domestic terminals at Mumbai are actually 2 different airports 4 km apart, so I booked his ticket through Delhi instead. So he avoids a wild scene getting through security in Mumbai. [Another funny story, maybe below about how I do it]. His flight is for tonight.
Yesterday late afternoon, he calls me and says, “Dad. It looks like my flight is for tomorrow (Friday). I thought I was leaving on Sunday.” This made me nervous that I made a mistake, but we checked and the flight on Friday was correct. We talked about all of the things he would need to do in the next day to get going. Print visa/ride to airport/etc. He was meeting his GF for the afternoon and dinner in San Francisco and would call me when he got back.
Well, his super-organized GF (she of the spreadsheet for buying his clothes) knew that the flight was on Friday and also knew that ShawSon thought it was Sunday. She let him keep that fiction and did everything that would enable him to leave on Friday, including printing out the visa, doing the laundry, buying travel medicine, buying snacks for the flight, getting clearance to leave early to drive him to the airport, etc. She even did the preparation so he could give each of his study group members a holiday card and gift before he left. [He never would have thought of that]. At dinner, he discovers that she’s done all this and calls me with a big grin on his face (I could hear it). I told him that a) she was a gem; and b) he should buy her a really nice present in India.
I’d say she has just earned the 100% Shawbridge seal of approval.
My funny story at Mumbai airport. I did a transfer from domestic to international at Mumbai once and learned the hard way. If you are transferring to an international flight, you never leave a secure area. They do a security search before they put you on a bus to the international terminal. No obvious reason since they just dump you outside the terminal, where there are many doors and chaos at each door, with people offering to help you (If people are offering to help you in a setting like that, you don’t want their help). I was flying British Airways (where I am a monthly traveler), looked for someone who looked like he/she was from BA. I found one, who looked up my status and then said, “Come with me.” He walked with me to the line where the soldier check my passport and then inside where there were several pretty approximately 23 yo female BA employees. He assigned one to me and her job was to walk me to the front of every line while making charming conversation with me. When we got through the final line, she drop me off with yet another pretty approximately 23 yo female BA employee, whose job it was to make charming conversation with me while she walked me to the lounge. The whole process can take hours but done this way takes 20 minutes.
I realized right then something that had eluded me during my time in India. Whenever I checked into my (relative nice) hotels in India, there was a set of employees hanging around the lobby offering to do things I didn’t need like walk me to my room. In one hotel, a man introduced himself to me as my butler. What was the point of all these folks? Well, if you have 1.25 billion people, labor is essentially free. So, these people probably had pretty good jobs making sure that the folks capable of paying for rooms in nice hotels or flying business/first class got treated well.
Wow, Shaw, what a GF!
Cheers to that, Shaw 
Mcson’s gf is reasonably organized despite the uber-artsie-ness and in our case it’s just nice to know that she has a set of his keys, given his tendency to lose them But another thing I really treasure about her is her adorable willingness to share her care and concern for him. Its in tiny little things she says, from her worry when he snores that he takes another breath to finding adorable ness in what some might see as flaws. Its hard to explain, but it gladdens my heart to see him so well-appreciated. It gives me hope that there’s the kind of love between them that buffets the tough stuff the world offers up.
At the end of the day, everyone needs someone who really has their back. Clearly, that’s the case with Shaw GF, and its a beautiful thing.
Shaw, great stories!
D2 is in Washington, DC, this weekend on a trip sponsored by her school to meet with folks who advocate for, develop, and implement science policy (government officials, lobbyists, science advisors; some of them grads of her institution). She’s not sure she’d like that sort of work, but wants to take advantage of all the opportunities she can get hold of to explore the possible careers in her field.
It is warmer in DC than it is here – and right now it is actually raining, as it has been for a couple of hours. We’re hoping this is the harbinger of things to come…
kmc, we feel the same way though we have limited visibility since they are 3000 miles away (at least until January).
ShawWife thought we ought to send ShawSon’s GF a present (Chanukah/Christmas) but really something that just shows her she is welcomed to the family. ShawD was shopping and bought a bracelet for her. Now ShawWife is wondering if it is weird to send it.
Shawbridge, I think a small gift for the gf would be lovely and appropriate.
Shaw - I think a gift for shawS’s gf would be very nice. I am impressed by mature and caring she is.
zetesis- it was a beautiful weekend in DC.