I can be pretty stoic about mass shootings…until they talk about individual victims… A 22 year old who worked at Disneyworld…so sad. Each one had s family, co-workers
I had the weirdest feeling all week and every time I touched the computer looked for a mass killing. And so sad to see it in reality. And then at a graduation party last night a friend said her S and GF were in Las Vegas–so another worry there.
My SIL is for Trump, so another tragedy there. Nod and Smile and she is not someone to talk to about anything. My B and she asked why I have not called in the last months and I said due to the elections…
Their D is applying, in year, to college to become a chemical engineer. @-)
Oh My …they do not have clue and when I tried to even mention CC forum --well, guess just as glad SIL know’s more than us. So no one will see her here.
We leave this week for 2 weeks in Iceland. This has been a difficult trip to plan…limited services (food at gas stations–yikes) so for the first time in memory actually putting suitcases through. Peanut Butter packed…
also Starbucks.
Went to a grad party for a young woman we have known since she was 6 yrs old who is now an NP followed by a grad party for a young woman graduating from HS and have known her family even before her birth. All very touching. I am so not sentimental but was moved by the longevity and sweetness of knowing both of them.
Wishing everyone the best! next few weeks! Have no idea if we will actually have internet or if that is yet a dream.
Oregon, you’re so busy! Have s fabulous trip!
oregon…have a wonderful trip! What an opportunity to see the raw beauty in Iceland! Will be thinking of you.
I am angry, sad and heartbroken over the Orlando tragedy. I try not to be political on the forum but I have to say I can see no reason to have assault weapons out in our society whose only purpose is to kill. I will continue to pray for peace, understanding and acceptance throughout the world.
^ completely agree nm. I try to steer clear of political on FB , but had to like a friend’s post on banning assault weapons.
Just so very, very sad for the families and friends of the victims.
On another note, have a great trip oregon. Iceland is on my wish list.
Son and DIL returned from their honeymoon. By a bit of god fortune, the couple plus all 4 parents were able to get together for happy hour/early dinner to hear of their adventures. DIL and her mom made a point to thank us for providing them with (i.e. paying for) such a nice trip.
That’s so nice, MP. Glad they had a lovely time. And now married life really begins. I hope it is a long and satisfying one for them.
In other news, our new roof is supposed to be put on tomorrow. Per the roofer’s request/suggestion, we’ve taken down all pictures hanging on the walls and moved all art glass and fragile glass down to the lower level. We have a lot of art! And now we have a lot of walls that need de-dust-bunnying – amazing what hides behind framed pictures, mirrors,… Nearly had one really, really big oops, but H recovered just in time. I’d have cried because that was one really, really expensive framing job.
Wish us luck – and no real rain for 2 days, please.
Sending the good weather vibes, arabrab!
We were fortunate weatherwise on Tuesday evening as the Jackson Browne tickets were lawn seats. Good show and it was good timing as it was H’s birthday and he is s big JB fan. Saw H’s aunt who is still a volunteer usher at the venue - she turns 89 in a few weeks and is in great shape!
H, S and I leave for Toronto on Sat. We’ll be driving up through western NY which should be beautiful. Stop on the Canadian side of the falls on the return trip. S is our travel agent of course. A food tour is already booked. Should be fun.
ShawSon and GF are here for a week. It is nice to see him and to get to know her a bit better. She is quirky, but probably in a way that ShawSon likes. They seem to really enjoy each other. We had a birthday dinner for ShawD and our cousin who worked with ShawSon in middle and HS. GF’s birthday is Friday, mine is Saturday and Father’s Day is Sunday. We’ve got another birthday dinner on Friday. We had planned to have dinner tonight with a couple (VC and artist) who we met in Sausalito as they live in both Sausalito and here. They had to move it until tonight, but ShawSon has reached a level of maturity where he now wants to join the dinner and meet the VC (in HS and college, he would try to avoid joining dinner with our friends, many of whom could be helpful). Alas, on Saturday, we are driving to Central MA to have lunch with one of my old mentors, who is really deteriorated due to Parkinson’s, at his daughter’s house. And, on Sunday, we made reservations for the five of us (our family plus GF) at a fancy restaurant where we had Groupon tickets for discounts on their tasting menu. Lots of entertaining and festivities going on.
ShawSon and GF will go out today to Central MA to visit his alma mater and meet with his advisor. ShawD is packing up for her Asian trip and we are getting the condo ready to sublet.
ShawSon was talking with me about courses and post-school plans: He is thinking about two startup ideas and in addition a classmate who is going to become CEO of a new venture that Google, Facebook and others are trying to buy product from has been hinting that he’d like ShawSon to join as #2. On the course side, he got into three courses that are very difficult to get into on entrepreneurship that are really incubators. He thinks his combination of Computational and Mathematical Engineering/Machine Learning/Data Science and MBA is the reason. One course is pretty much co-led by Silicon Valley VCs who have funded several of the companies that were developed in the course. Another is led by a prominent former Silicon Valley CEO. These courses would help focus on the two new startups. Less valuable if he is going to join the other company.
We are all leaving ShawWife on her own for a while. ShawSon and GF going back to California on Monday AM. I’m heading to London at the same time. ShawD is heading to Asia on Tuesday for 3 months. Let’s hope ShawWife gets a lot of painting done as she’s been bearing the brunt of entertaining.
Interesting aside: Next year, my birthday, Father’s Day and ShawSon’s graduation fall on the same day.
Early Happy Birthday, Shaw! Sounds like you’ll be on the run 
interesting options for shawson.
Mcson’s friend/our employee celebrates his birthday on Sat also so we’re abing a little 5 o’clock swim n cocktails here tonight after work in preemptive celebration. Have to try out our new Himalayan salt carved shooter glasses!
A childhood friend will be making a quick, 24-hr visit Saturday…she flew in from Newfoundland on Wed. but her relatives have monopolized her a bit more than we envisioned! Originally she’d planned to stay here a good few days but her uncle’s wife seems to have scheduled events on both sides of border that kiboshed the logistics. It will be great to see her nonetheless. Just wish it was a bit longer
Then again, its the 3rd weekend in a row for overnight weekend guests and next month I’ve one big party scheduled, mcson’s gf’s family in town for a week, plus a family campout jamboree for 3 days at month-end for my mom, sibs n kids, so I should take all the downtime I can get And there are still two out-of-town couples who usually come for a summer weekend not yet scheduled. Its amazing how fast summer fills up.
I need a maid who does laundry, especially in summer with all the towel and sheet changeovers and my own aversion to laundry. I was up til midnight doing same last night, then 5 am this morning to finish up. Maybe what I really need with the hours both h and I work is a mail-order bride
That will call for a meal at the Best Restaurant Ever.
I really don’t mind laundry. Sorting, making sure colors don’t bleed, making sure things don’t shrink, folding nicely. I guess it’s an activity that is both orderly and mindless and it beats just about every other household task.
@kmcmom13, sounds like you have our lives. I try to outsource as much as possible to my executive assistant, but not laundry. We do have a cleaning lady, but she only does a bit of the laundry. We do that ourselves. Maybe we also need a mail-order bride. I’m not sure ShawWife would really appreciate that, however. I always had the suspicion that mail-order bride things were scams anyway, so beware. Maybe an extra day of cleaning lady in the summers would do it for you.
@missypie, my favorite restaurant in the West and maybe in the US is in SF. Not sure I want to pay for 6-10 people at their prices. Next month, ShawWife is going to come with me to my favorite restaurant in London and we’ll have the tasting menu there.
HB Shaw! Sounds like next year will need to be quite the celebration!
I always thought that I needed a 50’s era wife. You know to keep the house clean, do dishes, do laundry and all the assorted other things that take up time that I don’t want to do. I love a clean house and for some reason I’m to frugal to hire it out so I just do it even though I hate the time it takes. I’ve started breaking it up and doing a bit every day. Not the greatest since it’s never truly clean - at least not all at once but it’s the best I have come up with so far!
KMC - I would LOVE to have a pool but H nixed that idea early in our marriage. S now has one and I think once D moves into her “long term” home from her current starter home when ever that is that she will opt for one as well. Guess I’ll just need to hang out at my kids houses more often as I get older. 
I wonder if we can all share a mail order bride?
I’m in. Joint custody
Maybe this need-a-bride thing is what Boston Dynamics has really been up to with its humanistic robots Maybe Alphabet needs to take a second look and take them into the Google fold instead of dumping them
Fun night last night but went much later than expected. Mcson left early as expected but an old friend of his who’d turned up stayed and engaged in fascinating discussion on the nature of society til the wee hours. He’s always been a great conversationalist but in recent years with the dynamic of mcsons parties we don’t always get a chance to chat.
Had a nice visit with S1 in DC. We went to a really interesting place for dinner, Daikaya Izakaya, which is a Japanese small plates kind of place-we shared a bunch of things and it was fun to just keep ordering lots of little things.
S2 just got his application approved to rent a loft in Denver . It’s got exposed brick and a rooftop area, is in an historic building in an interesting area near lots of restaurants and pubs, so he is excited.
Did any of you ever live an urban lifestyle? I would have been too afraid to have done so, out of college, the small town girl that I was. We lived in the city during law school but more in a neighborhood. I think older D is really enjoying life in the big city.
I lived in Cambridge, MA (in between Harvard and Central Squares) for 9 years and in Manhattan (Soho for 5 years, 1 year in the East Village in the 70s when it wasn’t gentrified at all, and a summer each in the Upper West Side and what I think might be called Lenox Hill. Central Square and the East Village were much tougher neighborhoods when I was there and SoHo was a lot less gentrified back then as well – started to change in the last couple of years we were there. In SoHo we lived in a loft that was like the place in the movie Big where they had a trampoline. It had either 13 huge windows (found it listed: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/451-Broome-St-APT-3W-New-York-NY-10013/2104102050_zpid/) and we could look into the lofts across the street and on my first day there, I saw a woman roller skating in the loft across the street and one floor down from us. From our 13 huge windows (my recollection is 17 feeI liked living in NY but was happy to leave. I liked living in Cambridge and would consider moving back. But, there is a significant tradeoff as we live in a peaceful area with great road biking, kayaking, and cross-country skiing/snow shoeing and zero crime.
Today,we got together with one of my mentors, who is declining due to Parkinsons and his wife who is a gem but seems to be losing cognitive functioning at 92. He really is pretty far gone – he keeps saying he is out of it – and she says this will be their last trip east (a hail and farewell trip she called ). Sad.
I have never had the opportunity to live in a city and I hope to someday. i was the kid who hated Green Acres on TV because she had to leave NYC for a farm. If I could talk H into it, I would live in the city right now.
Posting from Toronto. We drove up and will spend a few days here.
Hello to all! Happy Father’s Day, @shawbridge. (Are there other fathers on this thread?)
We have D and fiance visiting for the weekend – although they arrived Friday night from Boston and H just got back from CA last night. This was H’s final trip to CA – the closing celebration for the sale of one of his investments. He’s feeling pretty low about it – he got quite close to many of the company execs and the other investors.
I’m glad to be at home (at the beach) for the weekend, after being away the last 3 for graduation parties and a wedding. Last weekend we all attended a wedding at our family camp in NH, where D is getting married next year. We took lots of notes! Overall it went very well, but, IMO, there should have been a little more attention to details. The weather didn’t cooperate on Saturday, so we got to see “Plan B” in action.
D and fiance plan to have a very small wedding party. D’s maid of honor (we haven’t met her yet) has a full tattoo sleeve, which H doesn’t know about. D and I have been “noodling” how to handle this … I told D that in all honesty, I wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of looking at her wedding pix in years to come and seeing that. She (maid of honor) is also lesbian (which H does know about) and never wears dresses. D said she would wear a dress if D asked her to, but IMO, a better option would be pants and a long sleeve blouse/shirt in the same color as the the other bridesmaid’s dress.
In other news, on the boat ride over to the island where the family camp is located, the man driving the boat asked us if we were S’s parents. (I knew he looked familiar from all our years at camp, but couldn’t place him right away.) We said yes, and he told us who he was. His younger daughter is S’s age and worked on staff at camp with S for a couple of years. They’ve stayed friends since then. Her father then told us she was over in South Korea visiting S! AND, that S had apparently won some $$ at a casino and helped her and a couple other of his friends with the cost of airfare to get over there for a big rock concert. (Later Googling told me it was “Ultra Korea,” a 3 day event in Seoul.) H and I just looked at the guy dumbfounded, since we knew absolutely nothing about this. I sent a couple of texts to S asking about this, and reminding him about Father’s Day. The response I got was that he’d call H today. Oh, there will be questions!!!
I’m in on the mail order bride if she does yard work. In spite of the fact that this is OUR house, apparently the weeds are all mine …
We moved to Cambridge 5 years ago – our first go at urban living. We love it! After all those years of having to get in a car to go anywhere, it’s still exciting to be able to walk a few blocks and have a choice of at least half a dozen excellent restaurants.