You’ll just have to meet me there, RM. There is a Terraces Lounge, a First Lounge and a Concorde Room. Increasing quality of champagne as you go up the ladder. Also increasing quality of spirits (but to tell you the truth, I can’t tell by tasting although I can with champagne).
I’m in the Qantas First lounge in Sydney and just had a complimentary massage…happy travels, everyone!
Today is D1’s Bachelorette party. We are painting pallet signs at a local store. I am doing a custom design of our lake. Should be fun. Dinner to follow at a local restaurant and then back to D1’s house for dessert and wine. Not a drinking fest but a more activity oriented gathering. Really looking forward to getting to know the groom’s family and friends a bit better.
That sounds fun, NM! Have you found a dress for the wedding yet?
Hello from Nice. Spent yesterday in Cannes then back to Nice where we climbed up Castle Rock ( I can’t begin to spell that in French). We entered just before they closed the gates for the day and when we got back down we were locked in. It was possible to climb around the gate by way of a tiny ledge and it was quite a drop. S could have done it, H and me - not so much. We climbed partway back up and when we saw cars parked knew we only had to follow the road out. I was also not really worried as several other people were in the same situation. I thought it was funny.
Rain today but we took the train to Menton which was very pretty. Had a nice lunch there. We were only about a 15 minute walk from the part of Italy where my Dad’s family came from.
We had 2 more nights in the Airbnb in old town Nice, but for multiple reasons staying there without S was beyond the comfort zone for me and especially H, so we bailed and are now in the Hyatt for 2 nights. S flew back to London.
Monaco tomorrow then back to London on Tuesday.
Say hello to Nice for me, Fall Girl 
Wish I was there!
What a fabulous euro tour I could be taking right now had I not come up with the madcap notion of putting up a pool dome this year In fairness to the notion, I’d already spent a whack this summer on a new liner, swg and heater so in for a penny, in for a pound
The new done doesn’t ship til Friday and in the interim I continue my leaf battle daily. Even with a leaf net cover, its a constant chase! Yesterday I had the pool spotless but before I could get the cover back on, the wind kicked up and blew another bunch right in. In theory, I should just wait until its dome covered and then run the robot but I really don’t like swimming in tannin stew and with he water at 95, it steeps pretty quickly
I predict there will be mutiny on installation day. I’d scheduled everyone for Nov 5 but just found out its “BaconCon”.
Nm, hope the bachelorette was a blast!
Currently returning from Portland. Nice city. It usually gets painted as very new-agey. Seemed not especially so, We could find except that many restaurants are seriously locavore (you can ask for the name of your chicken and I had lunch at a restaurant whose menu said that the eggs in huevos rancheros were from heirloom chickens). We went to a couple of neighborhoods that were supposed to be artsy – they were pleasant but not overly artsy. All-in-all, very high quality of life as far as I can see. 12 month a year skiing at Mount Hood. Beautiful scenery. Good but not great restaurants. Really nice people, many of whom really love Portland. In the hipster/areas, we saw families with kids and relatively affordable rentals (especially compared to Boston). Jewish communities that were nice but small (we went to two synagogue services, neither of which had any young adults). ShawD said that Portland might not be the best place to find a Jewish mate who is serious about a career and has aspirations ot really accomplish things.but might be an ideal place to move once you have such a mate.
Shaw, I was speed reading your post and kept thinking you meant “Poland.” Lol.
Record-breaking dip in the pool this a.m…its 36 degrees out
Shaw–Wondering which neighborhoods you visited? We have only about 3 that would be considered lovely.
Otherwise our city is very very young and there are many neighborhoods that were built after 1950.
Where did you eat?
On our list would be:
Andina
Mucca Osteria
Screen Door
and our favorite–Tabla
As for finding a Jewish mate or any mate of any religious base—your D is right on.
Portland is considered very non religious, period.
I believe that Oregon has been named as the most unchurched state in the USA.
I do not think of PDX as artsy–actually never thought about it before–it is more artsy crafty which
is different to me.
We love having hiking and the Beach just 1.5 hours away.
We have the most square feet of natural forest in a city limit in the States.
But NYC or Boston this is not!
And Portland is actually not that friendly of
a city.
The conversations go like this"
“Do you have plans for the weekend?”
New coworker replies, “No, I don’t have any plans”
“Hey, have a good one!”
But every time we return from a trip and we fly into PDX we sigh and just love the green
and the trees and the smallness.
Flying home today. It was a terrific trip with one bad note. On Tuesday night I came down with some sort of 24 hour bug that was miserable. H and I were planning to walk to a market and in some parks in London yesterday, but he went alone as I could not leave the room. I missed dinner with H and S last night, though S did come up to the room afterward.
I feel 100% today - thankfully as we have a long plane ride ahead of us.
Sorry you were ill, FG, but glad you are better before your long plane ride.
Been a busy week - training at a college that’s less than 5 miles from where I live, so taking the subway. Last week I did a remote training so my commute was even shorter.
Our vacuum cleaner stopped working and the new one I ordered arrived yesterday. You know your life is boring when this is a highlight!
Crazy busy getting ready for the wedding trip to Mexico. Bachelorette painting party was very fun! I have three dresses I am trying to choose from and I found some very sparkly flats to wear in the sand. Finally have the scale moving in the right direction but still need to keep at it. Vegetable soup,no bread and lots of walking has played a huge part in my weight loss.
Have a fabulous trip NM.
I started to feel a sore throat on my way home for Portland, which is quite different from Poland. Then a bad cold for a day, then 70% bad, now 30% bad. ShawWife is off for two weeks at a residency .
The neighborhoods we were told were artsy were Goose Hollow and Hollywood, oregon101. We should have said hello while we were there. Next time if there is one. It is beautiful. I don’t think we expected culture but more the edgy Portlandia vibe. I guess that is more artsy-craftsy. It didn’t actually seem a whole lot different than parts of Boston that we know in terms of that. We went to the Saturday market under the bridge and looked at the crafts and it seemed pretty much what we’d see elsewhere (except for barn stars). Overall, a nice place and really beautiful area. Weird about the lack of friendliness. We did not see that, but you would know.
ShawD was in Fort Bragg, NC, last night on her way to help with disaster relief in NC. She said it was completely disorganized. She had no idea where she would be staying tonight.
My insomnia has kicked in. Trying to figure out how to get wedding attire packed without wrinkling and making arrangements for someone to pick up mail and watch house while we are gone. Mani/pedi tomorrow morning with D1 before we leave. H is gone for work as he is a speaker for a conference and won’t return until tomorrow evening. I will definitely need a vacation!
Waving hello to all! Fun trip to FL – great weather, hanging with friends, lots of beach time. The very best part, though, was returning to our condo yesterday and having S there! Of course the reason he was hanging around/napping on the couch was NOT because we were coming back, but because he’s severely messed up timezone-wise, and battling a bad cold. Oh well, I’ll take it! I am enormously relieved to have him back in the US – although I know he can/will be sent who knows where at almost any time. Since leaving a year ago he has visited 16 countries!
Today he’ll spend running around trying to get his US life back in order – his driver’s license expired while he was gone; his US SIM card doesn’t work in his phone, he needs to do early voting here in MA because he can’t get registered in FL (his next base) in time, etc., etc. Tomorrow my father is driving in to Boston to have brunch with us, plus D and her fiancé. (She’s been at a training session all week in AZ and arrives back on a red-eye at 8:30 AM.) S will also be running around Boston visiting college friends before leaving on Sunday to start the drive to FL.
After he leaves, we’ll head back to the beach to tidy up the house for the winter. We don’t close it up, but there are a number of chores that need to be done. We’ll probably be doing some running back and forth for a couple weeks.
NMinn – deep breath! Everything will go wonderfully, I’m sure. You and I could be having an insomnia party, though – I haven’t had a solid night’s sleep in almost a week. I have no idea what’s going on, but enough already!
Have a great time with family CBB! Sounds like a great time.
All packed and ready to go! Have a great week everyone! Keep your fingers crossed for sunny weather and warm ocean breezes! I sure hope everything goes smoothly. 
Hope it’s all wonderful, NM! Enjoy!
Best wishes to your D1 and her fiance, NM. Enjoy the wedding!
So nice that you are seeing your S, CBB.
Cheers and happy trails on the nuptials, NM! CBB enjoy your rare sighting of CBBSon
Yesterday was gorgeous here but this am cold rain scuttling my physio. This aging shenanigans is getting to me. Last year at this time I hung out with young people at a costume party downtown. This year it was a scene from an octegenarian sitcom!
Mch had a fall yesterday and was cranky as hell about it. He tripped on a ledge in the garage and went all the way down. Blamed ME because he’d been “rushing” the installation of a remote switch we were installing but were headed out for evening. Seems to have hurt his shoulder and knee, but won’t hear of a trip for a scan. I told him I’d give him a pass if it was the pain talking, but that he had to take responsibility for his own capacity to walk Once I determined he didn’t seem to have anything broken, I left him to stew in his soup and went shopping for his dad’s birthday present without him. He came limping after me, yelling for me to wait for him, but I made a clean getaway
Last thing we need around here is two invalids… Good thing we’ve hired in 4 people to install the dome, cause I don’t think either one of us can kneel to drill concrete right now!