Lift Up Your Hearts!

Glenn Doman used to say that what babies and small children want most of all is to grow up, right now.  (I've wasted too much time already trying to find the exact quotation, but that's the gist of it.)  He must have known Jeremiah.

Jeremiah has two parents and four older siblings, and sees no reason why he shouldn't be able to do everything they can.  "Do!" may be his favorite word, meaning "I will do it myself."  He has been two years old for all of two weeks, and is busy acquiring new skills at a somewhat alarming rate.

We are staying in the Apartment, which is over the garage and accessible from the kitchen via two doors and a small set of stairs.  Before we arrived, Jeremiah could open the door from the kitchen, but not the door to the apartment itself.  First thing every morning, we would hear him knocking to be let in.  Now he's proud to be able to open the door himself, so we know that when the door opens without an invitation, it's our favorite two-year-old.  He hasn't yet learned that there are reasons other than inability for knocking at a door.

We were in the kitchen, and Jeremiah was hungry.  I watched as he moved a chair over to the hutch and got himself a plate, then went to the cutlery drawer and picked up a fork.  He opened the refrigerator door, selected a container of leftover French fries, which he gave to me.  I put some on his plate.  Then he opened the door of the microwave, set his plate inside, put a cover on the plate, and closed the door.  He waited while I set the time, then pushed Start.  (He'd much rather push the other buttons himself, too, but that gets him into trouble.)  When the timer dinged, he opened the door, took out the plate, closed the door, took his plate to the table, and proceeded to enjoy his French fries.  When I later reported the series of events to Heather, her immediate response was, "Oh, no!  He's never been able to open the refrigerator before.  Now he'll start getting his own drinks."

Which was true.  Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, because he normally does a great job of pouring from a carton to his glass.  But sometimes cartons are full and heavy (especially gallon milk jugs) and sometimes they slip.  Not to worry (much):  he knows what to do.  He grabs a napkin or a towel and starts scrubbing away at the spill.  But he is (barely) two, and sometimes doesn't remember to set the carton upright before beginning the clean-up process.

Another day I watched while Jeremiah got himself a plate, opened the refrigerator, and took out a package of tomatoes.  Then he opened a drawer and took out a cutting board.  I intervened enough to ask him to wash the tomato first, which he did.  Next he returned to the drawer, extracted his sister's paring knife, and removed it from its sheath.  At that point I intervened again (against his will, but he acquiesced with good grace), insisting that I be allowed to guide his hands as he cut, which he did semi-competently.  Two years of age is when the kids here begin learning to cut up vegetables, and they become dependable and genuinely helpful well before they turn four.  Jeremiah will no doubt learn the fastest of all, because he is so observant and so desperate to grow up, but the arrival of his new brother has delayed his formal lessons, and semi-competent is not good enough when wielding knives.  The girls' kitchen knives have been temporarily moved to a less-accessible place.

A tot-lock guards the under-sink chemicals.  Again I watched as Jeremiah decided he needed something from that cupboard, took out the step stool, opened it up, climbed to the key's hiding place and took it out.  And then ... I was disappointed that I didn't get to find out if he could actually open the lock, because he became distracted by noticing (from his perch on the stool) that the sink was full of soapy water and dishes.  He put the key back where it belonged and proceeded to have a different kind of fun.

Oh, and yesterday he casually removed the cap from a childproof bottle, another first.

As his mother says, Jeremiah is a very competent handful.

95 by 65 #38 (5 new restaurants, #2) and #48 (visit King Arthur Flour):  Two flies with one swat.  (This European expression is much more to my liking than our own, as outside of dinner I see little reason to kill birds.  I have no such compunctions about flies.)

Our visit to the King Arthur Flour store, bakery, and café was Part I of our pre-Nathaniel-birth adventuring.  (Part II, which contributed to #69, will be the subject of a later post.)  KAF's products are good, though not inexpensive, and I loved getting a chance to visit their home turf.  Even more, I loved that the employees were so friendly and generous, especially since their generosity came out of their own pockets:  KAF is 100% employee-owned.

The food?  I had a bite of Noah's sandwich, which was wonderful, but for myself had ordered a simple half-baguette.  If you're taste-testing a bakery, you don't want to clutter up the basics with other flavors.  My verdict?  They do sell great bread in America, even if you'd never know it from the grocery stores and most restaurants.  The café is also not inexpensive, so maybe it's a good thing we don't live close enough to eat there on a weekly basis.  The temptation would be great.

I also enjoyed browsing the store, though I surprised myself by not buying anything.  If I get another chance to visit the store, I'll be more prepared with a plan—and more suitcase room.  There's just too much to choose from, especially with five kids anxious to get to the next stop on our adventure.  In the meantime, there's always mail-order.  And learning to make my own good bread.

(click image to enlarge)

Nathaniel Peter Daley
Born Monday, February 16, 2015, 5:10 a.m.
Weight: 8 pounds, 14 ounces
Length: 21 inches

Heather will eventually have the whole birth story on her blog, and I’ll link to it when she does.  But for now, here’s the story from my point of view:

A big storm was predicted for the weekend, so big that Heather and Jon’s church moved their services to Saturday.  Long-time New Hampshire residents thought that was rather wimpy of them, and that the news media was doing what they do best:  making mountains out of molehills.  Nonetheless, when Heather had some signs of early labor during the church service, we began keeping more of a “weather eye” out than usual.

By the early hours of Sunday morning, contractions were 15 minutes apart.  We wouldn’t normally leave for the birth center at that point, but a great deal of snow had fallen and was still falling at a great rate.  Jon dug out the car, then did it again after the snow plow came through, then once more after we were all ready to leave.

Porter, Jeremiah, and Faith stayed at home this time.  Jeremiah is in a stage where he’s very independent most times, but when he wants Mommy, he really wants only Mommy if Mommy is anywhere nearby.  He’s also very sensitive and easily upset when he thinks Mommy is hurt or unhappy, so the plan was to let him stay with Dad-o.  Faith then decided that she didn’t care about being at the birth; all she wanted was to hold the baby when he came home.  This turned out to be very convenient, as with the baby we would have exactly the maximum number of people who could fit in the car.

Jon is an excellent winter driver, and he needed to be.  The roads weren’t too bad at first, but after we left town the plows were clearly behind schedule.  We were very thankful for rumble strips on both the sides and middle of the road; otherwise we could very easily have been on the wrong side of the two-lane highway.  We made it to the birth center without incident; it had not been plowed, but we were able to follow in the tracks the midwife's car had made.

We settled in, anticipating a bit of a wait, but not a long one.

The baby had other ideas.

Contractions, which had been strong in the car, slowly petered out, and after many hours of waiting, everyone was ready to go back home.  The midwife told us that it is not uncommon for storms to provoke labor that then subsides.  So we bundled back into the car, and returned home on roads that were better than they had been.  Porter and our friend Don (who had come for a brief visit and some games, but got more than he'd bargained for) had shovelled the driveway so we could get back in.

The midwife was right:  the rest of the day was quite normal.  It wasn't until—of course—the wee hours of the morning that labor began again in earnest.  And the baby wasn't kidding this time.  Contractions came fast and furious in the car, and Jon made the 40-minute return trip to the birth center in record time.  He's driven the ambulance so many times on those roads that he knows exactly where he must go slowly and where he can gain time.  The roads and visibility were much better than the day before, which was a good thing, because a car birth would have been not only uncomfortable, but also downright dangerous in the sub-zero temperatures and high wind.  It was SO COLD.

Although we all anticipated a birth soon after arrival, once again the baby had his own plans.  But at 5:10 a.m., after a gentle water birth, he rose to the surface and announced his presence with a hearty voice.  Joy had been given the job of determining and announcing whether they had a new sister or a new brother:  "It's a boy!"

After a short rest and recovery period, we once again headed for home, where Porter, Faith, and Jeremiah waited to welcome the new baby.  True to her word, Faith has held him at every possible moment, probably more than anyone other than Heather.  It took a record 48 hours to name him (Noah held the previous record), but with or without name he's been patiently stepping through the newborn routine of eat-sleep-eliminate, repeat.  Mom, baby, and the whole family are doing well, and everyone loves the newest little Daley.

Welcome to our world, and to your very loving family, Nathaniel!

#37 Share at least 20 meals with others:  We met my brother for dinner at ...

#38 Try at least 5 new restaurants:  ... the Nile Ethiopian Restaurant, after having enjoyed ...

#24 Attend 15 live performances: ... this year's Horns & Pipes concert.  And came home to ...

#49 Keep up a 10 posts/month blogging schedule for 20 months ... write about it!

A great day, but exhausting for an introvert, so at the moment it's about 50/50 whether I'll get some much-needed work done, or just go to bed and hope for an early start in the morning.

It takes a rich, greedy capitalist to grind the poor into the dust, right?  Certainly over the years many have done a very good job of that.  Our recent viewing of the documentary, Queen Victoria's Empire, drove home the disastrous consequences of both imperialism in Africa and the Industrial Revolution back home in Britain.

However, the same video also revealed the devastation that can be wrought by someone with good intentions, even against his will (e.g. David Livingstone), and especially when combined with the above-mentioned greed (e.g. Cecil Rhodes).

Which brings me to the point.  I cannot count the hours and hours of struggle Porter has put into getting us health insurance in these post-retirement times.  Without a doubt, I am personally grateful for the choices the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) offers us, as much as I philosophically fear its negative consequences.  Some of those negative consequences are personal, too: e.g. the colonoscopies that had been covered by our insurance in the past no longer qualify for coverage because of new rules instituted by the ACA.  And we can't afford to get sick until after the end of January, because the "helpful" phone contact assigned us the wrong Primary Care Provider, and the fix won't go into effect till February 1.  However, I admit to no longer hoping for repeal of the ACA, because the damage has been done.  Too many people, including us, are now dependent on it.  I doubt we can put the genie back in the bottle.

While I freely acknowledge that the passage of the ACA had at its heart noble ideals and good intentions, I'm not convinced it's really helping the poor, or at least not as much as it's helping people who get rich off the needs of the poor.  Porter, being retired, has the time to put into navigating the complex and exceedingly frustrating waters.  He also has a degree in economics and a mind well-suited to financial calculations.  Which convinces me that the truly impoverished will (1) throw up their hands and settle for a much less than optimal health care plan, or (2) fall prey to those who would profit from doing the paperwork for them, while charging inordinate fees and still coming up with a less than optimal plan.

Nonetheless, the purpose of this post is neither to start a political discussion nor to depress you.  It's to honor my husband, for whom Sunday's Animal Crackers comic could have been created:

No doubt about it:  I married the right man.

Leon?  Who or what is Leon?

Leon was my boss a few eons ago, back at the University of Rochester Medical Center.  He was a good boss, but one thing about him frustrated me.  Day after day I'd work steadily, creating algorithms and developing computer programs for our laboratory.  To all appearances, this did not impress him; it was simply what he was paying me to do.  What made him light up with pleasure and praise, however, was when I'd take the extra time to create a computer display related to my work.  Although I learned to produce these displays periodically, mostly to please him, it drove me crazy that I was being recognized for the "flash," and not for the bulk of the work, the more important work, that was behind it.  However much he might have trusted me to do good work (he chose to hire me, after all), he also needed the occasional, tangible reminder that I was worthy of his trust.  As it turned out, so did I.

Fast forward to every homemaker's frustration, every mother's least favorite question:  What do you do all day? We know how long and how hard we work, and how critically important our labors are.  All too often, however, the people we meet at parties, our friends in paid employment, and even those closest to us seem sincerely puzzled as to why our jobs take up so much time.  That is frustrating to no end, but in fact it's true of most professions.  No one from the outside can truly appreciate what it takes to do another's job, particularly since the hallmark of the best in a profession is the ability to make the work look easy.

I've discovered over time that Leon was not alone in his need for tangible measures of the value of our work.  Maybe there's no purpose in sharing the details with people we meet at parties, but bosses, co-workers, spouses, fellow-strugglers, and even (no, especially) we ourselves need occasional reassurance that we are making progress.  We are all Leon.

Why, then, do some of us find it so difficult to provide measurable documentation of our work?  I've come up with a few suggestions, based on my own experience and on what I've learned from others.

• It takes time away from more important work.  Who needs to add yet another camel-straw to the crushing burden of work undone versus sand slipping through the hourglass? As I learned in the computer biz, however, documentation is essential, however much it feels like a waste of precious time.  Without documentation, others can't step in when we have to step back.  What's more, putting what we do into words brings clarity to our own vision.  If we don't know something well enough to explain it, we don't know it well enough.
• We don't like to make our work public until it's in final form.  This is perfectionism, and Don Aslett would not approve.  In fact, he insists that telling others about our work while it's still in progress is a good way to get help.  It's also a good way to get kibitzers and critics, however.
• Our goals have long paths and far horizons.  How do you quantify a happy child?  A valued relationship? Growth and development?  How can we help people appreciate our work without making their eyes glaze over?  A journalist can point on a regular basis to articles published, a doctor to patients cured, and a trash collector to clean streets, but in many professions success, when it comes, is preceded by thousands of failed experiments, research lines that didn't pan out, apparently fruitless counseling sessions, and draft pages ripped from typewriters, crumpled and tossed away.  It's all part of the process, but not conducive to marking milestones and erecting ebenezers ("hither by Thy help I'm come").  The employed can at least point to a paycheck, but unpaid work lacks even that.
• We're not "announcers" by nature.  Some people like to chat about all the details of their lives, no matter how intimate or trivial.  These are good people to have around, as they take the greater share of the conversation burden.  But some of us don't see the point of such loquaciousness, or are simply uncomfortable with the idea.  This is another good reason for developing a documentation strategy:  we take control over what and how we share.
• We want to be trusted with our own work.  We are not employees, and don't like the feeling that we are being supervised.  As it turns out, however, this is not as significant a factor as I had once thought.  We're not employees?  Well, the self-employed have the hardest taskmaster of all, one who knows best all our weaknesses, struggles and failures.  That boss needs the comfort of tangible markers more than anyone.

In light of these meditations, I've developed The Leon Project.  Call it a New Year's resolution if you wish.  I have hundreds of ongoing projects in various stages of completion, including not-yet-started and not-in-this-lifetime (genealogy is never finished!).  This year I'm making an effort to document where I am, what I'm doing, and where I want to go, with hopes of developing a better road map, complete with milestones to which I can look back and say, "thus far have I come."

A large part of this effort will involve partnering with my sister-in-law in her "101 Things in 1001 Days" project.  I have approximately two and a half years until my 65th birthday, which falls a bit short of 1001 days, so I'm calling my version, "95 by 65."  (That will become a link when I publish its own post.)  She started her project last year, but has graciously adjusted her schedule so that we both will finish on my 65th birthday.  We are hoping that by doing our projects together we can encourage each other to keep going and reach our goals—which range from the trivial to the highly ambitious.

I've created two new post categories, The Leon Project and 95 by 65, in expectation of keeping some of the anticipated documentation here.  I look forward to the adventure with both enthusiasm and trepidation.

Aside:  This is not the first Leon Project post I have written.  A few days ago the first one was nearly ready to post, but somehow overnight the bulk of the long essay disappeared.  (Note to self:  never assume that something you thought you saved actually succeeded in that process.)  It took a while before I got to the point of being able to rewrite, and of course the two are quite different.  Which is better we'll never know.  This one, at least, has made it to the finish line.

But pleasantly so.  After all, it's a sunny 39 degrees.  In contrast, my weather stickers report the following:

• Downingtown, PA:  7 degrees
• Emmen, Switzerland:  8 degrees (6 hours later in the day)
• Granby, CT:  1 degree
• Old Saybrook, CT:  1 degree
• Salem, CT:  1 degree

and the winner is...

• Hillsboro, NH:  -10 degrees!

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas.  Ours began with a live cello carol concert and included the opportunity to serve Christmas dinner at the community kitchen where my nephew volunteers.  Although the church was packed, there were actually more hands than work to do, so after a while Porter and I found ourselves part of the entertainment:  singing Christmas carols for an appreciative audience.  That was great fun, though pehaps a litte too much of a workout for my throat.  Now we're enjoying the peace and rest of a Christmas evening at home.

But on to the business at hand.

I may have to amend this if I finish another book before the end of the year, but since I made my 52-book goal and have lots of other things going on this week, I'm going to go ahead and publish my 2014 reading list post now.

It's amazing that I can read at a pace of a book a week and still make so little progress on the shelves and shelves of unread books lining our walls.  Some are gifts, some are books I bought because they looked promising, and most are from the many boxes of books I brought here when my father moved out of his large home into a small apartment.  All of the books are ones I want to read, eventually.  But a book a week is only 52 books read in a year, and what with all the new (to me) interesting books that come to my attention, plus books that are so good I want to reread them on a regular basis, the "unread" stack is growing rather than diminishing.  Yet I keep on keeping on.

One particular feature of 2014 was the beginning of my determination to read all of the books written by Scottish author George MacDonald, in chronological order of their publication.  This is an ongoing project, as there are nearly 50 books on that list.  I didn't make this decision until April, which resulted in my reading a one of the books twice—once early in the year, and once when it came up in its chronological ranking.  I have no problem with that.

I own beautiful hardcover copies of all these books, a wonderful gift from my father, collected over many years.  I would prefer to be reading them book-in-hand, with my family all reading around me, enjoying a toasty fire in the fireplace or cool back-porch breezes.  But in reality, this year I have read most of the MacDonald books on my Kindle (or the Kindle app on my phone), in spare minutes snatched here and there from a busy life, or in the few minutes between crawling into bed and falling asleep.  George MacDonald's books are public domain and thus free on the Kindle, and are very good material with which to end the day on an uplifting note.  This also liberates other time for reading books that I only have in physical form.

Here's the list from 2014, sorted alphabetically.  A chronological listing, with rankings, warnings, and review links, is here.  I enjoyed most of the books, and regret none.  Titles in bold I found particularly worthwhile.

1. 2BR02B  by Kurt Vonnegut
2. Adela Cathcart  by George MacDonald
3. Alec Forbes of Howglen  by George MacDonald
4. Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood  by George MacDonald
5. At the Back of the North Wind  by George MacDonald (read twice)
6. The Blue Ghost Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #15  by John Blaine
7. The Brainy Bunch  by Kip and Mona Lisa Harding
8. The Caves of Fear: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #8  by John Blaine
9. David Elginbrod  by George MacDonald
10. The Egyptian Cat Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #16  by John Blaine
11. The Flaming Mountain: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #17  by John Blaine
12. The Flying Stingaree: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #18  by John Blaine
13. The Golden Skull: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #10  by John Blaine
14. Guild Court  by George MacDonald
15. Handel's Messiah: Comfort for God's People  by Calvin R. Stapert, audio book read by James Adams
16. Half the Church  by Carolyn Custis James
17. The Hobbit  by J.R.R. Tolkien
18. The Jungle  by Upton Sinclair
19. Life of Fred: Australia  by Stanley F. Schmidt
20. Life of Fred: Cats by Stanley F. Schmidt
21. Life of Fred: Dogs by Stanley F. Schmidt
22. Life of Fred: Edgewood by Stanley F. Schmidt
23. Life of Fred: Farming by Stanley F. Schmidt (all the Life of Fred books are worthwhile, but I particularly enjoyed Edgewood and Farming)
24. The Life of Our Lord  by Charles Dickens
25. The Locust Effect  by Gary A. Huagen and Victor Boutros
26. Melancholy Elephants  by Spider Robingson
27. The Miracles of Our Lord  by George MacDonald
28. The Mysterious Affair at Styles  by Agatha Christie
29. Not Exactly Normal  by Devin Brown
30. The Peculiar  by Stefan Bachmann
31. Phantastes  by George MacDonald
32. The Pirates of Shan: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #14  by John Blaine
33. The Portent and Other Stories  by George MacDonald
34. The Princess and Curdie  by George MacDonald
35. The Princess and the Goblin  by George MacDonald
36. Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood  by George MacDonald
37. Robert Falconer  by George MacDonald
38. The Scarlet Lake Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #13  by John Blaine
39. The Seaboard Parish  by George MacDonald
40. The Secret Adversary  by Agatha Christie
41. The Shadow Lamp  by Stephen R. Lawhead
42. The Silent Swan  by Lex Keating
43. Smuggler's Reef: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #7  by John Blaine
44. Something Other than God  by Jennifer Fulwiler
45. Sometimes God Has a Kid's Face  by Sister Mary Rose McGeady
46. Station X: Decoding Nazi Secrets  by Michael Smith
47. Unbroken  by Laura Hillenbrand
48. Unspoken Sermons Volume I  by George MacDonald
49. The Vicar's Daughter  by George MacDonald
50. The Wailing Octopus: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story #11  by John Blaine
51. Wool Omnibus  by Hugh Howey (Wool 1 - Wool 5)
52. Your Life Calling  by Jane Pauley

Onward to next year!

I was making Thanksgiving candy in the kitchen.  Porter was flipping channels in the family room.  He settled on a documentary talking about someone named Birdseye who for reasons I didn't catch took his family to live in the frozen wilderness of Labrador.  "I wonder if he's the guy behind Birdseye frozen food," he mused.

I am the family looker-upper.  I didn't ask for the job, but my family quickly learned that asking Mom was better than using the dictionary or the encyclopedia, because I couldn't rest till I knew the answer.  So if they lack dictionary skills, it's my fault.  I also drive people nuts:  we'll be in the middle of playing a game and someone will casually comment, "I wonder how high the Aswan Dam is," and you guessed it, much to their consternation I leave the game and look up the answer.  (The Internet has only made my compulsion easier to indulge in.)  It turns out they aren't really curious enough to want to interrupt the game.  To which I reply, if you don't want to know, why ask!

So, Porter will flip through channels, and when I ask what he's watching, he'll reply, "I have no idea."  At that point I have to grab my phone and check the TV listings, because even though I have no interest in the show, I can't stand not knowing the answer.  In this case, I determined that the show was How We Got to Now: Cold, and Porter's hunch was good:  the Labrador traveller was indeed Clarence Birdseye, who (eventually) brought us the world of frozen food.

The answer found, I went back to my fudge—only to be drawn away again by a subsequent part of the show:  the invention of air conditioning.  This I actually sat down and watched, because Porter is not the only one with good hunches: I doubted they would say much about Willis Carrier without interviewing the author of Weathermakers to the World.  Sure enough, I hadn't watched for long before I was able to turn to Porter and remark, "You know Eric who sometimes comments on my blog?  That's him."  (Ungrammatical, I know.)

Anyway, that was fun.

I've written about Porter's Uncle Harry here before, but this article from the Cypress Cemetery website just came to my attention, so it seems appropriate to post it for family members this Veterans Day.

One veteran in particular was noted enough so as to be commemorated with a park and a National Honor Roll Memorial Tree, the large oak located in the northern part of the Annex. His name was Harry Gilbert Faulk and of the 28 veterans in Cypress who fought in World War I, he was the only Saybrook resident actually killed in action - in France on July 25, 1918 at 20 years of age. Company C of the 101st Machine Gun Battalion, to which Harry was attached, was heavily shelled while sleeping on the edge of some woods north of Chateau Thierry on the morning of the 25th which resulted in significant casualties. Harry, who was mortally wounded, was one of the casualties.

It's a good article, though it implies that the store was owned by Harry's parents, and Porter's sure it belonged to Harry's brother, Fred.  It was always referred to as "Uncle Fred's store." Any family members remember differently?

Harry was the youngest of six children of Frederick Olaf and Hilma Justina Faulk, who were both born in Sweden. The Faulks were well known in Old Saybrook and on Saybrook Point in part because they owned a small store at the corner of Bridge Street and College Street that also included a post office (photo at left). The location is now occupied by one of the condominium buildings of the Saybrook Point Hotel complex. One can imagine that young Harry spent a lot of time at the family store.

Happy Veterans Day to all, and thanks to all who who serve today or have served in the past.

Congratulations on the new belts!

I'm not a big fan of going to the dentist, but yesterday's visit paid an unexpected benefit:  the hygienist, a former neighbor of ours, shared this video with me.

Heather, this is especially for you, but I think Janet will appreciate it as well, despite her memories being less happy than yours.  I enjoyed it a lot despite my own mixed feelings.  There are plenty of good memories for Porter as well.  :)

This video is just the trailer for a documentary project promoting music education, Marching Beyond Halftime.  As such, it has relevance to many outside of our immediate family.  Enjoy!

Recently, I have become wise and venerable, by virtue of celebrating my 62nd birthday.  Now I qualify for some more senior discounts!  That's a good thing, because this was a very expensive birthday.

The first gift was a two-week trip to Switzerland, which ought to be enough of a present for anyone.  But the trip's primary purpose was to assist Janet and the kids in coming to the U.S. for an extended stay, including a month living with us.  On top of that, for eight days of that month Heather and her kids joined us, giving us all children and grandchildren here for a while, including Father's Day.  Grateful as I am for Skype and other modern means of communication, there is nothing like physical presence and shared activities for building bonds, and I'm especially happy that the cousins had that time together.  Living an ocean apart is tough.  Overseas (or cross-country) travel with children drains the spirit, body, and pocketbook—but the rewards are incalulable.  Yes, it would be better for all concerned if we lived in the same town and could see each other regularly on a more casual basis, but we make the best of what we have, and the cross-cultural diversity (family, state, country) is an important blessing, too.  These visits are the most important to document, but such a post requires much more time—and organization of photos—so it will have to wait.  At least now you know why this blog has been so silent recently.

Then there's the gift that deserves a post of its own, but for practical reasons will only get bold lettering here:  Thanks to Heather (and Jon), we're expecting a ninth grandchild next Februay! Or maybe early March.  For Father's Day I'd given Porter this mug, commemorating the visit of the cousins.  Heather made their announcement by telling him it was nice, but out of date.  :)

My most expensive birthday present—ever—was the "gift" of a new HVAC system for our house.  The old one gave up the ghost in the middle of a Florida summer, and our used-to-colder-Switzerland guests were even more grateful than I was that Porter dove into the project and had us enjoying cool air again in record time.  (We had known this was coming eventually; the system was 40 years old.)  Let's just say that it's times like this that make me really appreciate having a pool.  Kids get a lot less cranky in the heat if you let them swim as much as they want.  We won't get to test the heating part of the system for several months.

Skipping the more affordable but none the less valued birthday presents, we come to a life-changing gift: we have finally joined the ranks of the smartphone users.  Technically, Porter was one before, having a Blackberry, but that had belonged to IBM, which made the really interesting stuff off limits.  I knew we would love smartphones when we finally broke down and got them, but was very reluctant to increase our phone spending by more than an order of magnitude.  (Porter's was provided and mine—which works just fine for talk and text—cost $100 per year.)

But change comes to us all, even (especially?) those over 60.  Being myself one hundred percent occupied with grandchild-related activities, I left the decision (like that about the HVAC) in Porter's capable hands.  After much research, he chose AT&T (we've always had AT&T, except for when IBM forced him to use Verizon with his Blackberry, an unpleasant experience) as the provider, and Samsung/Android for the phones.  He has a Note 3 and I a Galaxy s5, and we're both very happy with the choices.  I find mine a little too big for comfort, especially in its OtterBox case (which I like a lot), but I do appreciate the screen real estate.  I just have to figure out a decent way to carry it.

There's a lot I have to figure out.  The phone itself is amazingly intuitive.  Say what you like about us old folks, this is certainly no harder to figure out than PDP-12 assembly language and learning to follow a program's progress by turning up the volume on the speaker and listening to the changes in the accumulator register.  It's the lifestyle changes that require more careful thought.  I am determined to make my new phone a servant, not a master, which I acknowledge is a non-trivial endeavour.  I'll probably be blogging more about that for a while than about the good stuff that requires organizing my photos, another non-trivial endeavour.  Especially since I now have phone pictures as well as camera pictures.

Speaking of life-changing events, the impetus for our plunge into the smartphone world came when the higher-powers-that-be at IBM decided that Porter could do without his Blackberry—because they could do without his services.  I have no doubt he could find another job, but what would be the fun in that?  So as of June, Porter is officially retired!  He expects to continue to do occasional consulting work; even now, the less-than-higher-powers-that-be at IBM—the ones who really know how good Porter is at what he does—are working hard to get approval to hire him back as a consultant.  But for now we are greatly enjoying having him available to the family full time.

Janet was clipping Joseph's fingernails.  When one of them suddenly spun into the distance, Joseph burst into song:  The burden of my nail flew away ... I am happy all the day!