Merry Christmas December 2013

This is a first post after some years away from this blog.  I'm sitting in my living room in Fall River, it's cold and sunny outside the window one day after Boxing Day.  I'm looking out on the corner of Garden and Primrose.  The names of those streets always reminds me of the time back in 2007 when we won a visit from Roger Cook of This Old House.  The aide that was working through the details of the visit wrote in an email "...your cross-streets are very aptly named for a gardening adventure...".   Well we may not have lived up to the promise of that visit from Roger, our yard is still a rustic mess, and that's being polite, more of an urban hillbilly look really, but we love it and will probably stay here till they carry us out.

This is the time between Christmas an the New Year.  A good time for looking back, and forward, making plans and choices.

I've heard from all of the immediate Perry family one way or the other this season.  We love each other, and remember to say so often, but our family has no regular tradition around the big holidays.  In fact I'm not sure we have any traditions in the traditional sense...ok kick my ass for that one...but really, we remember to say, "I love you", we kiss and hug when we see each other and to say good bye.  That behavior though, is instinctive.  All of us, Mom, Robin, Scott, Jonathan and I do this because life taught us, in Hopeworth, 46 years ago that we must.  Hopeworth Estates, our home place, and our crucible...

Dispatch from Bangalore:

A little more than a week ago the head of the division that eScription is a part of at Nuance, walked into my boss's office and asked if I could go to India to do some training for a couple of weeks...in one week. "Wow!", I thought, "This is just the kind of nimble business move that made working for a smaller company attractive"...it is also a classic case of being cautious as to what you wish for...!

But I have always had at the tip of my tongue the answer "YES" when this kind of question comes up. And so here I am.

The trip was uneventful, Bangalore smells as I remember it, rich and earthy, and full of human and animal life. I arrived in the dark, was driven straight to the hotel, went to dinner in the evening with Santhosh Kumar, a friend and colleague from my earlier Bangalore trip, also in the dark, so I can't honestly say I've seen anything yet. Except for the hotel and this lovely room.

I missed breakfast the first morning because my flight got in after midnight, and I didn't really get to try to sleep until about 4 AM, so I had them bring me coffee and a croissant to my room.

The young lady who served this set it out on the balcony as I asked, and then when I came back in the room to sign the check said, "you should eat before the crow comes...". Cryptic, almost Steven Kingish, right. No, she really meant a crow would come to steal my food if I left it unattended. Which I found out a while later. I stepped back into the room leaving that half a croissant you see on the plate. It was just seconds, I mean a two count! I heard the clatter of the butter knife...Back out on the balcony I found a crow the size of a coyote sitting in tree about five feet from the railing, looking smug...

Enough for now, I'm up early, 4AM here because I can't really sleep anymore. I'll do a little work preparing for this training then call my love.

More later...

Wow! Has it really been this long since I came here to add new words? I will come back soon, but for now...


Work, life, love and laughter

Drove me crazy running after things not feeling and then

left me hung up or hung over, half starved in a wilderness of plenty.

Joined me to pain like a sibling in need.

Joined me to a sibling who is the human embodiment of need and pain and love.

I'm getting ready to go out to South Bend, Indiana. Nobody even had to inform me that this is the home of the "Fighting Irish"...

We've just returned from our vacation at Seaside...
http://www.seasidecapecod.com/

We're all a little browner than before and perhaps a little better read.

Marc got to see his friend Jake Richardson. We met the Richardsons, Bruce, Gina, Jasmine and Jake a few years ago. Marc and Jake had a great time that first year and have looked forward to seeing each other each year since.
This is how they spent most of their time together this year:

Austin! City of music and very aggressive drivers...funny how my last entry and in fact my view of many of these places I have traveled is so informed by automotion. Coined word, meaning the act of moving around in automobiles...

I felt at home in Austin, way more of a crunchy granola place than I ever expected in Texas. I'm guessing part of that is because it is a school town, another part might be that it is a center of a rebellious, anarchic loosely associated group of musicians and songwriters. Grunge country, outlaw country, good songwriting with bad production values, whatever labels have been slapped across the face of this town's music scene it does seem to be pretty active. I'm guessing the participants would rankle some at being labeled at all. One way or the other, it seemed a warm welcoming place to me.

I spent a week there, started by walking the entire circumference of the city's riverfront park from Congress Avenue on the Austin side across and down to Zilker Gardens, back across and up to the city again. I capped the trip Friday night at the Broken Spoke an local institution and regular haunt of musicians who's music has accompanied my life. I got to meet one of them, Gary P. Nunn, and listened to some music, made at least one friend, bought a CD right from the artist himself.

"Gee, Gary thanks so much for the music, Texas homesick blues was an anthem.." "LONDON homesick blues" "Oh crap!, Uh Uh I'm sorry", grins..."OH heck thats alright, it's been called lots worse..." grins...

A gentlemen and a great singer songwriter and showman.

Great music and dancing, (I watched), it made me yearn to learn to dance with Mary-Elizabeth...

Back from several trips to Portland, the one to the west. Portland, OR always looks to me in print as if I should be saying...OR...something else and it is not something else. Portland is in fact a city that seems oddly familiar. Grey and a little funky, with city and residential streets that remind me of home. The architecture is different, lots of wooden homes and many old ones but with large chunky columns on wide dark porches with dormers overhead. Spooky Tolkien Tudor style and Starbucks sprinkled liberally throughout neighborhoods.

Funky bars and record stores and at least one world class bookstore spilling over with funky people. Casual and it's OK to be middle aged and single in this city, in fact it seems as if it is desirable.

None of that is why this city seems like home to me. It's because they have managed to screw up their highways and city streets just as badly as Boston or Newark or Providence.
Roads turn north then west then north then northeast, change names three times and there truly are places in the city to which you cannot get from other places in the city...
I'm glad to be home at last and at least for a week.
Next week, Austin!

My wonderful sister Robin has started her own blog at:

http://robinhaffner.blogspot.com/

So this makes me want to be more forthcoming with these entries from now on...

Today is like many other days but the radio in my car has been inoperative since last Friday... and I'm starting to enjoy listening to all that noise in my head.

And I now sing out loud to myself as I go down the road, never once thinking about how much this must alarm other motorists. The sight of this large man in a little black car zooming along mouthing and gesticulating...what a sight!

I'm leaving for Portland, OR this weekend and so tomorrow will be swimming day. Marc Robert and I have been swimming at the pool at our gym whenever we can, we've tried to make it a regular Friday event. Just he and I, sometimes we pretend to be Star Wars characters, sometimes we just splash around until we get tired. It's great dad time.