Morning Folks Halloween 2006

It was a gorgeous day last Saturday in TN when Ed and I went to Zeppelin's football game. The team is the Patriots, for 7 and 8 year olds.

Arabella tries on the helmet for size.


Zeppelin takes a break from the game.


Arabella with painted fingernails and black football stuff on her face enjoys the game with Indigo.

Indigo routed for her big brother from the sidelines.


The family heads home.


I am about to get on a plane for Naples so I don't have a lot of time to do my blog and the laptop is a little slow. But, here are some football pictures from Tennessee. John and Robin had a costume party for the kids following Zeppelin's football game. Have a great day! Love, Suz


Zeppelin was a Storm Trooper from Star Wars.


Arabella was Super Girl


John was a biker covered with tattoos.

Indigo was Elmo...the tickle me one, I think!


Robin joined the group as Wonderwoman making a very special Halloween family portrait.

Morning Folks 10 21 06

Later today Ed arrives to help pack me up and whisk me away to TN to continue our journey together. And I find myself leaving at one of the most beautiful times of the year here in New England. If time permits, I will take one last tour through the streets of my childhood before I go and stop for one last look of three homes in which I lived, the homes of my friends whom I visited often and the two room school house to which we walked through woods and worn paths between yards. I will stop by the the cemetery where generations lie and say my goodbyes.

But today I'll share a Robert Frost poem that I think is particularly beautiful for a particularly beautiful October day.

O HUSHED October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

To-morrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,


Begin the hours of this day slow,

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know;

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away;

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.




Have a wonderful day.


Love, Suz

Morning Folks 10 13 06

So, it's Friday the 13th everyone. Did you ever wonder why that is supposed to be such a bad luck day? Over the years I know I have heard various explanations, but I thought I would look into it again. And this is what I found on the web.

Fridays in general have been considered bad luck by Christians throughout history, I always thought it was probably because Jesus was crucified on a Friday. But I found out there were other things connected to Friday that gave Friday in general a bad name.



I read that supposedly Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on Friday. I find that interesting because how did they know it was Friday in the Garden of Eden? And where did they hang their calendar?

And, they say that the Great Flood began on a Friday.

But also, the bad rap that Fridays got in the early Catholic Church goes back to trying to get rid of Pagan rituals that devoted Fridays to Venus, the godess of love, sex and all that bad stuff. And the Norsemen devoted Friday to Frigg, another goddess of sex and love who was married to Odin.
Frigg

So, anything associated with Friday seemed to be about love, sex and so forth. I guess they decided to do a smear campaign and Fridays became a bad thing. And here I always thought it was just date night.

Frigg and Odin, the happy couple.

There are lots of possibilities for reasons why the number 13 has been so badly maligned. The Pagan calendar has 13 months. The last supper's number of dinner guests. Norse legend was that 12 witches would gather and invite Frigg into their coven, making it 13. Frigg and Odin had a son named Balder, a hero. And in Norse mythology, Loki crashed a party of 12 making the group 13 and killed poor Balder. I don't know if that was a Friday, though.



All kinds of bad things in history have been reported to have happened on the 13th and on Fridays. Fridays were the day for hangings in British tradition. And there were 13 steps leading up to the noose. And it goes on and on.

So, there you have it: The Frigg 'n Friday the 13th story. You may not give a feather or a Frigg why Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky. In fact, I never really thought of it that way myself. But just in case, be careful out there and try to avoid black cats and ladders and goddesses named Frigg!

Have a great day!
Love,
Suz

Morning Folks 10 06 06

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France

Morning Folks-

Although I retired back in August, I have been heading into my old office a few days a week for the past 6 weeks doing consulting work, finishing up some things for the Town. Although the hours were fewer and the work was less stressful, to some degree I didn't feel like I had really left...until today.

Today, I wrapped up the consulting gig and said my goodbyes. It was sort of an anticlimax after a wonderful retirement party in August. And I know I will see most of the people in my office again when I visit. But still, it marked an ending for me. I turned in my keys and my laptop and left behind 16 years of hard work, a way of life and many friends.

I have heard it said that women in particular have difficulty separating work relationships from personal relationships. I know that's true with me. For me the "job" is all about relationships, like every other part of my life. I guess I am pretty open with the people I work with. I was never very secretive and I think most people who know me, know a lot about me. My life is pretty much an open book. I looked forward to coming in each morning and telling my coworkers about some stupid thing I did or said the night before or sharing something I read or heard, or discovered about life. Everyone knew about Ed almost the first day he contacted me and they lived through my first visit to Chattanooga and my angst about so many things with my kids. And oh, the menopause years! I laugh a lot at work, I mean a lot. Sometimes I felt like I was entertaining the troops and sometimes they entertained me. So, it will be strange not to share with these folks my moods or the latest gossip or a joke or just life. And I will miss not hearing about their lives and laughing with them each day.

I would be the first to admit that I couldn't have accomplished anything without these workplace relationships that we all worked hard to foster. I think it is easiest to accomplish things in an environment of trust. Learning to trust people comes naturally from shared experiences and working toward similar goals in work and in life. Many of these folks will remain close friends in years to come. I am certain of that.

I will always be grateful for the challenges, the comraderie, and the laughs that I shared with my friends at work. I hope you all have the same opportunity somewhere, some time in your lives that I have had the last 16 in mine.

Have a great day!
Love,
Suz

Morning Folks 10 01 06

First things First- Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit!

Now, that it is October, let me tell you how I spent my September.


As you know from prior postings, my home has been on the very slow real estate market in preparation of moving to TN.

We listed it with my friends, husband and wife tag-team John and Laurel and had the first showing and open house the last weekend in August.

Within days of listing it, a realtor from another office whose name indicated he is not from these parts, showed the house once or twice, apparently to the same customer. That customer and that realtor have never stopped negotiating...until last night!

This deal has been on, it's been off, it's been on, it's been off... It has been a roller coaster ride for me, Ed and John and Laurel, who have done everything they could think of to sell my house for me.


But back to the story...

.

Knowing that these buyers and their realtor were both from a part of the world where haggling and bartering are a way of life was a bit scary for me who absolutely hates negotiating. (As my Dad would tell you, that's why I bought a Saturn.) And the language barrier was a big problem. For poor John and Laurel trying to communicate with the other broker, Ram, and his non-English speaking customers became a challenge to put it mildly. John managed to get a little more comfortable with the language thing as time went by, but it was still really difficult.

Ram

We had a lot of going back and forth with issues with the driveway and garage.
Perhaps they needed a larger area to keep their vehicle.

But that was worked out along with a few other issues and although it seemed to drag on forever, they were about to sign the P&S when Ram left for India last week for a month! However, the couple seemed to have no idea of the sense of urgency in the timing of these things and the deadline for the P&S expired on Wednesday and the deal was dead. As it turned out the buyer was worried about recent layoffs where they worked and backed out of the deal. However, I made a decision to move in October anyway as it was high time to join my new husband in TN.

Disappointed, but not defeated, I booked a moving company for October 24. Ed arrives on Saturday, October 21.


The movers come on the 24th and Ed and I fly off into the sunset on the 26th.


Meanwhile, as John put it back on the market and prepared to run another open house for this Saturday, on Friday John called and said the father-in-law of the prospective buyer would like to buy the house! They want the same deal, no more negotiations, but he has to sign within 24 hours because he is leaving for a month's holiday in India on Saturday!

But by late morning yesterday we still didn't have anything signed. Again, there seemed to be no sense of urgency with these people and I began to lose hope again. But, John went into Super-Realtor mode yesterday and after another tense day of waiting and worrying, he left me a message which I only picked up at 11:55 last night just before I said my rabbits. In his message, (now speaking with a Hindi accent) John told me that he had met with the son-in-law of the buyer, now on his way to India, making John 2 hours late to his friend's 50th B-day party and resulting in his getting a speeding ticket, but he had delivered a signed P&S and congratulations were in order. So, my friends, we have a deal!

So today's blog is dedicated to John, my hero. I am not sure he will ever be the same after this deal. Believe me when I tell you that he has more than earned every last Rupee of his commission!

Have a great day!
Love, Suz


1 Rupee=0.217901478 US dollars

The actual P&S (just kidding)