Some pictures from before

Manhattan from the head of the Statue of Liberty

A view from the ground

Our reflection in the stainless steel walls of the atrium. (The camera was at our feet and I used the timer)

A small token

The shock of 8 years ago was twofold: There really are people out there for whom no outrage is past them. We had forgotten about evil and allowed ourselves to become complacent.

As a nation, we snapped out of it for a bit and I did too. I was letting the onset of middle age act as an excuse to let myself go soft. I was too old to put back on the uniform--the Marines didn't need 40 year old avionics techs, plus the wife and kids have first claim on me now.

The least I could do, to show some solidarity with actual warriors, is to get back into the habit of PT. (Good for you, good for me.)

I was reminded of the below bit from Melville,

Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. "How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring-aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more-" He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.

Mamma gets sweet revenge

Towards the end of dinner tonight, my wife glanced into the kitchen, seemed to do a double take, looked around the table and then said, "That was weird, I thought I saw someone in the kitchen".

Me: "Maybe this is the first sign of MS".

Various girls: "What is MS"?

"Multiple skull roaches", I replied. "No really it is multiple sclerosis", I said and then went on at length about wires and insulation and how nerves were like wires and they let you feel things and control your body. Their insulation is fatty material called meyelin and MS was where this insulation breaks-down. The result is loss of ability to control your body and think clearly. I am not sure if hallucinations are part of the mix, but I am not an MD so MS is all that came to mind at the time.

Dinner wound-down and my wife was the first to get up and bus her dish into the kitchen. Just when she was out of eye-shot she exclaimed, "Oh! Hello there"! Even I did a double-take. The kids went into hysterics, ran into the kitchen and even though they saw that nobody was there, stayed shaken for some minutes. I almost couldn't stop laughing.

She got us. Oh yes, she did!

Menu for guest week

Now it is a whole week gone by so my memory may be off but to the best of my recollection, here is what we had:

Wednesday: Arrival day. Slow roasted chuck roast (it has been really tender in the past but this time kind of tough--later in the week the leftovers seemed to get more tender.) Risotto with morels and regular mushrooms and roasted asparagus.

Thursday: Enchiladas that we had pre-made and froze last week and Spanish rice.

Friday: Pasta with red sauce and meatballs.

Saturday: Lamb curry, tandoori chicken, aloo ghobi, rice and raitha. (India night)

Sunday: Leftovers + 4 kinds of dessert from the Cheesecake Factory.

Monday: Boiled baby red potatoes, grilled corn on the cob, grilled salmon, swordfish and scallops, steamed lobster and fresh pineapple.

I think all the meals had salad and we had two meals in the bank: I did not plan on there being a leftover night and I somehow thought they were leaving on Wednesday rather than Tuesday. The missing meals would have been steak and baked potatoes for one and middle eastern for the other: Grilled marinated chicken, falafel babaganoush and Syrian bread.

Things to do with your Mom & Aunt in Boston

Friday: Wife took them and the kids to Rockport--Visited shops, ate seafood, went to the beach and visited shops.

Saturday: Walked around Walden Pond and then tour of the DeCordova museum.

Sunday: Tour of the Christian Science Mother Church,

tour of Faneuil Hall and Duck boat tour.

Dahlia sees our reflection.

Surenna drives the Duck.

Monday: Wife took the ladies to Sleepy Hollow cemetary and later we had a seafood extravaganza (Homemade).