Will someone please block Twitter and all other news outlets from my computer??? There is so much bad/scary news today.
Which is why we here are WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING WEDDING!
Good luck with weddings.
ShawWife is getting better steadily. The first week was very painful, but she is weaning herself off of the narcotics and doing the three sets of 15+ exercises each day with great determination and it is paying off. Each day is cyclical and today she was taking care of the painkillers and forgot at dinner time and so the evening was tough until things kicked in. But, progress is rapid. ShawWifeâs sister from Toronto was an insanely great help. ShawD was also incredibly helpful (and very professional) but not as empathetic with her mother as she is with others. Friends dropped off so many dinners that we have many nights before I have to cook. Our great problems? Tomorrow an organization with whom Iâm affiliated is giving an awarded to President Santos of Colombia for the skill and fortitude to negotiate the end to a 50 year civil war with the FARC guerillas. We ask him lots of questions (after having studied the situation for quite a while), the answers to which are often incredibly insightful, and then there is a meal with an obligatory speech, that is rarely insightful. So, we need someone to cover for me at home. Next week I have to go to Europe, so weâre getting a cousin and friends to help.
The news is just awful. Earthquakes (ShawWife and I were in Mexico City a week or two after the first one 30 some years ago) and hurricane after hurricane. Then, of course, there are the unnatural disasters and the potential ones like war with North Korea.
And, back home, the following article is amazing but not surprising: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/opinion/trump-republicans.html. Lots of goodies in the article, but two stood out.
First, Trump has taken both leftish and rightish positions on the same issue. Those who identified as strong Republicans were more happy to move left if they were told Trump had taken the leftish position and were happy to move right if they were told Trump had approved of the rightish position. Ideology seemed not to matter at all. Moderate Republicans, independents and Democrats were not swayed much or at all.
Second, "In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute asked voters if
an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.
Five years later, in October, 2016, P.R.R.I. asked the same question. The percentage of white evangelical Protestants who said that a politician who commits an immoral act in their personal life could still behave ethically shot up from 30 to 72 percent. The percentage saying such a politician could not serve ethically plunged from 63 to 20 percent." They went from being the harshest to the most forgiving.
Glad to hear that Shaw wife is recovering well.
I too am distressed at both the natural disasters and the political stuff. Honestly I keeps me up nights.
It all seems surreal. So many events and so much turmoil in such a short period of time.
Quick, someone talk about an upcoming wedding.
Sorry mine has past. 
To change the subject, Iâm in the beautiful Pacific Northwest this week for work. Enjoying the respite from 90+ degrees in Florida. Todayâs forecast has a high of 60.
My H is busy interviewing - had one Monday - Tuesday, and another one starting today.
CQ - hope things go well with the interviews.
Keeping fingers crossed, sending fairy dust and saying prayers for cqâs H!
Supposed to hit 90 here this weeek and then drop to the 60âs next week. Crazy Fall weather!
I leave early tomorrow morning for my annual scrabooking retreat âUp Northâ. So looking forward to it even if there is rain.
Wedding? Did someone say wedding? Weâve been all wedding, all the time for the past week or so. Things are pretty well under control. D and I had mani/pedis this evening â we leave tomorrow for camp. The wedding coordinator and her helpers are getting to camp at 9:00 am tomorrow to start making all the beds. The bridal party, including us, will arrive around noon. Guests start arriving at 2:00 pm on Friday. S should show up on island just in time for the rehearsal at 1:00 pm Friday. D still doesnât know heâs coming, although she remains hopeful. I now have the Wedding Coordinator in on the surprise. AND, the weather is looking fantastic!
Best wishes to ShawWife for a speedy recovery, and to cqâs H on the job search.
Best of luck CBB. Hope everything goes as smoothly for you as it did for me. Donât sweat the little things.
Happy wedding CBB!!!
Cq, super heavy fairy dust pouring down on your H. You might need to dry clean his clothes after his interviews.
Hope they are in interesting places.
Our lobsterboat trip has just been cancelled due to San Jose causing high winds. The cruise ships are not allowed into the harbor. It occurred to me that we should not plan on going on our planned beach hike right now.
Happy to hear the RM wedding report and that Shawwife is on the mend 
Guess Im a bit early for the CBB wedding report
,
In other news that is not true disaster newsâŠIâve gone to war with the chipmunks.
Our experiments in operative chipmunk conditioning began about a week ago after I fished two of the idiots out of the pool after a poolside frolic-gone-wrong.
The population has increased steadily since âoperation-expensive- trappingâ back in 2015. And the little rats-in-party-dresses seem to have become generationally habituated, to the point where they think Iâm grandma Moses and see nothing wrong with scurrying an inch from my feet when I sit in my patio rocker.
So the first volley was a shot-gun blast sound effect I found on my phone and amplified over my pool speakers.
We all got tired of that pretty quicklyâŠthe neighbors likely more quickly than me
Next we ordered up a motion-detecting white owl whose eyes light up. After several noisy and irritating experiments, we decided he needs to be the sentry at the top of the terrace where our own motion will not overstimulate him. With the owl, and as an outlet for my own angst, I also ordered a âBladerunnerâ toy gun that makes a hilarious âmerry melodies/Elmer fuddâ style gun noise. Periodically, I fire it, just to let them know Iâm not happy.
Mch thought I was having entirely too much fun, so he got some solar powered ground-vibrating pest stakes that I swear I can hear and that I now turn off while sunbathing. Then he rigged up a crazy big âsubsonicâ emitter that also randomly flashes light if you get too close.
So, now I have chipmunks with post-traumatic stress syndrome who sit in the far corner of the fenced portion of the lot crying and calling out to each other to see if their pals are okay.
But I will stay strong lest these blasted creatures collapse my entire terrace, which is now ridden with tunnels like a war zone.
Last night during an unseasonably warm open swim, mch and I marveled at how calm things wereâŠnary a scurry across the deck, though perhaps some furtive slinking. Furtive slinking I can handle.
But then the sentry owl went off and we looked up and not one, not two, but THREE giant squirrels were climbing down the terrace to the corner fountain/water feature for a nightcap!
The squirrels have NEVER breached the fence before or come near the deckâŠapparently because they donât like chipmunks
So today I got myself a big red nerf gun to more clearly communicate my position in the food chain and exactly how I feel about encroachment on this small parcel of the big forest Iâm otherwise happy to share⊠Hubby came out while I was floating stealthily in the pool atop a noodle, armed with my new ârifle.â He said I definitely looked like a navy seal.
Alas, my aim is not very ânavy sealâ in execution. In addition to a few friendly fire incidents caused by the surprising ricochet range of small nerf ball bullets, I actually think one of the chipmunks ran off with a sample of my ammo.
While I commend such stealth and ingenuity in such a tiny brain, and am hoping to avoid the mutually assured destruction of a Caddyshack move, I canât help but wonder if Mr. Kim Jong Ilmunk truly understands the nature of opposable thumbs
Hi ho.
Sorry about the intruders, but certainly an entertaining and well written post.
Very funny KMC! Also comes close to home. We have been inundated this year with both chipmunks and squirrels. Iâm over it. They have dug in anything that contains dirt I think. I had 2 squirrels run up on my front screen door between me and a girl scout selling cookies â too close for comfort. I think they would like an invitation to come in for dinner if I was serving something nutty.
^Never mind dinner. They were after the Girl Scout cookies
I was at the lake for 4 days. I agree the chipmunk population has exploded. and I saw very few squirrels. The chippies did not seem afraid either. I had to lock up my brakes on the road because one just sat there.
I was digging in this little garden we made. I realize I do much better with a contained space to fill. it is around a tree with some rocks. Anyway⊠I saw these bees, I though it was better than mosquitos. However, I found out they were ground wasps, which are pretty nasty. I was digging in the ground planting mums. I guess I was pretty lucky they didnât attack me as I was messing in their home. Scary in retrospect. We poured some powder down their hole. We were told gasoline and fire was the best option, but I prefer to keep my home.
Today into Boston to see the onc. yearly appt. wish me well. This time has been very upside down for me.
I have two interviews. I need Shaw to coach me. AHHHHH
Anyway, I created a controversy with a comment I made on FB. I have relatives who do not agree with my thoughts. I just meant I was tired of tweets and wanted to see action. These disasters have made me so upset. OH boy.!
RM I wish I could see your wedding pics.
Looking for the report from CBB. Her daughter must have been thrilled to see her son.
DTE are you on Facebook? Some of the photographerâs photos are up. PM me and I can tell you who to look for if you âdoâ Facebook.
Hi everyone! Is it OK to say the weekend was absolutely perfect? Hope so, because it was! As DTE can attest to, the weather could not have been better; warm sunny days, cool (but not cold) evenings. The weather was actually better than our last couple of days at camp back in July!
H and I are emotionally spent but incredibly happy. Sâs surprise arrival didnât work out quite as planned, due to a long story involving a dog, but it was a still a surprise. And donât get me started on S in his âmess dressâ uniform. He escorted me down the aisle, and I know for sure the âoohsâ and âahasâ werenât for me. (âGoogle Air Force mess dressâ to see pix of this uniform; he had the short waisted jacket.)
The camp staff/volunteers were amazing. Our wedding coordinator was worth twice what she charged; man. did she and her crew work hard! Dâs now husbandâs side of the family are all fun and overall there were no high maintenance guests. Hâs brother and his wife were in a cabin that turned out to have a huge bees nest under one of the cabin wall boards. They were very chill about it; just moved to another cabin.
We returned yesterday afternoon to Cambridge; headed back to the beach in a few hours. Then weâll be back up here at the end of the week â leaving for our post-wedding R&R trip to Italy on Monday. Weâre going with the same friends we went to Spain with 2 years ago; they were also at the wedding.