Today is the start of a three-day soaking rain that will do wonders for the garden and the reservoirs. At this moment, my visibility to the west and north is about fifty feet and to the east its maybe 100 feet. The shroud of mist is upon us and the warmth of the living room is certainly a comfort with Buddy curled up on the top of the sofa back, making a warm furry headrest…
It is said that some of the greatest art comes from great pain. That may be so, but I guess I am lucky and simply don’t have so much pain in my life…at least not so far. I understand that this could change in a heartbeat, but unless and until it does, I create my art from whatever place of joy inhabits me at the moment. A few days ago, while down on the back…
We, like so many people, used to say that we were not cruise people. It’s funny how that has changed over time and once you get a look at the people who do cruise you understand that unless you are going on Carnival, Celebrity or Disney (all of which tend to cater to families with kids), the adult cruise lines have an older demographic. Our choice of cruise lines is the one that gets consistently…
Thirty years ago I ran the retirement business of Bankers Trust Company. BTCo. was founded in 1903 by J.P. Morgan (the man) and his other banking pals who thought it would be smart to put all their trust business in one institution that he and his pals controlled. BTCo. Grew to become the second largest trust bank in the country. When I was asked to take over the Retirement Services business with it’s 4,000 employees,…
When I lived in Toronto, Canada for two years, I heard more Canadian colloquialisms than I remember hearing anywhere else. My time in Canada was an interesting few years that was a mixture of how to survive a remote distance existence (the kids were still in the Metro NYC area) and yet I needed to be onsite and resident in Toronto and all the other big cities in Canada (Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver, primarily, but…
I just added up my work hours put in this week and it totaled to 33 hours spent on three of my eleven active cases. Yesterday was an 11.5 hours on two cases (I only just stepped outside for 10 minutes the whole day). I don’t completely know how I feel about that. I should be happy for the work, and I am, but I should be asking myself if I like being so busy…
The phrase “I don’t do windows” is well entrenched in Americana whether you consider it just a saying or an outright meme. The etymology of the phrase is cloudy, with most people wanting to attribute it to the sitcom maids of the 60’s and 70’s like Hazel or Florence (from the Jeffersons), but some recognizing that it goes back into the movies of the 30’s and 40’s as well. It’s in the same category as…
American Meadows is my wildflower seed purveyor of choice. They are a company that is located in Shelburne, Vermont on the banks of Lake Champlain and they have become a dominant purveyor of wildflower seeds in the country. Now let’s get serious here, among seed companies, Bayer (as in the aspirin people that bought Monsanto a few years ago) is still the 800 pound gorilla of seeds, but that is mostly general seeds for commercial…
I used to be a Crocs guy. They were my casual shoe of choice for a long time. By the time I moved out here to this hilltop for retirement, coming on five years ago now, my shoe wardrobe consisted of a whole array of $450 Allen Edmonds work shoes of all kinds. I would say I was 70% into black with the others all oxblood maroon. I found those colors were the most appealing…
The Holding Pen of Life In a recent British movie I watched, the narrator sets up the plot about a man in later life (Jim Broadbent…Bridget Jone’s dear old dad) who will be facing a crisis of his legacy. The comment is a made about the man when he was young and in school that he and his fellows felt as though they were in a holding pen. He goes on by saying that he…