By now those who have the interest, time and fortitude have made it through (at least some) of the previous post. Having let your rich imaginations dwell with this for awhile, the following images (click here) are now available, against which to check your internal vision — snapshots from a quick trip into the church this afternoon to manage some control system issues. Do read the quote in the above image first………….

The Requested Photograph – Martha Burr & Diane Canning,
Wellesley College 1969
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Chiclets

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Chris’s children: Michael, Caroline, and Matthew
Matthew (the one above) woke the other day with what might have been a stiff neck.
“Mom, have you ever, when you were young, or even yesterday, felt like a
bone was sticking out of your neck?”

Susan, Diane, Frank and Florence – 1954
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I woke up this morning to six below and frozen heating pipes. After I positioned my space heater and hair dryer over the ice cold copper, the phone rang. It was Steven Varga wondering why his kitchen faucet wasnít working. It took me a minute or so to convince him that his pipes were probably frozen, and to impress upon him how important it was to thaw them out. And not to leave the house until water was again running through that faucet. Before the conversation ended, he sounded sufficiently alarmed, but to further make my point, I sent him this photo passed to me by Shiny Dome.

Chris R

If you’ve ever spent time in an Apple store, the thing that grabs you is the sleekness of it. No CompUSA here, it is ultra modern with people wearing black shirts with white Apples on them. Sleek geeks if you will. I purchased a 20 inch iMac with great fanfare, quite excited about it. Upon using it, what was glaring to me was how the fonts looked. Somewhat shadowy, as if an adjustment needed to be made, very different from my other iMac. You can adjust this, to a point, in the system preferences, under Appearance and Displays. I’ve become quite familiar with them.

Michael came over to check it out and agreed that things did not look as sharp as perhaps they should. We called Mac support and after being guided thru the above named preferences (for the umpteenth time) it was decided that perhaps something may be wrong with the display. “Go to a store and look at another one” Michael wisely suggested. But as I had looked at one in the store, albeit before I seriously decided to buy one, I thought they looked better and decided to take mine back.

I entered the Apple store at the Chestnut Hill Mall and was ushered to the “Genius Bar”. Angry people returning computers and quite a few ipods inhabited the bar. Everyone had a story. No one could just say what was wrong with their computer, they had to say what they were doing when it crashed. Daniel, the “bartender” as it were, was very patient with all of them. To pass the time, I looked at the pictures of geniuses over the bar. There were 4, Jane Goodall with a monkey, Martin Luther King, John and Yoko, and the far left picture was of a man whom I did not recognize. I kept looking at the Goodall picture, and the monkey was looking up her shirt. I wondered which of them was supposed to be the genius.

When it was my turn Daniel said “how can I help you”.

“Who is the genius on the left?” I ask.

“Heisenberg”.

Silence.

“He was a physicist. That’s a young picture of him” (sweet Daniel thought that somehow that was the reason I didn’t recognize him).

“I thought it was Steve Jobs”.

Daniel laughs. “That would be very presumptuous”.

And we’re off and running. I explain to Daniel what my font issues are. He opens system preferences and does everything I had done previously. He did say you can’t use OS 9 fonts on the flat screen panels, they don’t look sharp. So he picked an OS X font, which still looked off to me. I ask Daniel to hook me up to the internet, so I could show him my email panel as this is where it was the most glaring. Daniel doesn’t think it looks off. So what do I decide to do, exactly what Michael had told me to do in the first place. I proceeded to have Daniel show me every single flat screen panel in the store. Lo and behold every one of them looked exactly as mine did. I ask Daniel if others return their computers for the same reason. “No, there’s nothing like a flat screen”. Great, I think to myself, my computers not damaged, I am.

I go back to the bar and look at my computer some more. Of course, by this time, the “bar” was full of other people, which was fine as I needed time. I begin to feel protective of my machine. I decide I need help with my decision. At 10 of 8 I call my friend Joe, who happens to be a psychologist. I figured I had this 10 minute window at the end of the hour to get him. But I had to call information for his number. I mention to information that he is a psychologist so she wouldn’t look for a residence, and I immediately realize that those at the bar think I’m calling my shrink for guidance regarding my decision. Alas, he doesn’t answer.

I then call Michael who, thank God, is available. We discuss the fonts. Michael tells me to give it time and think about it.

As I sat there obsessing about the fonts while admiring how beautiful the screen is, every sales person in the place came up to me and said “let me try one thing” and proceeded to go to the system preferences. I was too timid to say that had been done before as I thought perhaps a miracle would happen. One of the odder sales people even came over and swiveled my screen and said “this screen is so beautiful” and kissed it. He kissed my screen. “Don’t touch my screen” I say. And he did it again. “Beautiful” he repeats. My nerves. I say again “don’t touch my screen” and he proceeds to tell me that he washes all the screens in the store and tries to sell me screen cleaner.

Then I got my miracle. Or at least my realization. A customer at the bar next to me told me that he has two screens, a CRT and an LCD. He explains the scientific differences between the two (channelling Heisenberg perhaps?) and said it’s just a matter of preference. “You’ll get used to it”. He then tells me his story of why his computer was in there. I listened patiently and nodded sympathetically as that is what one does. At the bar.

I needed someone to tell me I’d get used to it. For some reason, I couldn’t come to this conclusion myself. But as soon as he said it, coupled with his affection for his own little lap top which though currently crippled he clearly loved, I was convinced that this baby was coming back home.

I call my husband, explained that all the machines were the same and mine wasn’t broken. “Why are you still there, just return it and come home. Don’t settle”. That not being what I wanted to hear I call Michael back and tell him my decision. “I’m taking it home”. He agrees that having it over the weekend and giving it more time is the wise choice, and admits his bemusement about my predicament. I’m just grateful he’s awake and validating.

When, two hours after I left the house, I come trudging in with same computer in hand, spouse looks at me. “No complaining about the screen” he said.

“Not to worry. I’m settled”.

Helen Josephine and Leroy O’connell, Malcolm and Helen Virginia Miller.
Helen in her wedding dress.
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Adam Kibbe

Our family gets together but infrequently. Come high school age, the children of families such as ours were sent to school in the United States from our expatriate home in Venezuela, gone from the nucleus for many months at a time. With college, that gap widened to years, and as if by habit, we now do well to see each other every two or three years. Absurd by the live-near-or-with-mom-and-dad-until-they-die New England standards, but perfectly normal for those of us to whom those last two adjectives canít readily be applied.

My parents now live in the foothills of the Sandia mountains, which form the eastern border of Albuquerque, where I was born 43+ years ago. Not at this house. Nor even one that we can say exists anymore. We left ìThe Statesî when I was three months old, and after 20 years or so in Venezuela with my father in the employ of U.S. Steel, my parents returned to the last stateside city in which theyíd lived, and theyíve yet to leave again. This is their second — and likely last — house there, a sprawling old faux-adobe house once owned by Berke Breathed (he of Bloom County fame — Opus was often drawn in what is now my fatherís computer loft). From the entry side, one gazes immediately up at the mountains which give Albuquerque what grandeur it has.

Ivan met his ìsupernumeraryî great-grandparents this Christmas, and they he, and for the first time. The Boston Bunch — me, Tricia, Luke, Amy & Ivan — all caught a mid-morning flight out of Logan and were having supper that evening in the Southwest with Jack & Betty (Mark stayed home with his girlfriend, Michelle, and with other plans, and less in debt than heídíve been had he come — but he chauffeured, godbless him).

We traded generous presents, stayed up ìlateî (given the two-hour time difference) talking, especially around the dining table, and had many a memorable (good and bad) meal out. We visited the fabulous Albuquerque Aquarium, spent a night in a charming B&B in Santa Fe called The Four Kachinas, did a fiendish jigsaw puzzle in tag team shifts, and propped up the New Mexico economy with all manner of art purchases in both towns. And we took turns herding the two-year-old whirlwind that is Ivan. It was a visit rich in all kinds of ways, from the interwoven families and generations, and the spice of green and red chiles, to the pack of four coyotes that loped through the yard on their way up into the mountains one morning, much to Ivanís (and our) delight. Hard to say when next weíll meet again, and what challenges age and distance will add to the mix, but I feel more in touch with my roots and with all of my family for the experience.

Should you wish a few more images of our trip, click here. And Happy New Year to you all!!!

New Yearís eve, after many from-scratch margaritas, but before our sumptuous feast.
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The beginning of a house for Matt’s BMW.

Note the bend in those two planks. I thought it humorous, the
boys did not. Matt and Robby Nadler laid all of the roof rafters,
nailing each one using an airgun. No personal injuries, only a job well
done.

A few more

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